How Passive Income Creates Financial Freedom Through Real Estate | Whitney Elkins-Hutten

Whitney Elkins-Hutten (00:00)

Pretty much anybody that I work with, whether it’s a coaching client or an investor or an aspiring investor, or even you don’t even consider yourself an investor yet. I think, I mean, really I’m the type of person is we need to get you income coming in that is unrelated to your job or the business that you run, right? Because I want everybody to have options.

So I come from a personal or a public health background. I think it’s actually a public health problem that people don’t know how to create passive income for themselves.

Quentin Edmonds (02:05)

Hello, everyone. Welcome to the Real Estate Pros Podcast. I am your host, Q Edmonds, and I am excited to be here today. I have a fantastic guest. She is the director of investor education at PassiveInvesting.com.

A wealth of knowledge. I cannot wait for us to glean from her experience through her lens. I am so excited to probably, I’m gonna say it like this: to present to some and introduce to the others. Cause I got a feeling some of y’all probably don’t already know who she is. So I like to present to some, introduce to the others, Miss Whitney Elkins-Hutten. How are you doing today, ma’am?

Whitney Elkins-Hutten (02:44)

I’m doing fantastic. Thank you so much for having me on.

Quentin Edmonds (02:46)

Absolutely, so glad you’re here. So glad we get to do this together. I’ll probably reiterate this probably at the end: thank you for your time. I feel time is our most precious commodity, and so I think what we do, we do to try to get our time back, get control of our time. So I thank you. I thank you for being here. And listen, I am the type, I love to dive right in. So I would love for you to tell the people, what’s your main focus these days? If you don’t mind, give us a little bit of an origin story, kind of how you got into the space that you’re in.

And then tell us what market you’re operating in. And so Miss Whitney, ma’am, you have the floor, ma’am.

Whitney Elkins-Hutten (03:19)

Awesome. Well, thank you so much, Q. So I am the director of investor education at PassiveInvesting.com. And there we help investors passively invest in the real estate and private market space. Our main focus right now in this part of the market cycle is real estate debt funds. And so a lot of people might be a little nervous because they’ve heard about, you know, private credit getting beaten up in the market, and that’s for two reasons.

One, because the loans in the private credit space are really long, and then the valuation of those assets are a little wonky. They’re businesses. You’re, you know, you got a four-year loan in a business, how do you value it? But we focus on fix-and-flip real estate primarily in the southeast part of the United States. So, you know, six-, nine-month, twelve-month loans, clear valuations,

you know, of that. And anyways, that, you know, there’s a whole—we can dive into that, but, you know, we really believe in keeping our investors in a first-lien position and investing in a risk-mitigated way when there’s so many other yield-chasing opportunities. But we want our investors, you know, to understand how to preserve their capital in today’s volatile market, and more importantly, you know, have access back to it if they need to. But I didn’t always do this. I, you know,

I started off in 2002 as an accidental landlord myself. I bought a house with a significant other and about a month later the relationship fell apart and I had the house, and it scared the bejeebies out of me. And I thought the thing was gonna ruin me. And fast forward eleven months later, I ended up with fifty-two thousand dollars in my pocket and then realized I hadn’t paid for any of my expenses. So I drank the Kool-Aid on real estate after that,

did several more live-in flips and house hacks with my now husband. And then fast forward, we scaled up to a portfolio of 42 single-family rentals and bought an apartment building in partnership. And then I wanted to go bigger, which meant I needed partners. And so I, you know, helped scale a private equity firm. And in that firm, I met the current partners that I work with,

Dan Hanford and Danny Randazzo here at PassiveInvesting.com. And so, you know, we worked collaboratively at first, and then I transitioned over full-time probably like six years ago now. So it’s been a while. Yeah.

Quentin Edmonds (06:21)

Yeah, yeah. Thank you. Thank you, Miss Whitney, for taking us through the journey, telling us what you do now, kind of how you got into it. And so you started in—I love the story. Started in 2002. Started in 2002, and then you just started drinking the Kool-Aid. So you start drinking from the firehose, right? And so now, you know, you are where you are now. So there’s been some different transitions going on. And so I often like to ask, because at the center of

all of our businesses, business owners, is us, the business owner. Businesses—we at the center of it. So I make a statement: I say destiny has no wasted moments, right? We’re learning from every leg of the journey, from the sale, from the failure, from the success. We’re learning. We’re learning systems that worked, systems that didn’t work. So I always like to ask, what has the journey revealed to you about yourself?

Has it revealed discipline? Has it made you humble? Has it increased your tenacity? Like, what has the journey revealed to Miss Whitney about Ms. Whitney?

Whitney Elkins-Hutten (07:21)

Ooh, I mean, I mean, we’re talking 24 years, 25 years of investing. I think the first thing is, you know, collaboration and relationships. You know, I was raised in a ex-military household. My dad was in the Air Force. My whole family—my whole family was in the Air Force except for one uncle that was like, “I’m gonna like buck the system and go into the Army,” right? Like, so everybody’s military. So, you know, being driven

wasn’t an option. You know, not making your bed was not an option, right? Like, you know, I know how to make a mean four-corner bed. Anyways, long story short, you know, combine that with a mother, you know, who, you know, was brought up during the feminist—feminist times, I thought I had to do everything myself.

And so that’s kind of how my first few deals went. I was the one, you know—yes, I had a Realtor, and yes, I would hire vendors, but I thought I had to like suss the deal, you know, it was me against the world. And it—it actually probably my first ten years of investing, I quickly realized that’s not the case. Like, the more I can expand my circle of influence and build relationships

and just friends in the space, like, you know, doors and opportunities opened up to me. Yeah. So I mean, I think people hate the word networking because they think it’s not working.

Quentin Edmonds (08:35)

Yeah.

Whitney Elkins-Hutten (08:35)

Right. But like for me, once I like flip that—that—that frame is, you know, “What can I provide to somebody?” and, you know, “How can we create a—that win-win relationship?” And as soon as I started kind of stepping into that, then, you know, all sorts of opportunities have opened up to me. And

some that I’ve continued on with, and others that I’m kinda like, “Whoop, that worked for a season, and, you know, I’m gonna pivot.”

Quentin Edmonds (08:57)

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Thank you. Thank you for the reflective answer. And I—I’m hearing the recurring theme: partnership, I’ve heard you said; relationship, I’ve heard you said. So we’re gonna—we’re gonna—we’re gonna come back to that, because I can see a through line with—with your terminology and the way you think. And so I promise you we’re gonna come back to that, probably land on that. But I would love to know, just, you know, people watching sometimes, you know, they’re struggling operationally, like, “You know, what are some things that I can put into place?” So I would love to know from you, what is maybe

one operational thing you’ve put into place, let’s say the last two years, that has really helped you be successful?

Whitney Elkins-Hutten (09:31)

Hmm. Well, I think there are systems that I already have in place, but I think systems break every time you scale, and—and I don’t think entrepreneurs really realize that. They’ll spend a lot of time working in their business, not on their business, thinking that they have to optimize whatever system. Maybe it’s a CRM, maybe it’s how they use AI,

maybe it’s like the, you know—I—I coach individually as well. Maybe it’s—I have clients that are like, “I need to get the perfect email in place and text cadence.” And I’m like, “No, you need to go like throw some spaghetti against the wall and see if it fits,” right? Like, because you’re—the most feedback you’re gonna get is executing on the system. Execution is gonna tell you if it’s working or not working. And by the way, what you’re doing today, if you’re in scale mode,

isn’t gonna work in six months. You’re going to have to change it. And so what does that look like for me? Like, I’ve, you know, I’ve been kind of an early adopter of AI, but I really like did not want to put any of my personal data into AI. And I’m like, “No, thank you. I’ve got all my spreadsheets. I’m going to manage all this.” And I finally just

gave it all to AI, you know. I finally like landed on a system with Claude for me, and I was able to set it up in such a way that I felt comfortable with it. And now I’ve got a personal dashboard, and I’m going, “How in the heck did I not have this before?” Yeah, checking the boxes on my spreadsheet were amazing, but now I have—I feel like I have like a virtual assistant. I mean, they can’t hand me my coffee.

Yes. Yes. I don’t drink coffee, but my tea. But you know what I mean. Like, they can’t—they can’t do that. Yeah. But anyways, I—that’s—that was, you know, really kind of compiling everything into dashboards, which, oddly enough, Q, in that process I had all these spreadsheets and I realized I only need, you know, I had like twenty and then I only needed five.

Quentin Edmonds (11:21)

Wow. Yeah.

Whitney Elkins-Hutten (11:22)

That gave me the real data that were moving the numbers in my business. And that was huge, too. I think, you know, you know, I’ve got an Oura Ring on. I know a lot of people wear watches and stuff like that. I think people are like collecting data for data’s sake, but they don’t—they’re not really taking action on it. And then why are you doing it?

Quentin Edmonds (11:35)

So well said. And you—that last point you said about just collecting data for data’s sake, you know, I—I’ve been an avid reader, reader and listener to books all of my life. But this year I really started doing something—I really started slowing down with each book that I read. And like now, if I—if it’s a four-and-a-half-hour book, let me say, maybe

a day I’m only getting through like 30 minutes of it, because I’m stopping it and I’m really breaking down not just what they said, but what I believe I heard. I’m—I’m taking it down that way. I’m just not just collecting data for data’s sake, I’m collecting it to how to apply to my life. And so when I think about the systems that you have, talking about Claude, some people, they’re taking in so much energy themselves with so much information, but how are you applying the information that you get? You know, and so, yeah, I—I—I connect with that—that sentiment.

Director of Investor Education: what is your next real goal within that role? Like, is there a goal—are you looking to solve or scale something? Like, what’s next for you, Miss Whitney?

Whitney Elkins-Hutten (12:37)

Mm, yeah. So, you know, one, we’re, you know, growing that—that fund side of the business. And—and since we also own the lending arm, too, it’s been this interesting dance, right? Like, the lending arm—if we raise capital, then we have to be able to deploy it in the lending arm. Then we start ramping up the lending arm to match the capital that we—capital needs that we have. And then, you know, so you kinda got these two rabbits chasing each other, you know?

So we are, you know, this really unique dance. We’re a balance-sheet lender, and so it’s not like we take our investors’ money to the bank to go get more money. And that’s how a lot of, you know, lenders actually solve that problem, that dance. They don’t even get into it. They—but what that does to the investor, though, that they don’t realize is that the loan might be written as a first-position lien loan, right? Like,

that—that they’re a bank, but if the operator takes their money to the bank to go get more money to lend, they’re now equity in the deal. Anyways, so, you know, point—you know, to kind of circle back to the main point is that we’re trying to grow both sides of the business simultaneously while maintaining the balance, which it took me—like, I—I used to believe that you could have everything in balance, right? Let’s—that’s, you know, life balance, work-life, right?

And then, like, about five years ago, I’m like, “There is no such thing as balance.” Everything is always out of balance. Like, how—but it’s all more of, how do you get it back to equilibrium, right?

Quentin Edmonds (14:04)

Hmm. No, I—I love that. I’ve learned that as a father and a husband. As much as I try to balance something, I have to prioritize. And when I prioritize, something actually has to be put on pause for a little bit. Not that I’m neglecting it, but I’m learning that I have to prioritize. So I agree. I—I have had grace on myself when it comes to the balance aspect and be laser-focused on intentionality, make sure I’m intentional,

complete, follow my steps, do what I said I was gonna do here, and then continue. So I—I hear you on that, absolutely. Okay, I told you I was gonna get back to this through line: relationships, partnerships. These are things I’ve heard you say even just in our conversation before we really got on the show. And so I would love, Miss Whitney, to hear your philosophy, your thought on building healthy relationships. How, you know, how have you built them?

What are some of the relationships that serve you well, that has made you successful? What are people that you leaned on, and who are people that actually leaned on you? So talk to me a little bit, Miss Whitney, if you don’t mind, about relationships.

Whitney Elkins-Hutten (15:06)

Hmm. Ooh, what—there’s a couple of things to unpack there. One, I think there’s a book called *The Third Door*. I recommend anybody that’s starting off with like, you know, scaling relationships in their life, read that, because it—I—I mean, for me, I would listen to a lot of podcasts, and then I’d put these, you know, speakers on a pedestal, but I’m like, “You know what? They’ve already figured out what I need to do.”

And so either I can beat my head against the wall and try to repeat, right?—and like, “Evidence—success leaves clues,” like Tony Robbins says—or can I get on the phone with them? Can I trade some sort of value to them? And that’s the key part, right? So there’s two things in there. One, don’t be afraid to reach out to the people that you listen to. And then two, how can you trade value? So

you can’t just openly ask. Maybe how many times do you get somebody say, “Hey, I’ll take you out to a cup of coffee if you tell me how you bought that multifamily building?” That’s not trading value. I don’t need a cup of coffee. But if you bring value to myself—to me in some other way, then yes, you know, that’s why coaches coach, right? That’s a value trade. So one, don’t be afraid to reach out. Two, don’t be afraid of the value trade. And if you can’t

or what that person’s asking for, is there another way you can engage with them? If nothing else, just continue to follow them. So that’s been like one of the biggest things for me whenever I start, you know, looking at partnerships, and also paying attention to when those unique opportunities present themselves. Like, I—

like, really convinced myself to go to a real estate conference, you know, in, you know, like 2015. And I was nervous. I’m like, “I, you know, I’m—I don’t—I’ve—I’m closing on this building. I don’t really know a whole lot, but I want to—I know I want to go bigger.” And I mean, there was seriously 10 women and 450 men at the conference.

Quentin Edmonds (16:59)

Yeah, wow. Yeah.

Whitney Elkins-Hutten (17:00)

All the women—the bathroom line, the women’s bathroom line was the shortest line I’ve ever seen.

And we all knew each other by the—

Quentin Edmonds (17:08)

Wow, yeah, yeah.

Whitney Elkins-Hutten (17:10)

—end. And one of the women, she was like, “You know what? I’m looking for an executive assistant.” I’m like, “Well, do you know of anybody?” And I’m like, “Well, you know, you know, I do a lot of operations work. Hand me the resume. Maybe I got somebody in my network.” And then I read it, and I’m like—I—that was the other stuff. Like, don’t be afraid to call out or step into a role or say, “Hey, you know what?

I’ve got those skills that I can bring value to you.” And that’s what I did. And that’s what opened that door for me moving forward. I’m like, “You don’t need an EA, you need an operator. And I’m an operator, and I know a lot of other operators, but let’s have a conversation. See where the synergies are.”

Quentin Edmonds (17:48)

I mean, you said so much that’s really just a—that’s gold, like a gold mine. I—I love the way you talked about adding value. And like you said, listen, you don’t even drink coffee, so, “I don’t need a cup of coffee. No, don’t take me out with a cup of coffee.” But, you know, you—you have people who you’re trying to get in a relationship with, and obviously they’ve been successful, but I love how on the back end you—you talked about

your value, like who I am. And I—I would love our listeners to know that, yes, there are people who you look up to, who you value them, but please understand that there is something valuable within you. And majority of the time, the people that I know that are successful,

they are actually operating kind of out of their overflow. It’s something they’ve been doing for a very, very long time. Even before people knew them, even before, you know, they were hugely successful, they have been doing something over and over and over again, and then other people started finding value in actually what they do. And I want you to understand that, you listener: there is something that you have perfected over and over, and you’re like,

“Not getting paid as much as I think I should for it,” you know, but it’s something that you do. And it’s when—and I’m letting you know that now—when you provide other people with the value that you’ve already mastered, you’re gonna find out that there will be some synergy, and it’s gonna open up doors for you that you probably never could have imagined. So I love the way, for me, me listening in, I—I kind of seen the loop that you did with, yes, you know,

got people who offer value, but bring your value to the table. And also please don’t underestimate who you are. Speak up for yourself and talk about what you know that you do best, and put yourself out there. And so I love it, Miss Whitney.

Whitney Elkins-Hutten (19:20)

Well, we all have transferable, translatable skills, right? And so just like, you know, I, you know, come from epidemiology. My background’s in public health. I can run a mean spreadsheet like nobody else, you know, and I’m really good at math. You know, teach me a couple of different terms, and, you know, connect me with like Investopedia to like figure out how to do those calculations, and I’m off to the races. Yes, everyone, like you said, every one of us has that.

And then I just want to echo something that you pulled out in that value chain, right? Like, because you said it earlier: don’t discount reading books. That is that person that you really love or want to follow—that’s them dumping 20, 30, 40, 50 years of knowledge in like 300 pages. Like, books are amazing. Get the physical book, listen to it, get the physical book, highlight, dog-ear,

right? And if you go to somebody and you said, “Hey, I read your book. I really liked when you said X, Y, and Z,” ooh, that’s gonna open a door, too.

Quentin Edmonds (20:19)

So well said. And Miss Whitney, I hear you. I’m just getting back to like my physical books. I was an audiobook guy for such a long time, but now I’m getting back to having these physical books on hand. You know, *The Automatic Millionaire* is one of my favorite books. I’m not sure if you heard of this, *Gradually Then Suddenly* by Mark Batterson is amazing. So I am with you. I’m getting back to

highlighters, actually picking up the book by—with the—the book holders. I’m not sure—I can’t get the word out, but, you know, putting bookmarks. Thank you, putting your bookmarks. I’m—I’m getting back to it. So, yeah, absolutely. Miss Whitney, I—I have to ask, because I’ve been asking a lot of questions, but is there anything that’s been happening on your heart,

or maybe like something that you had on your mind that you felt like our viewers need to know or benefit from? Maybe you came in like, “This is a message. I want to make sure the viewers get.” I just kinda wanna open up the floor that if there is a message like that, you can land it.

Whitney Elkins-Hutten (21:16)

Ooh, gosh. You know, pretty much anybody that I work with, whether it’s a coaching client or an investor or an aspiring investor, or even you don’t even consider yourself an investor yet, I think, I mean, really I’m—I’m—I’m the type of person is we need to get you income coming in that is unrelated to your job or the business that you run, right? Because I want everybody to have options.

So I come from a personal or a public health background. I think that—I think it’s actually a public health problem that people don’t know how to create passive income for themselves, because if

they did and they were able to, it would empower them, one, maybe to not get into debt or pay off their debts, or maybe provide more for their family, or to allow them to have work optionality, right? Or to like, maybe retire early.

And—and I don’t mean retire early, go sit on the beach and drink martinis or—or piña coladas, but like so you can go create that impact in the world that you were born and created to make. So I—I’m not just here saying you need, you know, cash flow, right? Well, and that’s the thing: a lot of people, like, we have this mentality that we have to, you know, in—and stock market, right? Wall Street’s conditioned us.

Scale like a four-, five-, six-, ten-million-dollar portfolio and then you can withdraw four percent annually every single year. No, like that’s not what creates freedom. Freedom is created by cash flow coming in on a regular basis that you can consume, and that you believe will be there coming in again next month and the month after that. Long story short, I—I really feel if people—I mean, maybe you don’t have your full income replaced, but a half of it, a quarter of it, like that—

there’s so many of the issues that we face in today’s society would be non-existent.

Quentin Edmonds (23:07)

Woo! Listen. I mean, I—what you just said really, really resonates. And I’m not going to try to elaborate too much on it, but thank you. Thank—everything you just said, thank you. And I’m glad we got that on recording. And I really hope somebody listening to that really takes that to heart. Listen, Miss Whitney, if someone wanted to reach out to you, connect with you, collaborate with you, learn more about what you’re doing, how can they get in contact with you, ma’am?

Whitney Elkins-Hutten (24:12)

Yeah, if you’re looking at, you know, adding deals to your portfolio today, check me out at whitney@passiveinvesting.com. If you need coaching in this space, you can go to ashwealth.com. So ashwealth.com.

Quentin Edmonds (24:29)

Gotcha. Listen, I’m going to say three things to you. The first one is a reiteration from earlier: thank you for your time. I value your time, so thank you for being here. And I know you value your time, so thank you for being here. Secondly, thank you for your story, but I even call it the gift of your authenticity and the gift of your vulnerability. I believe our stories—they plant seeds for people. And we never know when those seeds are gonna grow, but the seed is planted.

So I really believe that you really planted some real seeds today. So thank you for that. Lastly, thank you for your mindset. Thank you for the way you think, and bringing that mindset to this platform. Miss Whitney, I greatly appreciate you coming on, ma’am.

Whitney Elkins-Hutten (25:08)

Thank you so much for having me.

Quentin Edmonds (25:09)

Absolutely. Well, listen, y’all heard Miss Whitney. Her information is in the show notes. Please get in contact with her. I really believe it will be life-changing, and so please get in contact with Miss Whitney. But definitely make sure you are subscribed here, because I promise you we’re going to continue to bring up amazing people, just like Miss Whitney. So, ma’am, I say thank you again. And everyone else, listen, y’all have a fantastic day.