How Room Rental Investing Creates Cash Flow and Affordable Housing with Ashley Jeffers

Ashley Jeffers (00:00)
Yeah, so looking for properties that are at least eighteen hundred square feet, two thousand square square feet is even better. Looking for properties with at least five to six bedrooms already existing with room enough to add one to two more. So if I can churn out seven, eight bedrooms within a property, that is the goal. Like eight bedrooms is a sweet spot where I know even with vacancy.

That I’m still going to cash flow each month because there’s enough, enough rooms that will stay occupied to be able to cover monthly expenses and allow me to be profitable as well.

Michelle Kesil (02:12)
Hey everybody, welcome to the Real Estate Pros Podcast. I’m your host, Michelle Kesil. Today I’m joined by someone I’m looking forward to chatting with, Ashley Jeffers, who is a real estate investor focusing on buy and hold and affordable housing solutions. So excited to have you here today, Ashley.

Ashley Jeffers (02:33)
Thank you for having me, Michelle. Happy to be here.

Michelle Kesil (02:36)
Great, let’s dive in. So first off, for those new to your work, can you share what your main focus is?

Ashley Jeffers (02:44)
Yeah, so current day is buying single family homes for the purpose of renting out the rooms to the working class. So think of your your blue collar worker that we see all the time. You may be one of them. Amazon workers, airport workers, security guards, those that work 30, 40, 50 hours a week, but are still priced out of the traditional rental market because it is so expensive to rent.

Michelle Kesil (03:13)
Yeah. In which markets do you operate in?

Ashley Jeffers (03:17)
Charlotte, North Carolina, and Greensboro, North Carolina at the moment. But I am really curious about Atlanta. That’s on my radar. Houston, Texas. I’m hearing a lot about what’s going on with co-living in Houston, Texas, and Nashville, Tennessee. I’ve heard that that might be a good market for room rentals as well.

Michelle Kesil (03:46)
Okay, great. And how did you get into real estate investing?

Ashley Jeffers (03:52)
Well, back in 2018, I just went down the rabbit hole of YouTube university and listening to podcasts and reading books. Anything that was related to building wealth, to financial freedom, to establishing passive income sources, started to really pique my interest. I’m one of those who had a mom who, you know, encouraged me to go to

College, go to school and get a good job. And those were those were her her like aspirations for me. And they were great and I did those things, but I still found myself working paycheck to paycheck. Like I have a good corporate job, but I still am required to go. Like there is no freedom here. So it just piqued my curiosity.

You know, what does it look like to have an additional source of income outside of my W-2? So that’s what led me down the path because when it comes to wealth, all roads lead to real estate investing. Like there’s a lot of millionaires in the world, and probably a good majority of them either started with real estate investing or built other businesses and needed to need to put their cash somewhere or need to expand their portfolio when it comes to

building wealth or increasing their cash flow and they at that point get into real estate investing. I’m sure we all have heard about the book Rich Dad Poor Dad by Robert Kiyosaki. But that one is it’s it was a good book. A lot of us have read it. A lot of us resonated with the things that he called out in that book. That cash flow quadrant was a big deal. I think the

the number one takeaway from for for me out of that book was him saying, if you don’t find a way to make money while you sleep, you’ll be working the rest of your life. And so that that hit pretty hard. And so I’ve just tried to educate myself as much as possible on real estate investing and continue down a path where I’m building a rental portfolio that generates cash flow on a regular basis.

Michelle Kesil (06:12)
And what do you feel have been some of the main keys that have allowed your business to grow and run successfully?

Ashley Jeffers (07:07)
so a lot of testing. You gotta test some things and see if they work. So I’ve t when I when I’m talking about testing, I’m talking about, for example, do I hire someone local to cut the grass on a regular basis at my room rental properties, or do I use an app called LawnStarter? I’ve done it both ways, where it’s just more convenient to tell the LawnStarter app

Here is the address. This is the lawn work that needs to be done. Do this on a monthly basis. Charge my card when the work is complete. Send me pictures when the work is done. So that’s one of many examples of just like testing to see what works for the business. My goal is to try to replace myself as much as possible, put in systems and automations where I can so that, you know, I can focus on

going to acquire more properties and not focus on, you know, being getting c caught up in the weeds of of operations.

Michelle Kesil (08:13)
And what are you looking for in the properties that you find would be like the best suited for your target clients?

Ashley Jeffers (08:25)
Yeah, so looking for properties that are at least eighteen hundred square feet, two thousand square square feet is even better. Looking for properties with at least five to six bedrooms already existing with room enough to add one to two more. So if I can churn out seven, eight bedrooms within a property, that is the goal. Like eight bedrooms is a sweet spot where I know even with vacancy

That I’m still going to cash flow each month because there’s enough, enough rooms that will stay occupied to be able to cover monthly expenses and allow me to be profitable as well.

Looking for properties that are near public transportation. So within a quarter of a mile of a bus stop, the property or the home does have to have ample parking. So when you have six, seven, eight people in a house, you gotta make sure that they have

Plenty of parking and it’s not difficult for them to get in and out with their vehicles. Now, granted, everybody’s not gonna have a car that lives in the property. So if you have six bedrooms, you don’t need six parking spots, but you at least you at least need three or four. And so those are the main things. Properties gotta be located in a city that has a high demand for room rentals. Charlotte is, I just happen to live in

A great market for this because there’s so much industry here when it comes to the healthcare systems. We’re number two banking center behind or a financial services sector behind New York. So we have Bank of America, we have Wells Fargo that have pretty big footprints here. Also near an airport, near distribution centers like Amazon, who are who, you know, is pretty large employer, also near

universities and colleges. So Charlotte has all of those things. Like within, you know, just leaving my house, within 10 minutes of leaving my house, I’m at UNC Charlotte. And so UNC Charlotte is a big big university here in this area. So yeah, just looking for houses and markets that have a lot of activity going on where it’s going to lead to people needing affordable housing.

Michelle Kesil (10:49)
And what have been some obstacles or challenges that you’ve had to overcome and then learn lessons from in your investing journey?

Ashley Jeffers (11:34)
think separating emotion from business, so you can’t please everybody. And I have the best intentions for my room renters to provide a clean, safe, affordable housing solution for them. And I put 100% effort into providing like not only just a clean, safe space, but a comfortable one, right? Like I provide linens and the rooms already come with mounted TVs on the walls and mini fridges in each room and

Really just try to provide a premium experience when it comes to co-living or shared housing. Even with that, you have renters that are gonna complain. And I used to get caught up in my emotions and take it personally when they complained about certain things. So for example, one of my room renters moved in recently and he liked just in the messenger that we use to communicate

he just like went nuts on the fact that the kitchen was wasn’t clean when he moved in. That’s not really a reason to like fly off the handle and like just went entirely too hard. So three years ago that really would have like affected me negatively and I would have taken it personally. But present day today it’s what’s the problem? Let’s come up with a solution. The kitchen’s not clean. All I had to do was send a note to the house to say, hey

Clean up the kitchen by five o’clock today. Make sure the dishes are removed from the sink and the countertop is wiped off and clear. Sweep the floor. Make sure the countertop, the stove is, the surface is wiped off and clean. And that was it. By five o’clock, everything was taken care of. So it’s it’s little things like that where it’s, you know, everybody’s not gonna know how to talk to you. He might have had a little ankle

Anger management issue going on is what that felt like. But point being that like I mentioned earlier, like years ago, I would have like really carried that with me the rest of the day. But it may be into the next day, like, my gosh, like he’s talking about my my one of my houses. But current day it’s okay, let’s identify the problem and come up with a solution as quickly as possible.

Michelle Kesil (13:55)
Yeah, absolutely. And what are you most focused on solving or scaling to next?

Ashley Jeffers (14:03)
so I’ll continue to serve the workforce. I am now pivoting though and getting educated on the sober living housing as an option. So I have a podcast and it’s called the Co-Living Investing Podcast, and I interviewed someone who talked about her sober living

Housing experience. Like she’s a sober living housing provider. And she just talked about the impact that she is has been able to make providing housing to this group that needs stability, that needs routine, that needs you know, a little bit more than what my group of folks that I’m that I’m serving right now need. They need a little bit more hands on, they need structure.

So my father was an alcoholic for 40 years, but has been sober the last 15 years. And so thank God for that, he’s been able to experience a sober life. Now, you know, the the 15 years that’s a shorter time period than the 40 that he suffered through. But any day that you can live a sober life is better than continuing to

rely on on substances. And so he is my inspiration for wanting to provide sober living because I know somebody did it for him. And so I saw the difference that it made in his life. And so I want to be able to provide that same support to those in need.

Michelle Kesil (15:49)
Yeah, absolutely. And what have been some of the investing experiences that you have learned along the way that you wish you knew when you started?

Ashley Jeffers (16:45)
Ooh, I think the best strategy, investment strategy that I have benefited most from was learning to be the bank. So when I learned that I could take a house, fix the house up, and put not just a tenant in the property, but a tenant buyer. So the owner financing strategy from the standpoint of me being the bank.

And so back in 2020, I was investing in mobile homes. And so I took three mobile homes, fixed them up, and I put tenant buyers in them that would otherwise not be able to afford a a place to buy. So what I did was, you know, put a down payment in place, a number in place as the down payment, and allowed them to make monthly payments over time.

And in this scenario, I’m not the landlord that they call to like, you know, come fix the toilets or the landlord that they call to come fix anything that’s broken or report things. In an owner financing scenario, you’re not on the hook for any of that stuff. I’m the financer here. So so the only thing that I’m responsible for is collecting that check every month. So recently it’s been it’s been long enough where one of them is now owner

Of the mobile home that I financed to them five years ago. And it was a really cool moment because they’re from El Salvador. And so when she got the keys five years ago to start making payments on the home, she was so excited. She said, This is amazing. This is the American dream. And I’m thinking to myself, it’s just a single wide, like it’s not even a double. But compared to where she grew up and where she’s from, that is a big deal for her to be able to have

a place to call home for her and her family. That is, I mean, I don’t know how much better quality the mobile home is for her versus where she grew up and where she lived in El Salvador. But was able to turn the key, turn the title over to her about a week or two ago because she made her payments for five years. Now she owns the mobile home 100%. And so we just did a title transfer

which means that I lifted the lien that my company had on the title off by just signaturing the title and she took it to the DMV. I’m assuming I don’t I don’t know what the process is for her to take like official ownership of that mobile home, but as of today, as far as I know, it’s hers. Like she owns her home outright for her and her family. Nobody can ever can take and take it away from her as long as she pays her taxes.

And so yeah, I think that’s been the strongest strategy. I’ve done that probably four times now where I am getting a property in place so that people can make payments towards ownership.

Michelle Kesil (19:46)
Yeah, that’s a great strategy. And what are you looking forward to as far as any goals or opportunities that you have for where you want your business to go?

Ashley Jeffers (19:59)
Yeah, so I just had a conversation today. I’m hoping to do my first new build, at least break ground by the end of this year. And the new build is intended for room rentals. And so we’re looking at a plan to do a duplex with at least four beds and four bathrooms on each side. And so we’re talking on one lot, eight bedrooms, eight bathrooms. That’ll be new construction.

So this will be my first new build and I’m so glad I learned about co-living because I think that is the the best ROI versus doing a new build of a single family home where you’re just renting it to one tenant or one family or you’re selling it off once it’s once the project is complete. But with this, we’re gonna be able to provide even more affordable housing once the

the construction is done and we’re able to rent those rooms out to people who really need them. So I’m really excited about getting into the new new build space as well as taking on these sober living projects.

Michelle Kesil (21:08)
Yeah, amazing. Well, thank you so much for sharing all of that.

Ashley Jeffers (21:12)
Sure.

Michelle Kesil (21:14)
Before we begin to wrap up here, if someone wants to reach out, connect and learn more, where can people find you?

Ashley Jeffers (21:21)
Yeah, real easy. So I built a site because I get this question all the time. So I was like, let me get myself together and create a spot where people can find me. So it’s it’s ashleyjeffers.com. So www.ashleyjeffers.com. There you can find my free room rental starter kit. So you can go and you can download that. If you have an interest in room rental investing, you can go download that kit that gives you

You know, just the foundation of what you need to consider when going into this business. There’s also links to my podcast out there, my YouTube channel, some other educational resources, that sort of thing. My investment opportunities. So as I’m raising capital, I’m going to be adding more and more opportunities to my website so that people can go check out what I have available and see if they wanna put some

Put some cash to work.

Michelle Kesil (22:23)
Okay, perfect. Well appreciate your time and your story. Thank you for being here.

Ashley Jeffers (22:28)
Sure. Thank you for having me. I appreciate it, Michelle.

Michelle Kesil (22:32)
And for those tuning into the show, if you got value, make sure you’ve subscribed. We’ve got more conversations with operators like Ashley who are building real businesses. And we’ll see you on the next episode.