How Rory Scaled to 13 Doors in Just 5 Months | Real Estate Investing from Hawaii to Kansas City

Rory (00:00)
Just get in and start doing it. Find a network with people. think a good source that you have access to everybody is like, look at some podcasts, listen to the podcast, like BiggerPockets. I got lot of useful information. You have other investors. Find somebody that is doing where you… is in a space that’s doing things that you wanna do and try to connect with that person. But if you’re connecting with that person, you have to be able to maybe bring some value to that person so that person will teach you, right? You can’t just sponge off that person. People are busy, right? So network, get out there. But I think the biggest thing in every… every ⁓ mentorship program are they going to tell you is just to take action. You got to take massive action right now and just just get in it.

Kristen Knapp (02:36)
Welcome back to the Real Estate Pros Podcast. I’m Kristen and I’m here with Rory Lee, who’s an investor out of Hawaii. So thank you so much for being here, Rory. You have been able to do a lot in just a short amount of time and I want to get into all of your success, but let’s start at the beginning. How did you get into this industry?

Rory (02:44)
thank you, Kristen.

So my background, just full disclosure, I was an insurance agent for 20 years. I owned my own all state agency. I sold my business about three years. I had some money that I got from selling my business and not enough money where never have to work again type of money, but I’m 56 years old and…

I don’t want to be hopefully working forever. So I knew I had to take that money and make it work for me and grow it into something bigger. And that’s kind of why I decided to get into investing in real estate.

Kristen Knapp (03:33)
Amazing. And I know that you were kind of investing on and off for a while. What did that look like and what’s been the shift to today?

Rory (03:41)
Yeah,

so before I had had like, uh, I had a few rentals, you know, in, in, my state in Hawaii. And I also had an Airbnb here in Hawaii also too. Um, I guess the, the, the difficult thing about investing in Hawaii is that the property prices are

crazy high and you can’t make it cash flow or work financially to invest ⁓ in investment properties in oil because it just doesn’t pencil out the numbers. I had to kind of, that was the dilemma.

And until I found out and decided to invest in out of state investing, especially particularly in the Midwest, ⁓ Kansas City, where I’m investing right now that. know, I had found out that. You know, yes, there are actually homes that are affordable that you can buy and, ⁓ you know, be able to cash flow it and also appreciate to.

Kristen Knapp (04:46)
Absolutely, and I think that what holds a lot of people back from investing out of state is just the knowledge of the general market. How did you become an expert in Kansas City, and what about it particular stood out to you?

Rory (05:01)
So how, I mean, I love to take the credit that I just picked that market out of the ⁓ blue and went with it. But

I ⁓ joined a mentorship group that it was a Hawaii gentleman who started that group and he had the same problems as me trying to invest in Hawaii. And he decided probably five years ago to get into that market. So I joined that group.

And they did a lot of the homework.

ahead of time where they knew like, here’s some of the good areas that, you like he had a spreadsheet of all the zip codes in the greater Kansas City area where he kind of just outlined, okay, you know, this is where you would want to invest. This is where you wouldn’t want to invest. And this is where, you know, just kind of breaking it down like that. So that kind of helped me to get started over there. ⁓ I guess what really ⁓

made it a good market for me was, know, whenever you’re investing in real estate as far as, you know, a buy and hold market, you’re just trying to look for if the market has, you know, like if they’re growing jobs. So jobs and population growth, you know what mean? So both of those, you know, criteria check the boxes in Kansas City. So that’s kind of why I chose that area. Yeah.

Kristen Knapp (07:07)
Right.

Yeah, they always say like wherever there’s a Starbucks popping up, that’s where you should invest property.

Rory (07:22)
Yeah,

definitely. Yeah, for sure.

Kristen Knapp (07:25)
⁓ And so the last nine or 10 months you’ve been able to scale your investing portfolio to really impressive amount. What’s been kind of the mindset shift that now you’re really going all in on this?

Rory (07:38)
Yeah,

so like I said, you know, I’m getting close to the point of retiring, you know what mean? Or I’d like to at least not retiring, ⁓ retire, but just the urgency to be able to do it. know, I’d wish that I’d done this five or ten years ago, ⁓ but you know, there’s

you know, better late than never. I just have that urgency that I got to get it done and in within this short period of time, because, you know, I want to be able to build this and. Hopefully, I have enough years in my life to be able to enjoy it, you know, so that’s kind of that’s been that’s been the urgency behind it, you know.

Kristen Knapp (08:24)
Definitely. So talk about kind of where you’re at in your portfolio now.

Rory (08:30)
So right now I

have, uh, 13 doors. that’s, um, actually a five. Well, I have one, two, three, four, five, seven, seven single family homes, a fourplex and a duplex. Um, and, um, so that’s kind of where I, I actually bought all those properties, um, probably in the last, in the first five months that I,

I started investing. I only started this in December of 2024. So I got to that point. I grew really, really quickly. I did that a lot because in the Kansas City market, when I was buying a majority of the properties, it was during the winter time. like, you know, December, January, February, which is probably one of the better times to buy because, you know, most people aren’t buying homes in the winter and shopping at home.

homes in the snow. So you have a little bit of an advantage as a buyer that, you know, if you can come in there and, you know, ⁓ see properties that maybe have been sitting for 30, 60 days that you can negotiate with them a lot better. So I, I got scaled up really quickly and then I got to a point where I was like,

Well, I got to got to stabilize these properties and just get a control of it. Right. You know, I mean, so that’s that’s been a challenge. And I’m sure you asked some of the challenges I have to go over that with you. But

Kristen Knapp (09:51)
Right?

Rory (10:36)
I just decided to pivot and I’ve started to pivot into more apartment buildings and try to be able to scale that like maybe 10 to 30 unit apartment buildings.

Kristen Knapp (10:47)
Yeah, that’s amazing. And I think that you brought up a good point, because I think everybody’s always focused on growth, and everyone’s focused on scaling. But there are some downsides to scaling quickly. I would love for you to talk kind of a little bit more about that and how you’ve been able to course correct and remain stable.

Rory (11:05)
Yeah, so I mean, in real estate and especially in real estate, realtor, ⁓ investor, you have to have a solid team of people, you know, working with you and partnering with you on this, on your path. So I’ve been very, very fortunate to have a ⁓ great realtor.

that ⁓ works strictly with investors. have contractors that, ⁓ you know, that now I would consider close friends that I can trust. I have inspectors. I have different trade people, you know. I think the biggest challenge that I’ve had is on the property management side, you know. mean, just, and I think that’s a common thing for investors is

really, you know, like doing your homework as far as when you’re hiring a property manager. And, and just, excuse me, sorry, I’ll silence that for you. But just really, you know, trying to, to make sure that the expectations that you expect from your property manager, you know, are clear upfront, you know what I mean? But

You can do all that and it’s still not work out. But you have to stay on top of them. And you’re not the property manager, but you’re managing the property manager, the asset manager.

Kristen Knapp (12:44)
Yeah, and what are

some of those expectations that everybody should have for a property manager?

Rory (12:50)
Sorry, I’m just trying to make sure I turn off my phone so it doesn’t ring again. think it’s expectations is, ⁓ I think the first thing is, and I made a mistake because I’m a pretty trusting person. So a lot of times when that property manager sends you that contract, make sure you read through that contract. ⁓

Kristen Knapp (13:11)
Yeah

Rory (13:13)
in detail because there’s a lot of things that you would just take for granted that are not, you know, so I would say that would be the first thing. ⁓ Second thing I think is just, ⁓

you know, when you when you have a property manager to be able to like define to the property manager like who is going to be taking care of particular duties in that role. Like is that one property manager doing everything or do they have like a leasing department that does something else? Do they have a collection department that does something else that and who is the point person and and I guess time frames as far as what you would say

and expectable timeframe to get things done and just some tangible things that you can hold them accountable to.

Kristen Knapp (14:04)
I think definitely the tangible goals for them. And you mentioned you’re a pretty trusting person. I am as well, where I feel like building out a team is tough, because I mean, it’s the hardest part is managing people and getting good people behind you. What are some of your tips and tricks for vetting people and making sure that they’re trustworthy and can execute?

Rory (14:08)
Measurable, Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Yeah.

Um, I think, I mean, you do, it’s always, you know, in real estate, they always tell you the phrase trust, but verify, you know what mean? So that’s, you know, so like, you can trust them, but verify their work, you know I mean? I mean, you know, in some cases, you do have to just take that little bit of a leap of faith, but even try as best as you can to maybe get references, you know, talk to their,

you know, other homeowners that, you know, or investors that have used their products or services. Hopefully just try to get it from a referral from someone that you know, that you trust, you know, like referrals are always good. And I would say in the beginning, I think that a tip that, that I did is I had all those properties and

I spread out the work among several people. So don’t put all your eggs in one basket. know, spread it out. ⁓ See how different people perform. And then you’re going to see who best aligns with what you’re trying to achieve.

Kristen Knapp (16:23)
Yeah, I think that’s very good advice to not put all your eggs in one basket and kind of diversify and see what works, especially in the beginning as you’re building. Because the hope is that you can kind of get a system going, right? Kind of scale up. Well, that’s wonderful. And now that you’re in the multifamily, what’s been different about that? mean, obviously, property management is another part of it. But what’s been different about managing these assets?

Rory (16:31)
Mm-hmm.

Right, yes.

⁓

So ⁓ when you’re in the multifamily space, anything just say five or six units and above, ⁓ how they evaluate the property is very, different from like a single-family home or duplex or even a fourplex. So single-family home, anything four units and below, they value the property based on comps, a similar property sold for.

in the similar neighborhood. know what mean? So you’re kind of determined by the market of what the valuation of your property is. So on the multifamily space, what’s a big difference is the property is valued by the performance of the product, essentially the cash flow that it’s bringing in. ⁓ So

You know, it’s the net operating income divided by a ⁓ cap rate will give you the valuation of the property. So when you look at multifamily properties, what you need, what I’m trying to do is, ⁓ and obviously this is something that, you I didn’t start up it, you know, ⁓ I’m learning, is that you want to be able to either

increase your rents, provide some kind of maybe value add to the property, fix it up, you know, maybe if properties are, you know, maybe either, you know, have a little lower occupancy rate, bump up the occupancy rate, you know, bump up rents that maybe be under market rents and maybe fix it up a little bit where you can push the rents a little bit and

maybe lower expenses and manage it property and just thus improve the asset as a whole and that will in turn raise the value of the property. So that’s kind of the difference.

Kristen Knapp (18:51)
Yeah, absolutely. Doing kind of an audit of where it’s at and not assuming that it’s running the most efficiently that it is. Or that it can’t.

Rory (18:58)
Yeah, yeah.

Kristen Knapp (19:00)
Definitely. So you know, you are scaling very quickly in this year. I think it’s, I would love for you to talk about just the market in general, because I know a lot of people are a little cautious or reserved about entering the market. And I would love your perspective as someone who’s really gone all in this year, kind of what you see and where you see it going.

Rory (19:22)
⁓ As far as the real estate market goes, think, I mean, on the like residential side, I think things have definitely slowed down. I think if you’re a new investor that’s trying to get into the market, it’s actually a pretty good time. ⁓ I see there’s a lot more inventory that is coming available. It’s sitting a little bit longer.

People are willing to negotiate a little bit on the price. ⁓ It still hasn’t fully switched over to a complete buyer’s market because it just hasn’t got there because I guess affordability is always an issue on ⁓ purchasing. But it’s a good time. I think

I think you need to be cautious and really underwrite the deal carefully. But if you do that and you just got to look at a ton of deals, just try to put as much information in front of you. That way you can just go process it and just get better at it. I definitely think there’s opportunities. Yeah.

Kristen Knapp (20:46)
Definitely and also being an expert on the market that you’re investing in like you are. Yeah.

Rory (20:53)
Right, right, yeah. You only do

it by, I mean like, you know, it’s funny because it probably, you know, in my working career, I’ve been working for 35 plus years. It took me 35 plus years to find something that I enjoy doing. And I think that’s the benefit of where I’ve been successful is that

Kristen Knapp (21:12)
Yeah.

Rory (21:20)
I could talk about real estate all day. I can look at houses like all day at night. You know, when I go to bed at night, I, you know, like I, I, I opened up Zillow and I just scroll through all my searches. I, know, you know, so just, it’s just the reps of just looking at homes and just analyzing it and, and just, you know, ⁓ you kind of got to enjoy it. If you don’t enjoy it, then, you know, life’s too short, find something else to do.

Kristen Knapp (21:47)
Right, it’s a hard industry to be in if you don’t enjoy it, for sure.

Rory (21:50)
Yeah, exactly. For sure. Cause there’s definitely, you know, there’s, mean, I, I’m all in on this, but I mean, there’s probably multiple times every day that I’m like,

what the hell am I doing? Like, why am I doing this? I actually had to write it on my wall the other day, like why I’m doing this? And I didn’t come up with that trick, but someone told me that just to look at it, to remind you why you’re doing this and just, you you just gotta keep on pushing through, you know?

Kristen Knapp (22:04)
Alright.

Yeah.

Yeah, I think that’s a really good tip. It’s to ground yourself and remember why you got into this in the first place. Well, this has been awesome, Rory. You’ve given people such good information about scaling and building out teams and all that. To kind of wrap it up, I know that you’re just getting into this again. What would be some advice that you would give to somebody who was you five years ago and debating getting into this industry? What would be your advice?

Rory (22:29)
Yeah.

Kristen Knapp (22:51)
Bye

Rory (22:53)
Just

get in and start doing it. Find a network with people. think a good source that you have access to everybody is like, look at some podcasts, listen to the podcast, like BiggerPockets. I got lot of useful information. You have other investors. Find somebody that is doing where you…

is in a space that’s doing things that you wanna do and try to connect with that person. But if you’re connecting with that person, you have to be able to maybe bring some value to that person so that person will teach you, right? You can’t just sponge off that person. People are busy, right? So network, get out there. But I think the biggest thing in every…

Every ⁓ mentorship program are they going to tell you is just to take action. You got to take massive action right now and just just get in it.

⁓ But yeah.

Kristen Knapp (24:00)
Yeah, well amazing. Thank you so much for being here and tell everybody where to find you.

Rory (24:05)
So I’m on Instagram at Rory K Lee, so they can find me on Instagram. ⁓ My email address is rlee at atlasinsurance.com. It’s A-T-L-A-S, insurance.com. But yeah, look me up on Instagram.

Kristen Knapp (24:24)
Amazing. Well, thank you so much for being here, Rory. Yes, and everybody listening, thank you so much for tuning in. I hope you learned a lot and we will see you back next time.

Rory (24:28)
Thank you.