How to Buy Investment Properties with an Exit Strategy (Avoid Getting Stuck)

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Show Summary

In this episode of the Real Estate Pros podcast, host Michelle Kesil speaks with Jessica Sinski, a realtor, property manager, and investor based in the Charlotte area. Jessica shares her journey into real estate, starting from her first home purchase in 2016 to her current investments in Airbnbs and room rentals. She discusses the importance of having a clear exit strategy, overcoming challenges in the industry, and the value of networking. Jessica also offers advice for new investors, emphasizing the need to take action and not get stuck in analysis paralysis. The conversation wraps up with key lessons learned from her extensive experience in real estate and how to connect with her for further insights.

Resources and Links from this show:

• • • Investor Fuel Real Estate Mastermind
    • Investor Machine Real Estate Lead Generation
    • Mike on Facebook
    • Mike on Instagram
    • Mike on LinkedIn
    • Jessica Sinski on Instagram
    • Jessica Sinski on Facebook
    • Jessica Sinski’s Phone Number: (980)365-3575
    • Jessica Sinski’s Email: [email protected]

  Listen to the Audio Version of this Episode

  Investor Fuel Show Transcript:

  Jessica Sinski (00:00)
  I would say like knowing your exit strategy before you buy is definitely the most important aspect. So sometimes I’ll buy a look at a property and it’s not something that I want to hold. But when I’m buying it, I want to make sure that I can hold it as well. So just in case the market takes a shift or something like that. So

  There was a time where I bought a small portfolio of properties and then COVID hit. And so the market shift pretty quickly. And I couldn’t sell those right away. But when I bought them, I made sure that I was going to be able to rent them as well as flip them.

  Michelle Kesil (02:17)
  Hey everybody, welcome to the Real Estate Pros podcast. I’m your host, Michelle Kesil, and today I’m joined by someone I’m looking forward to chatting with, Jessica Sinski, who is a realtor, property manager, and investor in the Charlotte area. So excited to have you here today, Jessica.

  Jessica Sinski (02:35)
  Hey, thank you so much. I’m excited to be on and chat real estate.

  Michelle Kesil (02:40)
  Awesome, let’s dive in. First off, for those who are not familiar with you and your work yet, can you share what your main focus is?

  Jessica Sinski (02:48)
  so I do a little bit of different stuff in the real estate world. I am a realtor and property manager in the greater Charlotte and Charlotte region in North Carolina. on the property management side, we manage about 300 single family and small multifamily homes. And on the realtor side, it’s just a clientele that I service as well.

  And in the investor world, I own Airbnbs and room rentals. So I rent out rooms in houses.

  Michelle Kesil (03:20)
  Awesome. And is this all in Charlotte area or do you operate in other markets too?

  Jessica Sinski (03:25)
  ⁓ Pretty much in the Charlotte area and surrounding cities. So we go up an hour to like Winston, an hour and a half Winston-Salem and then we go all the way down to South Carolina as well. So it’s north and South Carolina, but we’re right by the border.

  Michelle Kesil (03:39)
  Nice. And how did you get started as an investor?

  Jessica Sinski (03:42)
  Oh, so getting started, I bought my first home in 2016 and I was already licensed as a realtor then. And I was living at home with my my parents and just graduated college and I was I didn’t want to rent. So I bought a condo and I didn’t want to live alone. So I rented out the other room.

  to a roommate and that roommate ended up paying my entire mortgage basically. And I paid the bills and stuff but yeah, offset a lot of the costs and then from there I was buying more after that.

  Michelle Kesil (04:27)
  Awesome. And so what kind of rental properties are you investing in?

  Jessica Sinski (04:32)
  I’ve been looking at like areas where or properties where I can either build an ADU accessory dwelling units, like an extra home or like duplexes, small multifamily. pretty much all the stuff that I own. It has either the opportunity to build something in the backyard or something like that, or it has two homes on a

  I’ll sing a lot or it’s a duplex. I do own some condos as well and in the condos I do room rentals because they’re closer to uptown and have a choice.

  Michelle Kesil (05:08)
  Awesome. What do you feel have been some of the main keys that made the biggest difference in allowing your business to be able to grow and run smoothly?

  Jessica Sinski (06:05)
  I would say like knowing your exit strategy before you buy is definitely the most important aspect. So sometimes I’ll buy a look at a property and it’s not something that I want to hold. But when I’m buying it, I want to make sure that I can hold it as well. So just in case the market takes a shift or something like that. So

  There was a time where I bought a small portfolio of properties and then COVID hit. And so the market shift pretty quickly. And I couldn’t sell those right away. But when I bought them, I made sure that I was going to be able to rent them as well as flip them.

  And so the numbers worked all across the board. I was able to refinance, pull all my money out, essentially BRRRR

  the that property and keep it versus being stuck in a bind where I would have had to sell it or something like that.

  Michelle Kesil (07:04)
  Yeah, absolutely. And what are some obstacles or challenges that you have had to overcome on your investing journey?

  Jessica Sinski (07:14)
  so I would say like there’s sometimes delays, product material not being delivered on time, contractors not showing up. there’s been delays on loans and then that delays everything else and it costs more because you have money going out in other spaces. So, just being

  prepared to bob and weave with whatever life kind of throws you up, throws at you when you’re in this business. Don’t get stuck in the problem, just keep going forward and you’ll find your way out.

  Michelle Kesil (07:43)
  Yeah, and how did you resolve your problems? you just doing trial and error? Have you done mentorship? How did you learn all of this?

  Jessica Sinski (07:54)
  I’ve had a mentor before. I do a lot of networking. So I go to the local real estate investor meetups in the area. If I’m not familiar with something, I’m asking questions. I’m not just sitting there pondering or in my own mind. I kind of get out into the community and I ask others. For instance, I just recently had a new client come up and they wanted commercial.

  Commercial is not my expertise, but it’s Elise and I do know the business that he’s looking at and running. I know what his clientele would be and so I feel like I could help him in that area. But it’s definitely a new area for finding commercial for a client. So I went out to a couple of real estate meetings and I started asking around, hey, does anyone know of any commercial spaces that would work for this?

  And I got introduced to a bunch of different options and ended up finding him something. So definitely networking has helped me the most. It’s not just one mentor. It’s kind of like a community of collaboration.

  Michelle Kesil (09:00)
  Yeah, definitely networking is so helpful in this industry. Do you have any like networking tips or strategies for people?

  Jessica Sinski (09:05)
  Mm-hmm.

  don’t be scared. Just go out there and you’re going to get stuff wrong and it’s okay. but don’t be shy. Like just go out there and do it. The most important thing is that you’re doing it. you may fail along the way, but there’s always a solution to that and being able to be the problem solver in whatever you’re doing is going to be most helpful.

  So you might not know all the answers to the problem, but you can go out and find them by being present and asking questions and just asking. People want to help.

  Michelle Kesil (10:21)
  Definitely. And what would you say you’re most focusing on solving or scaling to next in your business?

  Jessica Sinski (10:29)
  So right now I’m refinancing my portfolio and I’m going to be pulling out cash from that that I’ve built up through my equity and then I’ll be building an ADU unit in the back of one of mine to one of my properties to have more income generated.

  Michelle Kesil (10:47)
  Awesome, and what does that process look like?

  Jessica Sinski (10:50)
  So just going to a local lender and these are mostly rental properties so getting DSCR loans and pulling out the cash that I’ve built up in equity from those. Once I have enough cash then I have to go to the city, get permits and I’ve already gotten a clear kind of zoning for building an AD unit so I don’t need to do that per se.

  but getting permits approved, finding the right builder that I want to utilize that won’t walk off the job on me or something like that. And then having the plans in place to get it built and once it’s built then renting it out. And then I would also refinance that property again to put it into a single loan and be able to pull it out once you.

  have an ADU unit on it, obviously the value of the property goes up. Usually about $100,000 or so, it depends on what you build. then you can refinance that, if it’s a full rental property, can refinance that into another DSCR loan and pull your money out of that.

  Michelle Kesil (12:04)
  Yeah, amazing. Sounds like a great opportunity.

  Jessica Sinski (12:07)
  No.

  Michelle Kesil (12:09)
  What advice would you give to newer investors or those looking to get started?

  Jessica Sinski (12:16)
  I would find those real estate meetings in your area, but don’t get stuck in the analysis paralysis. I find a lot of newbies, they’re so into learning, but just pick one avenue and apply it. So don’t just continuously learn, learn, learn, learn, learn, and then you find something that you think you find something and then you’re just overanalyzing it. The people that make the money are

  doing stuff. They’re not stuck. They’re going no matter if they’re right, they’re wrong. They’re still going and they’re pushing through.

  Michelle Kesil (12:51)
  Absolutely. And what do some of those like action steps look like?

  Jessica Sinski (12:55)
  I would say to find like one of like a network meeting in your area. Facebook is a great avenue. Anywhere on social media. If you’re looking up hashtags or stuff like that. I know in the Charlotte area there’s probably about 50 meetings a month. So there’s probably one like every day where you can meet up with another real estate professional and have those conversations about real estate.

  And then once you start to learn some of the methods of buying or selling or so forth, then going on to apply it. going out, looking at properties, looking at numbers, making sure that like you’re utilizing the stuff that you’re learning. And then from there, hopefully you buy something.

  Michelle Kesil (14:21)
  Yeah, amazing. How do you get your leads for the right real estate to invest in?

  Jessica Sinski (14:28)
  I would say I’ve been in this business so long that really everything just comes to me. My sphere of influence is large. I have a pretty big following and people reach out to me all the time for like investment properties per se. I have a lot of wholesalers. I’ve even had

  clients that just come to me and they’re in a problem and I’m able to solve their problem and maybe that’s buying their property, maybe it’s selling it for them, it just depends on what their situation is. But I would say my sphere of influence and then social media.

  Michelle Kesil (15:04)
  Awesome. And what are you looking forward to as far as any goals that you have for this upcoming year?

  Jessica Sinski (15:12)
  just right now, I would say the goal is to build an ADE unit, add additional income to my portfolio. and then,

  you know, just stabilizing the portfolio after I do that, I would be looking to buy more properties. So.

  Michelle Kesil (15:29)
  Yeah, awesome. What would you, because I know that you’re also like an agent and a property manager. Do you want to share about those lines of business?

  Jessica Sinski (15:39)
  Sure.

  So I’ve worked as an agent. I’ve been licensed as an agent since 2015. I’ve done all different types of things in the agency, retail world. I originally started as a assistant. And so I took the real estate class, but I was still in college. So I just needed a job. And so I started as an assistant.

  and I was assisting an agent do their foreclosures. So I worked at a big foreclosure firm. From there, I became her right-hand person, she would say, and I ran the division as director of sales then after that. So I worked there for about five years, finished college during that time. And then from there,

  I moved to a new company and I worked with another agent and I was doing all their hedge fund purchases. So I helped their hedge fund purchase about 30 homes a month. Over the years, I’ve probably been involved in about over 750 transactions from start to finish, mostly on the seller side of things.

  but also on the buyer side when the hedge fund stuff came in. So I have experience on both sides for the retail world. I know how investors work and I know how different scenarios work, whether it be estates, divorce, foreclosure, pre-foreclosure, short sales, I’ve done it all. And then on the property management side, when…

  ⁓ Sales started to slow down a little bit. I stepped into more of property manager role. And so we manage about that many homes all the way from like Winston Salem area down to like Lancaster, South Carolina. And most of ours are in Charlotte, the Charlotte or surrounding areas. But we have a large clientele. So we manage those homes.

  And yeah, I think that sums it up pretty much.

  Michelle Kesil (17:39)
  Awesome. Thank you for sharing all of that. Yeah, sounds like you’ve been really involved in real estate in all areas. What would you say has been like one of the main lessons that you’ve learned?

  Jessica Sinski (17:55)
  big main lessons for the real estate world. You gotta do your due diligence before you buy. So sellers will say one thing, people forget things, and you just gotta, you gotta like look at every house as like it’s a blank surface and do your own due diligence, find the answers.

  don’t expect people to give you the answers on the physical house. And then on the other side, buyers say they don’t know stuff, but they know stuff too. And you gotta make sure that the transaction kind of flows and goes smoothly. And sometimes people need a little handholding when they’re making those decisions. So just being patient with them.

  And giving them all the right answers or all the answers that they would need maybe even the questions that they’re not sure that they needed to ask you give those to them as well and On the property management side, I would say like Definitely screen your tenants. Like there’s been a ton of fraud we found people submitting

  fraudulent IDs and then their credit comes back good and we uncovered like a whole scheme kind of thing and we’ve been able to screen people better and make sure our evictions are low. So and then we’re getting the the landlord’s their money every month.

  Michelle Kesil (19:27)
  Yeah, definitely that’s important. Thank you for sharing. Well, before we wrap up here, if someone wants to reach out, connect, learn more, where can people find you and connect with you?

  Jessica Sinski (19:37)
  I can be found on Instagram very easily. My Instagram is Miss Jessica, but it’s spelled mszjessica J E S S I C A. if you wanted to call me, my phone number is (980)365-3575. or my website is carolinapropertypro.com. ⁓ you can submit something through there. Look up a little bit more about me. ⁓ or.

  My email address is jessica at carolinaresidentialgroup.com as well. any of those methods.

  Michelle Kesil (20:10)
  Perfect, well, appreciate your time and your story. Thank you for being here.

  Jessica Sinski (20:13)
  Of course. I was glad to share some of my insights and my journey along the way and hopefully I get to share or talk with others about theirs.

  Michelle Kesil (20:22)
  Yeah, absolutely, thank you. And for the listeners that are tuning in, if you got value, make sure you’ve subscribed. We’ve got more conversations with operators like Jessica who are building real businesses and we will see you on our next episode.