Transform Your Finances: Why Rural Towns Are the Next Investment Goldmine

Brett McCollum (00:01.28)
All right, guys, welcome back to the show. I am your host, Brett McCollum, and I’m here today with Tiffany Glielmi, and today we’re gonna talk about investing in rural towns. Before we do, guys, at Investor Fuel, we help real estate investors, service providers, and real estate entrepreneurs to 2 5x their businesses to allow them to build the businesses they’ve always wanted and allow them to live the lives they’ve always dreamed of. Without further ado, Tiffany, how are you?

Tiffany Glielmi (00:27.362)
Hi Brett, I’m doing well today, how are you?

Brett McCollum (00:30.052)
Doing good, doing good. And you know what I just kind of realized when we’re in the, on my intro right there, did I say your name right, even though we just went over it?

Tiffany Glielmi (00:37.964)
Yes, Tiffany Glee Elmie.

Brett McCollum (00:39.876)
Glee, Elmi, all right, I second guessed it. apologize. Well, we just talked about it too. That’s what’s so funny. before, like we kind of caught up before the show, got to know each other a little bit. I’m genuinely excited to get like kind of go through your story. Got a lot to share. And I’m really genuinely excited about it. But before we get into all the things talking about everything, give us a little bit of history, some background, catch us up to speed. Who’s Tiffany?

Tiffany Glielmi (00:42.894)
It’s a tough one.

Tiffany Glielmi (01:07.118)
Who is Tiffany? Well, right now I am a mom of three and they keep me crazy busy, but they do help in my real estate journey, so that’s really fun. So I was a former teacher. I taught high school for eight years and decided that I wanted to go back to school to be an entrepreneur-ish. So I went and got my master’s degree and opened a gym. So I was a gym owner for a short time.

Brett McCollum (01:35.819)
wow.

Tiffany Glielmi (01:37.12)
Yeah, so I did that right before COVID and then COVID hit and things with that went a little south. But in the meantime, real estate came knocking on my door. yeah, so I had purchased my first single family home with my family and flipped that without knowing I was flipping it. Made some capital on that. Bought my second family home and did the same thing.

had some equity in that and ended up making money on that. And the light bulb went off that, wow, I’m living in an investment and what an opportunity. So from teacher to gym owner and entrepreneur, I then decided that real estate was really kind of something I wanted to learn more about. So having a family of five and house hacking became, although challenging, kind of a part of who I was because I invested with no money.

Brett McCollum (02:30.009)
Right.

Tiffany Glielmi (02:30.798)
Yeah, I had no money. had just left teaching. I had very low credit and I had this opportunity to buy a commercial building and I thought that there was no opportunity or no way that I could do that after I had house hacked some of my own primary residence. And I ended up buying it after five banks told me no. I ended up buying my first commercial building with a banking on business loan, a commercial loan and a Northern tier like a local

a business loan and I got into the property and I got cut back a check of a thousand dollars at closing when I had no money with this, you know, beautiful property that was going to be cash flowing for me instantly. So that was when I kind of got hooked and you know, 24 transactions later, I’m now doing this more full time and helping people as a real estate agent and investor. So I am a real estate agent and I do, I do help other people.

Brett McCollum (03:24.718)
Wow.

Tiffany Glielmi (03:28.846)
on top of investing myself.

Brett McCollum (03:31.64)
Incredible. I love that whole thing. And we’re going to, promise you, we’re going to deep dive all of that. Let’s kind of rewind a little bit though, if we can. So you were a teacher, you did that for eight years. What did you teach with subjects?

Tiffany Glielmi (03:39.502)
Sure. Health and Phys Ed.

Brett McCollum (03:44.485)
hence the gym thing. That makes a lot of sense. Okay. So you did that for eight years. And so we talked a little bit, Frisha, my wife was a teacher, you know, taught English in theater, both in high school as well. And before she came, also same on our end, we have four kids, you know, I like, like, it’s crazy, right? Like, it’s crazy. I get it. What I guess the question I have, because I know her mindset of when she finally came home was more like, you know, just

Tiffany Glielmi (04:02.268)
That’s crazy.

Brett McCollum (04:14.21)
with kids and stuff like that. just, you know, for it was just more of the, the personal side of what she didn’t want to be in the classroom all day. But what kind of led for you? Like, I mean, you’re teaching for eight years. It wasn’t like a fad for you that was coming. Go like what kind of led to the, you know, and I’m really, I kind of ready to try something else. What was going on at that point mentally.

Tiffany Glielmi (04:34.35)
When you decide to start a career when you’re 18, I don’t think you know who you are first and foremost. I think that I was trying to please identity of myself from when I was a kid, being a really good athlete and trying to pour that into other kids. So there’s a little bit of that going on, but then I also realized I was doing the same thing over and over again every day and every week and every year. And do I want to do that for 32 years?

Brett McCollum (04:39.14)
Hmm.

Brett McCollum (04:57.657)
Mm-hmm.

Tiffany Glielmi (05:02.37)
with the walls closing in a little bit. And I also, there’s also a ceiling on earning, right? So you have a really great W-2 job, which allowed me, my husband also is in real estate and is a teacher as well, but his W-2 job allowed me to leverage his income a bit to get some lending. So that was, it’s good, but there was a ceiling on earning and I wanted to earn more and I wanted to have time freedom too. I wanted to be able to do what I want, when I want and how I want. that.

Brett McCollum (05:19.108)
Yeah.

Tiffany Glielmi (05:30.508)
That really is more important to me is the time freedom than actually the money and the ability to continue to earn. But they go hand in hand, so.

Brett McCollum (05:40.185)
Sure, yeah. No, that’s, yeah, so that was kind of our side too, is my wife when she was in college, like we actually met when we were in college and her thing was like, I don’t know what I wanna do necessarily. And it seems like, know, teaching seems like something that I’m good at and it seems like, what are you gonna do kind of thing. And you know, you always need teachers and so it’s kind of like that. So.

Hers is like you said, when you’re young and you don’t really have that clear path of, you don’t know who you want to be when you grow up, so to speak. Yeah, I mean, it was a very similar thing, but this seemed like a logical path to follow kind of thing. yeah, so, okay.

Jim, you mentioned that kind of, it was, it’s, know maybe in the way you said it, maybe I’m reading into it, but it’s kind of, seemed like it was kind of a quick thing. Like what was going on there?

Tiffany Glielmi (06:38.606)
So I joined the gym as a business owner when I was still teaching. So I did a little bit of it part time. And it was, you wow, this is really fun owning my own business. There’s a lot more creativity in this. And so I ended up leaving teaching ultimately and having the gym. So I was in that from 2014 to 2020, but I didn’t own it.

Brett McCollum (06:44.731)
okay.

Brett McCollum (07:04.973)
okay.

Tiffany Glielmi (07:05.518)
I ended up buying out my business partner and owning it and bringing my husband in in 2018. I bought that and that’s when I bought the commercial building as well. So that was my first true invest. So my business was inside my building and that I mean that was huge because you know I ended up having a second LLC and my business paid my second LLC.

Brett McCollum (07:14.847)
great.

Tiffany Glielmi (07:27.884)
so that I could save on taxes. So I was paying income to myself. It was really a beautiful thing. And then my tenants were covering some of the costs. was, it was what propelled me forward. when, I realized that real estate could be, wow, I’m bringing in more income and I have more tax benefits and I’m working less. What? So yeah.

Brett McCollum (07:43.566)
Yeah.

Brett McCollum (07:47.193)
think that’s incredible, actually. Yeah, what a cool way to really because like, that’s really where the entrepreneurial thing like, like, what else is possible out of it, you know, and, and it sounds like that, you know, eventually it leads to, you know, 2020, there’s a lot of shifting to happen for a lot of us, you know, in the real estate space. But what led you to that pivot into real estate full time?

Tiffany Glielmi (07:58.294)
sure.

Tiffany Glielmi (08:14.67)
So I purchased my commercial building. There was actually two buildings, a building lot and apartments upstairs. Purchased a duplex that I lived in then because at that point I’d sold my single family. So I was living in a duplex that I could, you know, around the other side offset the cost of living there and actually had three or four FHA loans in my husband’s name at one time on very little income. So that was really kind of a eye opening.

you know, wow, you can do that. I didn’t know you could do that. But so I was starting to dabble in real estate more. It literally like came on my lap. had somebody reach out to me and say, how about buying this duplex? How about buying this other single family? How about buying this? So it was like people asking me. So it was the universe kind of being like, here’s some opportunity. And then COVID hit. And I just like a light bulb went off that I’m making more money.

My tenants are all working for the hospital. They have secure jobs. They’re all paying me rent. I didn’t lose any rental income and I lost 90 % of my business revenue with my gym in three days. And then I sold, so I decided to sell all my equipment after we decided to close. I sold my equipment and one part of that commercial building and made it made out significantly came out smelling like roses after a really awful situation. And I was like, wow, I made a so much

doing so little on this real estate transaction. I need to do this. I need to learn more. And that’s when I went full time. Yeah.

Brett McCollum (09:45.025)
are. Yeah, incredible. So I had had some quite when you were kind of talking in the beginning, I had had some questions that I was thinking like, because I’m trying to mentally process on. So you house hacked with three kids, you know, you know, a house full. I’m just mentally in my head trying to picture like, how did you talk? Can you talk a little more about that? Because like, I am so like, this is interesting to me. Like, how did you do that?

Tiffany Glielmi (09:58.541)
Yes.

Tiffany Glielmi (10:10.798)
It’s, what are you willing to do to get to where you need to be? And I think that now I don’t have to do that anymore, but we made it fun. So my kids were little and it was an opportunity for my kids to have a new room with each flip and house hack that we did. They got to choose colors and get involved in the process and they tore walls down and it was fun.

Now, was there a missing piece of stability for them? There may have been, but the stability was really in our family and we all had a vision and the vision was, you know, we want to do this. And if we have a family vision, it works really well. I will say they’re middle school age now. It’s a little bit tougher because they, you know, they’re pretty, you know, set in their ways, but yeah, they, we would move. let’s see, we moved seven times in four years. Yeah.

Brett McCollum (11:05.038)
Wow, okay.

Tiffany Glielmi (11:06.766)
And I mean, not everybody would ask me in my community. I mean, my biggest response is always, would you be willing to move over a weekend to make 20 to $40,000 one time? You know, so, you know, to be able to do that. And for a little, for a little time, I was living off of my real estate transactions, not necessarily using it as investing, if that makes sense. Because I had left my teaching job. Yeah.

Brett McCollum (11:29.604)
Sure. Yeah, it makes perfect sense.

Yeah, I mean, yeah, that makes perfect sense actually.

Brett McCollum (11:40.129)
I really, really, really love the family vision. Like, because to me that is, at the end of the day, like, I don’t, and whoever’s listening, I apologize if this comes off a little rough. I don’t care what the outside world says. I care about what my wife and I are in alignment and agreement on. Right? And if we have a vision for our family that we’re in unison on,

not my vision, not her vision, our vision, then we can conquer the world, right? And you don’t, don’t need, I don’t need Tiffany’s blessing. I need to have my wife on board with me, right? And I think I, you know, like, I love that you said that because I think that’s led to a lot of, and I don’t know your more than what we talked about, but I think that.

Tiffany Glielmi (12:21.102)
Absolutely.

Brett McCollum (12:34.57)
And so getting to know you more and like seeing the success journey you’re on. think that’s a massive thing to like, I mean, I would be remiss to not highlight that. And because I think that’s a really beautiful thing that you’ve done is creating like, hey, we have clear vision. You know, I, tend to talk a lot on my show where, you my the way I try to operate in life and businesses from my faith background, you know, and

Tiffany Glielmi (12:49.966)
Thank you.

Brett McCollum (13:02.584)
there’s a biblical principle that is there, you know, without vision, people perish. You know, so it’s important to have vision, you know, and so I love that you’re you’ve done that for your family, because it helps you to that that catalyst of growth, you know, it’s really cool. So thanks for saying that. Yeah, so. All right. So catch me up to speed like today. Like, what does business look like? What are you doing? What is that? What is that all?

Tiffany Glielmi (13:20.257)
Absolutely.

Tiffany Glielmi (13:30.334)
It poured out into my life and allowed me to make decisions on my primary residence, right? So I fell into the white picket fence paradigm is what I call it, where you buy a house that’s a liability that you have to pay for, that has a pool and all the things and just, and my income is now matching my mortgage payment. So working through real estate and doing all of those things, now I’m able to have my assets pay for my

primary residence that’s not necessarily a liability for me anymore. So I’m living in a house that I have equity in still. I bought smart still in my primary residence. Um, and, uh, we flipped a house. And let’s see, we sold it in October was my first higher end flip with tile and quartz countertops, you know, flipped to your area. So you want to make sure that the houses that are selling in your area are going to

match what the designs that you’re doing. So that was fun. And then we bought another one that we that we’re holding on to in October, same day, we bought a second one four houses down, which is cool. Sometimes that happens in our small rural town. And now we have an offer in another one. So we’re trying to so the goal is to scale and to have now that we’re in a position that we don’t have to sell our investments to live off of and we can, you know, we can, we’re doing really well financially, we want to scale and own more rental properties, I absolutely love

being a landlord that provides quality to my area and that takes care of my tenants and they can come to me if they need anything. That brings me joy. It’s a relationship. And sometimes I’ve even mentored some of my tenants. So that is a passion of mine that I’d like to keep going. And of course, helping people buy their primary residence. Rob and I, my husband are actually working on a teacher’s program, teaching teachers how to invest in House Hack.

Brett McCollum (14:58.382)
Love you.

Brett McCollum (15:23.053)
Love that.

Tiffany Glielmi (15:24.406)
Yeah, so we want to teach teachers that there’s another way that you can keep teaching and make more money and invest in a smart way to do what we did and now have a side business that’s going to start creating generational wealth, right?

Brett McCollum (15:41.049)
Don’t you think it’s, I love to like, it’s interesting when, and us too, when we first got into real estate is a, it was a means of like, we have to do something to take care of our family and the, like we have to have to like every, every transaction paid for the next thing kind of thing. And, and that’s, that’s a part of it, you know, like in the beginning, for sure. and in the beginning, it is very focused on us. Right. And our family and that’s important.

Tiffany Glielmi (16:01.836)
this.

Brett McCollum (16:10.542)
But I think it’s a really beautiful thing that like, I’m like, now you’re looking outward and you’re saying, how do I help my fellow teachers, my fellow people? Like, and now you have purpose outside of yourself. And I think that’s really, I think it’s a big thing to identify that like you’ve done, you know, it’s like now I have, it’s not just about me, I have purpose. you’re doing, Tiffany, I think it’s so cool. You know, it’s really great.

Tiffany Glielmi (16:36.684)
Yeah, thank you.

Brett McCollum (16:39.364)
But you kind of touched on it a second ago. then obviously at the top of the show, we said this. So why rural town? Why rural markets? What makes that special? Because if you’ve been on YouTube University or you’ve been on all these things, you jump on all the popular channels or whatever and find a market. It’s got to be a big market because there’s got to be a lot of opportunity. With more opportunity means there’s more buyer activity. With more buyer activity means there’s da-da-da-da-da-da-da.

I like the, I like the alternative side of like, why rule? Let’s talk about that a little bit.

Tiffany Glielmi (17:20.561)
So, is near and dear to my heart because I’m from a rural town. And I think more so what my reflection is in rule is to help rural people understand that they can use real estate as an asset. Not necessarily a big time investor coming in and investing in rural towns, although I still think that they could benefit from that. But I don’t know if there’s enough

understanding of how to invest in real estate or that there’s a very, there’s so many different pathways to get there that you don’t have to have a ton of money. You don’t have to have to be the biggest investor that you can live in a rural town. And if you have the right connections, which most people who live in a rural town have connections, if you, yeah. And there’s, there’s, there’s housing everywhere and everyone always needs housing. So

Brett McCollum (18:05.698)
At least one.

Tiffany Glielmi (18:13.762)
I think a bigger market can be overwhelming and can be overrun, whereas a rural market, there are definitely some local, larger investors, but from a one to five house small investment portfolio, you could really benefit from that in a rural town. that’s, I don’t know if that answered your question, but that is what Kimda Mulbrayne.

Brett McCollum (18:34.446)
Yeah, perfectly. Yeah. And we talked to this pre-show that I obviously have my own convictions on that that align with you as well, right? In the smaller market, they’re often overlooked, which means there’s typically less people focused on trying to grow the community doing that. So what my you know, I really and you know, this real estate is a is a local business, be it you’re in a

in a large market or a small market, it is a local business. Street to street, things change, right? You can have a house that’s worth, you know, making up funny numbers, a hundred thousand on this side of the road and on the exact other side of the road, it’s 200,000. Why? Because it’s a local market. The rural market, in my opinion, goes into speak to, you know, the relationship that you have with people and you’re cultivating more and you create that

connection with people in your serving you know and I can

I to change my mind on this. The higher level you serve people, the direct proportion to income there is too, by the way, right? And so in our markets that we’re local to, you have opportunity for, in my opinion, stronger relationships. Not that you can’t in bigger markets, but in the small market, you have an opportunity to cultivate high level relationships with people. now, like you said, people are beating down your door, Tiffany, and they’re like, I got like…

That doesn’t happen as often in a larger market as it does in a smaller town. They’ve seen Tiffany do stuff. And now opportunity comes and then you serve and then there’s more opportunity. It’s that law of reciprocity. So yeah, it absolutely answered the question because I think it’s a really… It’s not talked about enough. mean, heck, the deals that I sell in small towns are typically, they sell faster, even in today’s market.

Brett McCollum (20:37.316)
and for more money.

Tiffany Glielmi (20:40.11)
One thing I want to touch on also is

Tiffany Glielmi (20:48.526)
I just lost my train of thought. fixing a whole town, a whole street in a rural market. That is really cool.

Brett McCollum (20:54.146)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Tiffany Glielmi (20:59.202)
Like I think that when you come in and you can, you know, there’s four or five properties on a street and you can, you know, fix up this one and fix up that one. And then the whole street has been updated and, know, is, you know, not distressed or, no one’s living there. I think that’s really rewarding. I think that’s really rewarding.

Brett McCollum (21:19.522)
It absolutely is and being able to actually like, cause I think by nature, humans, are designed to give back. Like I think it’s just something inside of us. We have that innate nature to want to bring value to people around us. I think the most miserable people I’ve ever met are the ones that are in isolation that don’t want to anything like, and it’s because of typically some kind of a hurt or something’s happened in their life. But

Tiffany Glielmi (21:31.949)
Yeah.

Brett McCollum (21:48.215)
our innate being, in my opinion, is to give. And having in a smaller town like that where you know your next door neighbors and you know this person or that person and just, hey, you know what, let’s serve each other, the impact is it’s an infinite return at that point. As so long as you’re doing it the right way, transparency exists and you’re doing things, because that’s also the danger of a small town too, right?

like people talk. You got to make sure that you know, you’re doing it.

Tiffany Glielmi (22:20.982)
Yeah, as a real estate agent too, like I owe fiduciary duty to my client, right? So I definitely have to keep that line of communication open and owe duty to them first before I put my interest, right? So that is my number one always at when I practice real estate is to do that. But in a small town, it matters because like you said, it does pour out. But when you’re doing it the right way and you’re, you’re, you’re

serving your community and you have those communication, you’ll be surprised at how people want you to thrive too. Which is really cool, right? So you’re giving them the best case scenario and they’re like, well, how do we both win? And that’s a great thing because then, you know, it’s reciprocal and it’s beautiful for the area and it elevates the area and elevates the people in the area.

Brett McCollum (22:54.325)
of course.

Brett McCollum (23:09.922)
Yeah, it’s up. Any business in my is a people business, right? Like you can’t have business without people like you can’t do virtual business and stuff like that. And there’s still people involved. Real estate, you know, is a it really is. It’s just a local business. People can run it virtually, too. But like being the face of like for lack of a better, like your town being the face of like, you know, you know, when people think of this, they think of you. And it’s like, what? Wait a second.

Tiffany Glielmi (23:17.804)
Yeah.

Brett McCollum (23:39.821)
I was a teacher a few years ago, you know, and today, like people are looking to me for investment advice. People today are looking to me for this advice. Like it’s this weird, like for me, it’s wait, wait, who am I again? Like, this is weird, you know, but that’s the thing about being in that small rural environments, like you have, it just lifts that purpose up inside of you to give back. And I will, just.

Tiffany Glielmi (23:42.465)
You

Brett McCollum (24:06.336)
Everything you’re doing, Tiffany, I just think it’s the coolest and the journey that you guys are on. I’m so glad you’re here with me today talking because I think it’s encouraged so many people.

Tiffany Glielmi (24:19.554)
am very blessed. think, you know, I’m so grateful and I thank God every day and my kids are wonderful and have the opportunities to do, learn about real estate. It really is a great thing to be able to pour out into my community and, you know, and feel the love and give the love.

Brett McCollum (24:39.844)
It’s a, it’s, really is. It’s a, it’s a, you’re leading from a place of giving first. And that’s, know, like the fiduciary responsibility. Yes. There are some legal practices that, know, as a realtor, I say legal, have some state bar requirements that you have to meet from fiduciary responsibility. But I, I’ve known a lot of realtors over the years that, yeah, they have that responsibility and they don’t honor it. Right. I just think if, I think that’s just who you are.

fiduciary or not. And I think that’s what’s leading to the path that you’re on. It’s it’s not about a fiduciary response. It’s just who I am anyway. That’s a really cool thing. So yeah, so tell me this, like help us out a little bit, Tiffany, if people want to reach out, connect with you follow along, because like you’re doing some really like I love this trajectory, you’re moving on. How would they get like, how could they connect to the in some way? What follow you? What would that look like?

Tiffany Glielmi (25:38.072)
So I do have social media. I’m on Instagram, Wealthymama3 is my handle. And I’m on Facebook quite a bit. So Tiffany Glealmy, my name on Facebook. And I do have a Facebook group, not group, Facebook page. My RTG3 properties is my properties Facebook page. But best way to get a hold of me is probably Facebook.

Personal message and then my email rtg3properties at gmail.com is another easy way to get a hold of me. I don’t I try not to Engulf myself into social media. I use it as a tool so I can’t say that I’m bad. I’m best at that I’m always working and growing and I’m not I’m not the best at that I plug more of my energy into my clients and my community than I do into my social media community

Brett McCollum (26:15.716)
Perfect, yeah, and this.

Tiffany Glielmi (26:35.564)
So I would say probably email would be best. And I’m in the future would love to grow my platform on social media. But right now with where I’m at, you know, my time is scarce. So.

Brett McCollum (26:38.628)
There you go.

Brett McCollum (26:47.108)
Yeah, focus on others and the results come right. I love that. It’s still everything you’ve been. It kind of all keeps coming back to that. I love that. But yeah, that’ll be in the show notes, guys, to get ahold of me. And, you know, I know that you’ve got things going on and when you’re able to respond, you can because I encourage you if this is resonating, reach out if nothing else and just, you know, center a little bit of love. I love the show. Yeah, whatever that looks like for you, you know, but follow along because.

Tiffany Glielmi (26:52.718)
you

Brett McCollum (27:15.364)
I promise you guys like that business is going to it’s you’re on the right path, Tiffany. And I, you guys will see that too. So appreciate you being here with us and talking with me today. Um, it was really, really great getting to know you.

Tiffany Glielmi (27:29.656)
Thanks so much, Brett. Hope we get to chat again.

Brett McCollum (27:31.299)
guys we definitely will like this is super cool but guys it’s been really cool again thanks to Tiffany and guys we’ll check you out on the next episode take care everybody