In 3 short years….I went from bankrupt with 3 jobs to Millionaire!
Do NOT enter blindly into the real estate market or any business or market
without knowledge and wisdom. You need to first ask yourself some important
questions. Why are you entering this business and what are your goals?
What do you want at the end of finding and purchasing a property? You must know your
exit and, you should have multiple exit strategies! You need these answers to be
focused, aimed for success, and are able to dedicate the appropriate time to it. No one
is going to launch, build and grow your business like you would. No one else will care
for and love it like a child. It doesn’t happen overnight, so be prepared to spend real
work hours to achieve your goals. It takes mad, focused, dedication! Keep a schedule;
you will only get back what you put in.
There is a difference in knowledge and wisdom; you need both, even if you
leverage others for the wisdom! Wisdom is being intelligent enough to utilize and further
expand your common knowledge beyond schooling or seminars. Wisdom is knowing
you are never done learning. Keep educating yourself. You need more than one trick up
your sleeve to keep up with the ever changing markets.
Make sure when you seek out that mentor/trainer/coach that you are learning from, is
really doing this business, not just talking about it, or talking about when they did it 10
years ago. It has to be relevant and in todays market. Now I won’t deny, the basic
principles remain the same from the The Grandfather Guru to today’s buying methods,
but it’s the little things, the systems, and the technology that gets people stumped and
make them want to give up. So keep current! Be obsessed! Surround
yourself with supportive, like-minded people. “You are what you run with”, as my mama
said, all the years I was growing up!
My name is Dixie Decker, and I have raised over $5 million in private money in
just 3 years while doubling my cash flow over traditional single family rentals. I used
NONE of my own money (I had none) and NONE of my own credit (I had none). My
business runs on auto-pilot. Most importantly, today I collect 206 checks each month in
the mailbox and have over 50 golden geese (houses).
I went ALL-IN. I maxed out working every hour until I could quit the day job, and
knew there was enough potential to succeed! I quit calling it a hobby.
I personally have a history in traditional real estate since my senior year of high
school, but boy oh boy can I tell you how much differently I do business now!
When I was 18, I bought my first house with my perfect credit. I added carpet and
paint. I rented the other 2 rooms to my friends, which meant I didn’t have to pay a dime
for housing during college. I was on an acre of diamonds back then and didn’t even
know it!
After college, I got married, had two beautiful kids, and became a mortgage
broker and a realtor. In 2008 the market crashed in both industries, and I was faced
with a “real desk job” doing accounting. Within two years, my 10-year marriage crashed.
Our fix and flip went back to the bank, and the other one I short sold myself. Along with
the divorce, I filed bankruptcy because of the lurking hundred-thousand dollars’ worth of
credit cards I didn’t know I had that my ex-husband had taken out in my name. I began
3 jobs to stay afloat and I missed spending time with my two girls who I was raising solo
now. I needed freedom and hated not chasing my dreams! It wasn’t long ago I
was going every day to my parents’ house so my girls had a good meal. I was trying to
just pay for the roof over our head and could not borrow money!
BE GRATEFUL FOR THE OBVIOUS; USE OF ALL MY SENSES, ALL MY PERFECT
LIMBS GOD GAVE ME, A HOUSE COVERING MY HEAD, A WONDERFUL AND
LOVING FAMILY, AND THE FREEDOM TO DO ANYTHING I WISH SO LONG AS I
ACCEPT THE CONSEQUENCES
Thank God for two amazing parents! After 2 years in “Corporate America,” I ran
into my middle school best friend, Brandon, and we went to lunch. He explained he
gotten out of the service and was fixing up a house next to campus with a friend. They
filled it with college students who were each renting a room paying $500 each. There
were 4 bedrooms. I immediately knew that was AT LEAST TWICE the normal rent
compared to renting the whole house to just a family. The math worked. I went all in. I
maxed out every hour until I could quit the day job, and knew there was enough there to
succeed! I quit calling it a hobby.
I REALIZED I WASN’T WORKING ON MY DREAMS ANYMORE. I WAS WORKING
ON SOMEONE ELSE’S
Being a leader is seeing opportunity when everything else has crashed around
you and then walking through that door and saying I have arrived, it is my time! ).
I don’t have to steal houses when I buy them because our method provides a
way to pay close to market value and still have cash flow, double, sometimes triple the
average investor’s single family rental cash flow! In fact, we don’t even have to buy
them. I learned we can do the same on houses we lease option from sellers, which
removed all limits on how many we can do.
So how am I the Queen of Cash Flow?
The simple answer is Student Housing. In 2014, after attending my mentor’s live
3 day Quick Start Training Event, we combined his buying methods with our Student
Off-Campus Housing model to create a niche market, collecting multiple checks from
one house, while the neighboring landlords collect one!
With single family houses and we get 2 TO 3 TIMES the average single
family rental rate coming in secured each and every month by multiple tenants and their
parents!! I have the security of the ever growing college students and their parents
signing on the dotted line to make rental payments, and knowing that this market gets
even stronger in a recession. Yes you can do it with duplexes, triplexes and even
apartments, but that isn’t how I started! I buy single family houses amongst the “Big
Whig Investors” that have the apartments near the university.
.
We like to think Student Housing chose us, but basically when we got serious
about real estate, we ended-up finding dumpy houses by our Hometown University. The
problem was we struggled to find “tenant home buyers” for a rent to own program.
Everyone inquiring was college kids or parents wanting to just rent them for the 2-4
years while they attended college, and so… the light bulb went off.
We did a brief research about campus and found almost 70% of the students had
to find a place off campus to live due to the University not having enough housing on
campus available. That 70% netted roughly 18,000 students who needed a home near
campus.
The main question we asked ourselves was, what do students pay to live in the
dorms? You see, parents have been saving the entire student’s life for college. When
we can offer their child a safe, clean place to live that provides more space, a private
bedroom, private bathroom, and saves mom and dad money, it’s an easy sell and
actually you get a waiting list and leases signed for up to 2 years in advance, which
means little to no vacancy! Wow!
We set our room rates just shy of that dorm number while providing a clean, safe
home close to campus, and the calls started coming in. The key for us was to ask the
person calling to find their own friends to share the home with and come back to us to
secure the whole house with one lease.
Here is the cool part, the heartwarming part…
When I got started in real estate I was scared-to-death to have to evict someone;
a family, children, people down on their luck, even around holidays. How could I ever do
this to someone? I heard horror stories of single family income earners and how they’d
lost their job. They would call and beg for a few months to catch up and beg for their
deposit back. It’s all they had left, etc. What about me, the landlord, now I would be
stuck with an additional mortgage, and that scared me because I’ve been broke and
down on my luck, and I couldn’t imagine…. OMG, would I go broke again?
I began to think how I could do this and keep my risk low. The answer was right
in front of me. I just needed more people on the lease. That’s the key, in single family
rentals you don’t get more money by having more people on the lease, but with
students, you get more money for more people! Now I have multiple opportunities to
collect rent. If one kid can’t pay, that’s ok. In order for them to all stay, someone has to
get the missing student’s rent paid!
What happens if a kid drops out of school and mom and dad quit paying rent? It’s
unlikely because the system we use has each student and their parents on the lease.
Plus, we’re flexible in the fact that if someone needs to leave, that’s ok. We build it in for
the students to have the ability to just replace themselves in the group, and we update
the lease!
See how simple that is! (Shhh, I just gave away the biggest secret that makes us
successful in not having any vacancies). You can thank me later.
Here’s the deal, get Rich in the Niche, or add another tool to the tool box. Maybe
you just need this one strategy to make money while your kid’s in school, or maybe
you’re heading off to college and want to make money while getting an education.
That’s what I did.
I bought a house on a contract for deed, rented the extra rooms to friends and
lived rent free!
It also doesn’t matter what the price of the house is, for me but only what my
payment is, because that is the cash flow I care about, the tenants will pay it down to
create my equity! I don’t have to steal houses when I buy them because our method
provides a way to pay close to market value and still have cash flow, double, sometimes
triple the average investor’s single family rental cash flow! In fact, we don’t even have to
buy them. I learned we can do the same on houses we lease option from sellers, which
removed all limits on how many we can do.
During elections, I don’t worry about who got elected or how it will affect my
student housing portfolio. I don’t worry about the next recession. Why? Here’s a
thought…the worse the market gets, the higher the enrollment is. Folks are going back
for higher education and staying in longer. It isn’t just the 18-22 year olds, but up to 26
years old. They all need a place to live with a short commute. Students themselves stay
consistent. How many people do you know getting ready for college, in college, or want
to go back to college? Universities are bringing in new programs and growing the
education side, but not the housing on campus, and if they are, it simply isn’t enough.
The biggest question I get is about parties and damages to the properties?
With the system, we’ve created; it’s fixed before it gets started. Here are a couple of
key ingredients: most students rent houses after the first year, most of the partiers have
dropped out by then and lost the support of the parents. We set the expectations up
front with mom and dad involved as well as the multiple roommates. Human nature says
there is at least one in every group that will almost force a good result and/or fix the
problems internally in the group, because they don’t want to lose their safe place to live.
Funny Story: I had a group of football boys in a house (5 of them), and one day
my 6 foot 5, 300 plus pounds lineman stands before me with the stove door in his hand.
He says, “Please don’t tell my coach! How much to fix it?” I said, “$500 bucks,” and he
bought me a new stove. Boom, done!
Another huge incentive is the security deposit. It’s happily given back upon
departure of returning the place in its move-in state (also saving you work, time, money,
and a quicker turnover). Surprise! They’ll even clean the carpets and hire a cleaning
lady (or mom) before they do their final walk through to depart. They don’t want to leave
college with ruined credit after spending 10’s of thousands of dollars to get the dream
job and parents don’t want their credit ruined either.
Many kids have never shared a room with a brother or sister or another family
member, so they’re used to having privacy, whereas the dorms and the massive
complexes don’t really offer. Our houses give them an option to have that same feeling
they grew up with and parents really want them to have that same feeling.
This is our “long game” of the portfolio or our “hold/keep retirement inventory”.
The mortgage is getting paid down, huge cash flow every month, multiple people
securing it, very little risk, and very little work. It’s a goldmine in the real estate niche. I
have a ton of golden geese spitting off double or triple the cash flow of normal single
family rentals, and that is why student housing pays off.
My own kids ask if we are rich because we don’t have the fancy things. We ask
questions back…which do you think is better 40-50 houses other people are paying the
mortgages on or one house we go visit as a vacation home 5 times a year (assuming it
is not also a vacation rental) or who is paying for that boat payment for you to use it 20
days of the summer, but you pay all year long…which one is worth more in the end?
Which one will gain you retirement…? Is there a balance to life, yes…so the question
and answer lies within you, which do you want…? Entertainment or Investments,
pleasure or security #workhard #playhard
COMMUNICATION is a key factor to being a leader and finding others that can
also communicate. Anytime my business has gotten out of whack it is because
someone has quit communicating, whether it is me or a staff member, that’s the missing
link 9 out of 10 times.
Take advice from those that are where you want to be, having more than you,
make more than you, or are more successful than you. DON’T listen to those who have
never done it and only heard of it. Family members and friends are probably number
one on this list, if they haven’t done it, don’t let them steal your dreams. Stick around
the focused, motivated, successful investors with like minds!
NO ONE CONTROLS ME BUT THOSE I ALLOW TO CONTROL ME BY MY OWN
WEEKNESS OR CHOOSING
Your mindset is the key. It is the key contributor in believing in you and staying
on the rollercoaster when the going gets tough. Don’t doubt yourself and your
knowledge.
As a leader I run my business this way too, as a BUSINESS, I keep the 30
thousand mile view on all the time; I delegate and use the systems I have created. I
maintain a schedule and stay on top of follow up by using communication.
Systems are an important in any business. I learned this working in my dad’s
business, there was a procedure manual for every position. If you could read you could
accomplish 50% of the days tasks if you never worked there before by just simply
reading. I always said it was like opening the back of a pocket watch and all the wheels
turned to make it work perfectly. So long as each system stays in place, things keep
working. Every failed business is short on its systems. This will keep things consistent
and with the ability to duplicable anywhere in the country.
I believe the real estate business is simply being a problem solver for people, not
houses. Don’t quit when you get the first NO, the 3 rd NO, the 10 th NO, just keeping
solving until you succeed. That is usually the difference between me and the next
investor who didn’t get the deal done!
Delegate and manage, delegate and manage, there is only so much you can do,
and find someone who does it better than you! I promise you are not the best at it!
Be a marketer! Key ingredient here! I tell my staff all the time when we write ads,
we are not here to lie to people, however we gotta get them to the house to fall in love.
People don’t even know what they want until they see it and touch it! Emotion
overrides logic!! When was the last time you watched QVC and they said “We haven’t
sold a single watch yet, please call and be the first..?” Heck No, they say “time is
running out, we only have 5 left!” Even if the campaign just started, drive folks to your
homes! Yes spend a dollar to make 10 dollars.
Look at your competitors and other investors as relationships, and learn from
them, work together, I promise they are not competing with you. No one person can
possibly buy it all. Time and money work against us all. Not one of us has unlimited time
that is for sure. Networking and referrals make a huge difference in my success!
REMEMBER I CAN ONY CHANGE MYSELF AND IT IS IMPOSSIBLE TO
CHANGE OTHERS; I CAN ONLY PROVIDE AN OPPORTUNITY FOR OTHER TO
MIMMICK MY ACTIONS
So as far as student housing goes, I again call it another tool in the tool box, one
more powerful exit strategy to create long term wealth. Just do it, go buy your first one
on terms with a lease option or owner financing, maybe rehab one, buy it with private
money, or heck maybe you are that cash person (I never was and made it happen) so
you can too! So what if one house was basically giving you net cash flow of 100-200 per
head instead of per house, what will $500 extra dollars a month does for you? What if
you had two of them…? This niche grows CASH FLOW faster than any other method! It
doesn’t have to be an empire, just get one. #buildanempire
You will not become a millionaire by watching someone else get rich, make the
effort, make a plan, manage the plan. Take action now!
HIT THE GROUND RUNNING WITH ENERGY AND A POSITIVE OUT LOOK
Success is not money or lifestyle, success is what makes you happy, proud and
can be the most important moments that make you speechless. The feeling of success
should make you want to strive for the possible!
NEVER COMPETE WITH OTHERS …COMPETE WITH YOURSELF
My daughters schools mission statement says it perfectly…we should listen to
our little ones sometimes, with their innocence still in place
Be a world changer through kindness and leadership!
