Aileen: [00:00:00] Thank you, everyone for joining today’s episode of the, How Did They Do It? Real Estate podcast. We are your hosts, Seyla and Aileen and today’s guest is Kelli Garrett. Kelli has been a real estate investor for over 20 years with experience in flipping wholesaling, single family rentals and multifamily rentals.

She is the founder of Garrett Ventures Group, where she invests in cashflow multifamily rentals and operates a flourishing private lending company. Kelli is also a four time all American women’s college basketball player. So we’re really excited to have you on today. Kelli, welcome to the show.

Kelli: [00:00:30] Thank you very much for having me.

Aileen: [00:00:31] So before we get started, could you tell the listeners it’s a little bit more about your background and your business and how you got started in real estate?

Kelli: [00:00:38] Yeah, sure. I came from a small town and easily South Carolina and grew up on a small farm where hard work comes very natural to us all there whereas I was able to do that. And then basketball was my way to get out of the small town and ended up going to the college of Charleston and a D one school. So we ended playing there and just having a good run at that. So I ended up after college basketball ended up going to UPS where I worked for 12 years before I got into investing in real estate or anything like that.

So I kind of left hard work of my hometown. I left hard work of on basketball, and then I took that and I took it to another place that requires you to work hard and that was UPS or United Parcel Service. So it was a great career. I loaded in loaded trucks and I drove trucks, but I also went management and that’s where I started sharpening my tools of being a good manager.

It’s just a young adult. I ended up moving 11 times since 12 years with them corporately. So I started my real estate career corporately, if you will. So there’s a lot of moving and appreciate the time with them. It was a big decision for me to leave, but the best decision for me to leave. And get started on my own little path in life, working for myself.

So it was a tough decision because I was making a lot of money at the time as a young person. And then after that, I ended up starting in real estate and starting about my first business. You’ll learn a little bit about me. I just don’t do real estate. I’ve learned that you need to not have all your eggs in one basket.

So I have multiple steams of income. And I opened a business that did mortgages and taxes and investments. So was able to use that information early on to start my real estate career, because the two top things that a real estate person needs are money and contractors. If you’re going to flip, I had the money cause I had the mortgage business.

So that kind of started me in my life as a young person. I left UPS in 2000 and started my real estate career and in January of 2000.

Seyla: [00:02:40] Awesome. Thank you, Kelli, for sharing that information, can you walk us through the steps needed to obtain private lending with your company and how you started your company?

Kelli: [00:02:49] Yeah, obviously I just told you I had a mortgage company, a conventional mortgage company, where if you guys are buying your first home or a home, you come in and get your rates just like you would have at a bank. And now, fortunately, my career is. Got a little longer on 52. So I was able to take some personal money and now I lend it out to other rehabbers.

So we do really the steps needed to get private lending. Yes, our company is called rehab wallet.com. Just like it sounds rehab, wallet.com. You go there, you fill out your application. So if you’re looking for a fix and flip home that you’re coming in and needing short-term funds. We do very quick funding and, and two weeks I’ve had it done in less than we’ve actually funded alone last week and four days.

So we can do really fast funding and a little higher interest rate, but that’s what it takes. Cause we’re not asking anything about you. We don’t care about your credit score. We care about the asset. So the asset itself needs to be 70% value or less for us to lend on. You can be first time investor, or you can have been, have already fixed it.

You flip 20 homes by now. It doesn’t matter. We’ll look as long as the asset is something that we like and look at it.

Then we also do those bridge loans as well.

Aileen: [00:04:36] So as the bridge loans, primarily just for the fix and flips or for other asset classes as well.

Kelli: [00:04:40] it could be for any asset class.

Seyla: [00:04:43] And you mentioned about 30 days. So for the bridge loan, if someone is working in multifamily space, if they need a bridge loan for their asset, is 30 days the limit?, or is there any other terms and conditions?

Kelli: [00:04:56] We look at all kinds of different terms. Typically, a bridge loan will be in and out very fast. We lack our money back in within six months, we do six to nine months, excuse me, one to 12, one to nine months as well. So we liked the money coming back in and of course, think about it as a business. We just want the money back in so we can go back and loan it out again.

And we just found that nine months is plenty for a fix and flipper. Plenty for a bridge loan and it’s there for you. And we’re able to have as much funds as where I’ve worked and teamed up with a multifamily apartment syndication group that is bringing the funds. And then my team lends it out. So we haven’t had a problem.

So there’s two keys to our business. There is that you can be an investor in our fund. So, if you need short term, a place to park your money short term for short term, instead of it sitting in the bank, we pay to those investors a 6% APR, and then that money is used to go over here and lend out to fix and flip or to the bridge loan people.

So in both of those applications are on our website at rehabwallet.com.

Seyla: [00:06:01] So Kelli, could you please elaborate a little bit more about rehab wallet and how the service work?

Kelli: [00:06:06] Yeah. Um, well it has two sides. So the first side would be the investor side where, whereas if you had a hundred thousand dollars in a checking account and you’re wanting to make some short term or a very low risk return on your money, you can come in as an investor on rehab wallet for 6%.

In, and you’re can actually take the money out and go on vacation and do whatever you need to do. Our loans typically are out four and a half to six months. So it’s very short term. You can make, again, 6% annually on that investment and it gives you a place to park your money, making more interest than in your bank.

So then if you decide that you wanted to keep that there, now your return would be compounded, and you can now loan out 106,000. Let’s say you kept it in there for a year, $106,000. Now your 106 is going out and making 6%. So it’s just a place for Besters can come in and invest.

For that short term, both of those applications are on our website at rehabwallet.com. And you’re welcome to look into that. Fill out the application. It’s very short. It causes an email to come over and then we’ll pick up the phone and go into a little bit more detail if you have any. So

Seyla: [00:08:03] what has been your strategy of scaling up your business?

Kelli: [00:08:07] I think it’s been that I’ve built. I built the business around me with the right staff. As we start out. And again, I had to learn the hard way, but you want to think you can do everything, but then you don’t think you can financially afford to pay someone, but I’ve just learned that you can’t financially afford not to hire somebody that can do the things that you can’t do.

Um, that if I had to say that I just can’t do it alone. And it’s actually you’ll scale faster. You’ll have more fun having a team, but if you’ll build the business just around you, where you’re the business owner and you can work. You’ve heard all the phrases, all of working on your business instead of in your business.

If I have one second. Yes. And for anybody, whether you’re starting out brand new or where you’ve been in a long time, is that you just hire the people around you. And so you can work on the business. You can see scale so much faster that way.

Aileen: [00:08:59] What are some of the qualities that you look for when you’re looking to work with other people?

Kelli: [00:09:04] self-starters can do attitude and, you know, tell you a quick story.

I told you I played basketball and basketball is a big deal in my life for a long time. Fortunately, I had a talent, I was good at it. I have to work. I continue to stay involved with the women’s team at the college of Charleston and go to all their games and that kind of thing. So. I wouldn’t, I would go to the games I would watch.

I would watch the teammates. I’d watch how the younger people were doing it. Yeah. At the time. So I was, I had my eyes on one person because she, as she never got in the game, she was one of those players that maybe got in that last 30 seconds or 60 seconds of the game, but hardly ever played. But she was the first one off the bench when players would come off the floor High-fiving. Tell him great job. She was just so dealt with college spirit. She just had so much spirit within her hard worker. So I called the college coach and I called and asked, tell me a little bit about her. She was a senior. Tell me a little bit about her. So she said she had a finance degree, which I didn’t even know which worked.

Okay. I hired her only because of her, I guess, her sideline spirit and her sideline activities and how she was with other teammates while she was getting no playing time. So the kind of stuff that I look for is somebody like that. I hired her in my mortgage company back in 2000 and maybe four or five.

She became our top loan officer made well into six figures. So she was doing well, it helped the company and we had a lot of fun doing it. So I think constantly looking for talent and, um, and looking for people that you really want in your team. So you can have fun along the way. Oh, that’s great.

Aileen: [00:10:41] And then if we can go back a little bit, you said you found a partner who brings in some of the funds to support in your lending business as well that you can invest with as well.

How did you find that partner and how did you know it was a good fit for you then?

Kelli: [00:10:55] That’s a great question. His name is Danny Rendazo. I think he’s actually been on your podcast, Danny and his two partners on passive investing.com and it’s an apartment syndication. Danny’s local to Charleston, South Carolina.

I live in Charleston and we were in the same networking groups and I just knew he had something special. And so I kind of just started spend a lot of time with him and he and his wife, my partner and I, and his wife are great friends, but we’ve started building a relationship first. I needed him and to get to know me and I needed to get to know him first.

I think a partnership is like a relationship. And needs to be because we go into partnerships with them business so quickly. And we forget to go out on date. We forget to get to know them a little bit to get to know him and his partners. And it took about three years before I decided I was ready to commit and I had the time to start this.

So I brought it up to him. And, um, then the reasons not just for that was that my phone was ringing for these personal loans. And I was lending my personal money to do them. But as a, as an individual, I didn’t want all my money going toward this lending company and you run out of money in order to do that.

So I tried talking to him and it was a great fit for some of his syndicating investors to part money, short term, as they wait on these larger apartments indications to come around. So we’re just a great fit. I think you got a date datum. I just think you need to date your partners in business. And, and, and spend some time really getting to know them before you, you make the flinch.

That’s what I did.

Seyla: [00:12:29] Kelli. I just want to ask, um, what continues to motivate you to be successful in Real Estate industry?

Kelli: [00:12:36] Really more for me to, at this point in my life to enjoy what I’m doing and to have fun, I’m totally challenged with this new business that we started with rehab wallet. I think it comes from hard work.

I don’t mind working hard. I don’t mind the hours work. I actually need that in my life. But I think it’s more or less just, just being challenged. We all need we’re better when we’re challenged and having those big stretch goals just makes it a little bit more fun or to get out of bed every day to have those business goals that are, are big, big enough, where it can change your life.

And instead of just chopping away at a little number of constantly, we set our goals really big, and if we hit them, it will change our lives. But if we don’t, it’s not that big of a deal, but that big challenge is really what motivates me at this point in my career.

Seyla: [00:13:27] How has Real Estate investing impacted your life so far?

Kelli: [00:13:30] Gosh, it’s, it’s been that platform for me. It’s been that, you know, I’ll go back to sports for a minute. I could have done track. Could have played softball, could have played volleyball, but my dad was the one that said, pick one and get real good at it. And so I’ve really chosen real estate and got real good at it.

And it’s really surfing some of the businesses we’ve picked up to by along the way has rotated around real estate. Well, real estate is the center focus, but where the lending falls back into real estate, I’ve had a mortgage company that we’ve bought and sold and appraisal company we bought and sold.

It’s still revolves around real estate, but it’s just been, it’s impacted my life because real estate can be abusive way. It’s tangible when you can see it and touch it and smell it. I don’t know. I guess I’ve just found that that is my that’s my sport. And I just ended up picking one and trying to get real good at.

Aileen: [00:14:29] Great. And then along the way during your whole entire journey, has there been anything that, that you have learned from your past deals and partnerships that you wish that you knew then that, you know now?

Kelli: [00:14:40] I would say that just to go bigger, sooner, I started out, I started out buying single family houses and I kept them and rented them out.

Well, I tell the story that if you have one single family, one door and they move out, you have no income. To help you pay for that mortgage. But if you have two doors or a duplex and one person moves out, typically that other door will help you pay your mortgage. So I’ve learned that. And I try to, a lot of young people is that start bigger.

Start on the duplex. If numbers worry, you start a little duplex or triplex. Just start with more doors than just that single family it’ll help you scale faster than when you talk, start talking about a hundred unit apartment complex, it won’t feel so, so big that you can’t conceive it. So I decided to start sooner or bigger, faster, find the right staff, maybe that works, but you work well together and date them before you hire them.

Date them before you go into partnership with, and continue to look for those people that have, that can do attitude. Your staff will help you. Along with, to get to your goals and you can help them get toward their goals. Typically they’re there ended up being involved in your real estate business by being an investor or being a, getting involved and getting their own deals.

So it’s interesting. And it’s fun to see them grow as you’re growing too, within your business.

Aileen: [00:16:03] What kind of advice would you give to somebody who is trying to get into that first deal? Whether it be that duplex or that fourplex, they have a mindset that they haven’t overcome yet. And what the advice would you give to them to just go ahead and be confident in what you’re doing?

Kelli: [00:16:18] Yeah. I talk about that a lot. Like taking action and how to teach that or coach that. It’s a tough one. It’s really tough because take an action. Then it goes back to self confidence and then self-confidence, might’ve come back to your upbringing and then your upbringing comes back to your parent. It all, there’s a big, full circle, but I would say you have to surround yourself.

With the people that you want to be like, or show me your friends and show me your future. So what we say, be around who are the five people that you hang around most it’s about Danny, and I’m gonna bring it up again. I’m gonna brag on him. We meet once a week. We go for a walk. We’re not obviously the same person.

We don’t spend time on the phone. We’d rather go and maybe exercise and walk and be outside. And we talk. And when we’re done, while they’re a little talking walk, he gets his car and I go to my car and we go away. And, but we’re constantly talking about business. We’re talking about his goals and my goals.

How can I help you? I just, just got back from a lunch group with about eight investors that we meet every Wednesday. I think it’s just being in the group of people that are likeminded. I know people say that a lot, but it’s such a true statement in growth and stay around them. And those now those people now are your friends.

It doesn’t mean you have to X out all your friends and your family because they are who they are. They might not be, you need to be around every day because they’re not with you on that same train ahead towards your high goals. But I think you gotta be around them a lot during the week so that you’re not feeling like you’re on this Island by yourself.

Seyla: [00:17:51] What tools or techniques that you use to improve the efficiency of your business or personal life?

Kelli: [00:17:57] Say one thing that I do every day, every morning, I write my goals down every morning. I don’t mind the repetitive. But it has proven to me that if I write those same goals down with a pen and a piece of paper and write them down every morning, it has served me.

Well, I’ve also took this up a few years ago and set a dry race by myself. It started writing everything that I do in a day. Okay. So I wanted to see what was it that, that’s causing a clog in my growth. And so started writing down everything that I do in a day. And then. I was able to see that. Okay.

Let’s just say going and get in the mail. Let’s just say that opening the mail up. And, um, how is that serving me? Not real well, it’s not making any money. Next thing was that making me money is the next thing making me money. So then I just started.

Causing me to seem like I’m busy, but it’s not, but I’m not going to the next level. So once I did that, I have to say it changed a lot. And of course you got to find the right person to delegate those things from me. And then it was left with the things. That have allowed me to grow exponentially instead of seeming like I’m busy, I’m tired at night.

Am I doing only those things that are getting me to that next time?

Aileen: [00:19:32] Kelli, what is the next level for you? What is your next focus?

Kelli: [00:19:35] I would have to say my focus is going to go real strong into rehab wallet. Right now it’ll take some, it’ll take some focus and some time to do that. We started in June and we have a goal of being $10 million out by the end of this year and 50 million next year.

So that’s going to take a lot of time putting the right people in place, what it feels like to build. I’m really building business that that can scale. And, I want to put a lot of focus. A lot of focus with that. Again, we have those three legs of our business. The lending is a big focus point right now, the passive income and the cashflow.

I’m constantly looking for deals. Maybe that I, that I’m not taking down on my own, but I will invest them. The apartment syndications as a passive leader, I will joint venture with somebody that maybe they’re handling the construction of a bigger project. And I feel just look at our money and be like, okay, where can my dollar bills go and be the best soldiers on the rate of return?

And so that’s where my focus goes constantly on looking at where those dollar bills can. It can do the, make the most interest for me. So that’s what we’re doing right now.

Aileen: [00:20:44] Awesome. Thank you so much. Really enjoyed our conversation today. So if our listeners want to learn a little bit more about you, other than going to the rehab wallet, is there any other places where they can learn more about you?

Kelli: [00:20:55] Yeah. Overall, my main mothership company is called Garrett ventures, group Garrett ventures, group.com. And within there’s a lot about us, about my team, about me. You can get to, you can email me from there. You can write anything you want, so you can learn a little bit of where our money is headed and what we’re doing.

just learning about the different multiple streams of income, because it’s what your interest groups about is multiple streams, instead of it all being in one line of work or one asset column that we’re pleasing multiple strings of income to get us to that next level.

Aileen: [00:21:28] Awesome. Thank you so much for your time, Kelli.

We really enjoyed our conversation today.

Kelli: [00:21:32] Absolutely. Thanks. Y’all thank you for inviting me.