Megan Blythe, a real estate investor, shares her path on how she pursued real estate investing after she listened to Bigger Pockets and read the book, The Money Makeover by Dave Ramsey. Before COVID and the market went insane, Megan acquired her first property and redid the house, almost by herself, after her debt-to-income ratio increased. In this episode, Megan shares the rest of the story of how she progressed in her real estate investing career. If you want to learn more about how she made her astonishing trajectory in real estate, hit that play button and listen to this episode now!
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How Bigger Pockets And Money Makeover Kickstarted Megan Blythe’s Journey Into Real Estate
I’m here with my lovely co-host, Zeona McIntyre, AKA Z Money. Z, how are you doing?
I’m doing great. It’s interesting because at the beginning, when we were first talking, I was talking about this stressful house that I have. We were talking about, I don’t know what that rule is, but it’s like the 80/20 thing where that one house is 80% of your problems. I’m having a little bit of that experience. I’m like, “I might sell his house.”
Anybody in St. Louis looking to buy? Do you want to buy Zeona’s problem house?
I feel like it’s not going to necessarily be a problem for the next person. We have a particular relationship, this house and I.
It’s all bad juju in it. I’ve got a house. I know that there’s been some sewer issues in literally all of my houses. I don’t know how this happens to me. Another sewer issue, it’s going to be a fairly decent expense. It’s all about the big picture. I don’t know. I haven’t gotten all the quotes yet. I suspect it’s going to be between a $10,000, $20,000 expense after you include the digging and putting everything back together. I bought this house for $380,000 back in 2019. It’s worth over $550,000 now. It cashflows between $2,000 and $3,000 a month for me. Does it suck? It’s a year’s worth of cashflow. That’s what real estate is. It will be better forever and it will cashflow me forever more. You’re going to run through problems. It’s helpful to zoom out and look at the big picture and look at all the great things real estate has done for you rather than the just the bad things that hurt. The bad things that hurt you, it’s a lot easier psychologically to dwell on those bad things.
This house has been good to me. We got it for $60,000. It’s worth probably $135,000 now. It has not been a problem house for many years that I owned it. It’s only had a little hiccup lately, but I’ll forgive it. It’s a great house.
Speaking of great houses and forgiveness, this show is Megan Blythe. Megan is an amazing realtor here on The FI Team. She helps house hack. She helps residentials. She helps you buy and sell homes, all that good stuff. She’s good. Her story is super inspirational, too. Read until the end as she drops a bomb on me at the end, which is exciting.
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Megan Blythe, welcome to the show. How are you doing?
I’m doing good, Craig. I’m happy to be here.
We are happy to have you here. One of our best house hacking agents on The FI Team. We’re super excited to get to dig in and know your story and where it all came from. Why don’t you tell us where it all started and how you first heard about financial independence?
I lived in Alaska for a while. I don’t know if I’ve ever told you that. From 2015 to 2017, I lived in Alaska. I moved there when I became a flight attendant. At that time, I was pretty broke. I had just graduated college. I was making $20,000 a year. When you first become a flight attendant, you make no money. I was pretty much living paycheck to paycheck. I had financed a car. I had some credit card debt. I was not super great financially. It was wearing on me essentially. I had a friend one day and I went to her house and she had a copy of Dave Ramsey’s The Total Money Makeover. I picked it up and she’s like, “You should borrow this.”
I read it and I was like, “I can get out of debt. That’s cool.” That same friend, her and her partner have several Airbnbs. They didn’t yet, but her partner had investment properties. After I read The Total Money Makeover, I started becoming interested in financial stuff, finance books. He told me, “There’s this podcast called BiggerPockets. You should start listening to it if you’re interested in financial stuff or real estate.” Once I started listening to BiggerPockets is how I found out about financial independence.
I’m curious as to why Alaska. Also, why did you decide to become a flight attendant?
I decided to become a flight attendant because I graduated college and I was going to pursue a PhD in Psychology. Once I graduated and I started talking with my professors about higher education, I realized I was looking at another 4 to 7 years in school and a couple hundred thousand dollars in student loans. I wanted something to do and I wanted to travel. I became a flight attendant.
Doesn’t it suck to have gone to college for four years and get all that debt and then become a flight attendant at a real estate agent, which you didn’t need to go to college for either of those?
I always laugh about that. My degree’s worthless, but I didn’t have any student loans. I was lucky. I worked in college. My parents helped me some. I got scholarships and I graduated with $2,000 in student loans, but I paid that off pretty quickly.
It’d be funny if you still had that.
2015 to 2017, you’re in Alaska. You’re broke. You read Total Money Makeover. From my understanding, Total Money Makeover, frankly, I’ll be honest, I never read it. I jumped right past that one. That’s more about not accumulating debt. It’s like against real estate. How did you make that shift from like, “Debt is bad. Mortgages are bad. I should buy my $500,000 house in cash to getting over the BiggerPockets,” to that one friend?
It so happened that that one friend, her boyfriend or her partner introduced me to BiggerPockets. Once I started to listen to BiggerPockets and hear other people’s perspectives and how other people were doing things, I was like, “Not necessarily debt is bad. Leverage can be a good thing.” The Dave Ramsey book got me in the mindset of like, “You don’t have to live in this rat race paycheck to paycheck, broke like every single other person in the US does mainly.” I did follow his system and I paid off all of my debt in over a year. Once I got there, I felt confident being like, “If I can do this in a year, I can do this real estate investing thing.”
What’s the trajectory between listening to the BiggerPockets podcast and then going, “Now I can do it?” because a lot of people sit in that in between for a while.
I always tell people this especially my clients, for people that don’t know, I’m on Craig’s team and I help people buy house hacks, usually their first investment or their first investment property. The hardest part is getting started because you feel like you don’t know what you’re doing. It’s easy to listen to all these people who’ve done multitude of deals and be like, “They’ve done a whole bunch of deals. They know what they’re doing.” I always tell people, once you start and once you do it and you do it successfully, you have the confidence to do it again and be like, “I did it.” For me, I knew I was going to have to get over the fear and do it. I also had my friend who had introduced me to BiggerPockets who was an investor helping me. My mom is also an investor. That helped as well. My mom’s been in house hacking for like thirteen years before it was cool.
Before Craig made it cool.
Before Brandon made it cool. I can’t take credit. I just wrote the book. Megan, BiggerPockets obviously made that change for you. Your mom I know is a huge inspiration. She’s been house hacking for a long time. It sounds like she still house hack. When did you go ahead and pull that trigger on your first investment?
March of 2020 is when I bought my first investment.
That sounds like great timing.
I got lucky. I bought right as there was hesitation with COVID and people were scared for a while and maybe a period of a month or two before the market went insane. I got a good deal on my first property.
Let’s dig into it, unless, Z, you got something to add.
I was curious, did you have an oh crap moment of like, “This is right when I’m doing my first biggest purchase of my entire life and COVID happens?” Were you worried?
I remember sitting down with my managing broker at the time. I was under contract and things were starting to shut down. I was talking to him and being like, “Am I making a mistake? Should I back out of the deal?” He is like, “Does it work for what you want? Regardless of COVID, is it going to work long-term?” I was like, “Yeah.” He was like, “You should buy it.”
It’s a good thing you took that advice. Why don’t we get into the nitty gritty and the numbers on your for real deal, the deal that makes you the for real investor. Megan, tell us a little bit about the property, where was it, what kind of property it was, what the price was, all the goods, all the deets.
I’ll start out with I learned a hard lesson with my first property. That is if you’re going to transition from being a W-2 to a 1099 employee, buy a property with your W-2 if you can. I was trying to buy my first property after I’d had one year of 1099 income. Obviously, that does not count. It’s limited what I could buy, my purchasing power. I could have gotten a small not house hackable house, or I could have gotten a town home or a condo. I ended up buying this, it’s technically a condo, but it’s weird. They’re like a little fourplex. It’s a little town home. It’s got its own private entrance and stuff. It’s this little town home down in Virginia Village by one of your properties, Craig, when we were neighbors for a little bit. It has two bedrooms, two baths. It’s two stories.
It has a washer and dryer. It’s got an attached garage and a parking space. There’s also a little pool. It’s a nice residential area. It was listed originally for $250,000. This was the hesitation time during COVID. It had also been on the market for a while and it was ugly, brown carpet, popcorn ceilings. It was pretty gross. I came in and I offered $210,000. This seller told me to F off, but after some negotiation I was able to get it for $219,000. I put about $7,000 to $8,000 and remodeled a lot of it. I’m lucky that my mom is a custom home builder. Her and my stepdad helped me with a lot of the labor. She guided me through a lot of the things, but I pretty much redid everything. I put in luxury vinyl plank, I took out all the cabinets, put in new cabinets, new countertops, painted, new base boards, new floors in the bathroom, new vanities
You did all this stuff yourself, you and your mom did this. How did you learn to put in floors and mount cabinets, painting is a little self-explanatory, but paint the right way?
The floors, I hired a contractor to do that. My stepdad was originally going to come and lay my floors for me because he does a lot of flooring and tile for my mom’s builds. It was April of 2020. My parents were like, “We’re not going to travel during COVID.” I was like, “That’s reasonable.” I found a contractor to lay the floors for me and the baseboards. Everything else, I pretty much did myself or with my stepdad. He helped a lot on that stuff, but a lot of the stuff, honestly, YouTube or asking my mom, “How do I do this?”
YouTube university is great.
Tell us about the breakdown. What was the amount that you spent on renovations? What was your mortgage payment? Did you end up getting a roommate? It was two bedrooms. How’d you do that?
I spent about $8,000 total on renovations, the mortgage and HOA. There’s an HOA because it’s a town home. It’s about $1,300 a month. It’s right above $1,300, it’s like $1,325. I did have a roommate. I house hacked. My roommate paid me $850 a month plus utilities. We split the utilities in half. Obviously, that didn’t cover my entire mortgage, but it was enough to help me significantly save a large chunk of money for my next property.
Two questions here. How much did you put down on that property? What were you paying in rent prior to living in this house hack?
I put 5% down on that property. I was paying like $775 a month in rent, renting a room with three other people plus utilities before I bought the house hack.
You’re saving here about $250 a month. Your investment was 5% down. What is that, maybe $10,000, $15,000?
Yeah, it wasn’t that much.
If you think about how quickly you can recoup your down payment back even if it’s just a couple hundred bucks a month, in a few years through the cashflow, you’ve got your investment back. That’s not to even include all the appreciation you’ve got, the tax paydowns and all that stuff. Z, do you have something to add?
If you had done Airbnb, and I don’t know if you ever did do that, but you could have probably lived for free having an Airbnb roommate in the other room. I’m showing people other examples that sometimes people think, “I’m in a house hack. I need to have 4 or 5 bedrooms,” but you can have where you’re paying little rent or you can find ways like when I started Airbnb-ing, I had a one-bedroom apartment and I tried to be out of the apartment as much as possible so that I was living for free. I’m letting people know that you can start small and build up and you could still be as cool as Megan.
That begs the question, Megan, why did you decide to rent it out full time versus Airbnb? Was that not a thought?
It wasn’t a thought. I still fly part-time. I like the comfort of knowing that there’s somebody there watching my personal residence when I’m gone. I don’t know if I was fully equipped to run an Airbnb in a room situation at that point in time. The traditional roommate seemed better. Also, I have never had the ability to have a dog because I’m busy. My roommate had a beautiful golden retriever who I love dearly. That was a huge plus for me.
That’s perfect. There are many different house hack strategies that work for your situation. You don’t need to be living for free in order for it to be a successful house hack. As long as you’re bettering your financial position in the long-term, which clearly you are, it’s a huge win.
Now, that property is a long-term rental. When I moved out, I rented it to my tenant and her boyfriend. I rented it to them under market rent because of their situation. That property will cashflow well for me. It does already.
Can I ask what you get for rent and what you could get for rent?
I have it rent into them at $1,700. They just had a baby. I was helping them out. She was my roommate for almost two years. I know her on a personal level. Market rent is probably right around $1,900 to $2,000 for it.
That’s a good thing about landlords, too. Not all landlords are chummy, trying to get all the money and have all the things. You’re able to help people out, too, which sounds like I’m sure it fulfills your soul.
It’s probably appreciated a ton because of COVID. Where are you at with that at this point?
Last time I checked, and it’s been a while, there were some units selling for around $300,000 in that comp bonus. Mine has been completely updated. The water heater broke three months after I moved in. I’ve replaced the furnace and the AC. Everything in that place is new.
You have probably $100,000 of appreciation. It sounds like you probably put maybe $20,000 into it. $80,000 of net appreciation. That’s just in two years. It’s huge. You gave $10,000 as part of a down payment in order to get $80,000 in two years. Anyone would do that.
That’s the power of leverage. Where else would I be able to invest my $10,000 and get that much of a return in two years? Nowhere.
That's the power of leverage. Where else would you be able to invest your $10,000 and get that much of a return in two years? Nowhere. Share on XYou’ve been there for two years. Now we’re looking at early 2022. What happens next?
I bought another property. This property’s a little different. It’s a single-family home. It’s a ranch style with a basement that is separate that has a lock off. I live in the top story with a roommate. I Airbnb the basement.
Tell us a little bit about this one. What area, what are the numbers, and how much you pay for it, down payment, all the goodies.
This one is in South Westminster. It’s four beds, two baths. It’s just under 2,000 square feet. It was listed at $469,000. I got it at $480,000 because I was able to offer good terms to the seller. I put 3.5% down. I bought my interest rate down when I bought it. My mortgage is about $2,540 each month.
What was your reasoning behind buying your interest rate down? I usually don’t recommend that to people.
Part of it was debt to income ratio was getting a little high for me. Also, I was at the turning of the tides with the interest rates going up. I locked in a low interest rate. It’s a 3.5%. I’m happy with that. I don’t know if I’ll ever want to refinance at this point, unless it makes sense.
I feel that on a lot of different properties, too. I know you’re a licensed real estate agent. I’m curious as to how that has helped you maybe buy this first or second property, or has it helped you at all?
It definitely has. I was able to get this property because I was writing many offers over the last few years for all my clients and seeing what sellers were interested in and what was making things go under contract in the crazy sellers’ market. I was able to use that to my advantage. I got pre-approved and pre-underwritten so that I could close in two weeks, which essentially gives you the ability to compete with cash. Also, because I offered the seller a 30-day rent back. That’s how I was able to get this house, even though there were offers that were $50,000 more than mine.
Were you able to leverage your commission at all for that?
Yeah, I still got a commission on this house, but I did take a reduction of $5,000.
In competitive markets, it’s helpful to become a real estate agent. Not only that, but if you’re putting 3.5% down and you get a 2.8% commission back to you, you’re effectively putting down 0.7%, which makes your return scale so much higher because you’re getting that money back at closing. People ask me a lot, do I think you should get your real estate license as a real estate investor?
I would say like, “If you were looking to systematically obtain financial freedom in 3 to 5 years and buy a couple properties each year, it makes a lot of sense because you can make a lot of money, help some friends buy some house, and make it a little bit of a side hustle if you don’t want to make it your full thing. However, if you want to be a true real estate investor where you’re raising money and finding deals and getting off market stuff, then it may not make as much sense because your focus should be on getting deals and raising money.” That’s always my tidbit on whether you get your real estate license or not.
I tell people the same thing, essentially you need to do at least 1 or 2 deals a year to pay for your license because there are fees. If you’re going to be buying properties consistently in the market, it’s definitely an advantage. It also gives you the ability to learn about your market and know it well.
You need to do at least one or two deals a year to pay for your license because there are fees. But if you're buying properties consistently in the market, it's an advantage. It also gives you the ability to learn about your market and know it very… Share on XAccess to the MLS, you can write offers at 10:00 PM. You can go see houses whenever you want. That’s beneficial, too.
I want to tell a quick story about going to see a house whenever you want. We were out paddle boarding and I’m like a psycho, whenever I see a house with a for sale sign, I’m like, “I’m curious.” We were coming back from paddle boarding. We were parked on the side of the road in this neighborhood that had the lake. We saw this for sale sign and it had a view of the lake. I was like, “What do you think it’s worth?” When I got back to the car, we had a bet going and then it was for sale. We decided to go in and see it. It’s awesome to have keys to the city where you can literally walk in to any home in five minutes notice often. I do love that.
I thought you were going to say that you had to go to the bathroom really bad, so you go to their house to use their bathroom and come up.
That would’ve been hilarious.
I have never done that, but I have almost done that before.
You would say that, Craig.
Would that be illegal? Megan knows. It wouldn’t be. You’re allowed to be in the house.
I feel like since COVID, using the bathroom in a house has been frowned upon.
I do it all the time.
Before COVID, I didn’t think it was that big of a deal, but once COVID happened, people were like, “Do not use bathroom. Do not touch anything during showing.” I feel like it’s become taboo.
Let’s get back to that second property. We bought it for $480,000. You put 3.5% down. That’s effectively about $15,000 of down payment, maybe $20,000 after you include closing costs and all that good stuff. Your mortgage payment is roughly $2,500. What are you renting out the other bedroom upstairs for? What are you renting out the downstairs for Airbnb? Rough estimate.
My roommate pays $850 and then the Airbnb has been grossing around $3,000 to $4,000 a month.
That’s your cashflow of money right now, but it’s been summertime. In Denver, summers are like, “Wooo,” and winters are a little more, I wouldn’t say feast or famine. You’d probably be close to break even in the winter, at least that’s my experience. Z, you’re the expert. Tell us.
I’m poking the bear. I know she already told us that she likes to have somebody watching her property, but I’m like, “Megan, you are the perfect person to do Airbnb because you are a flight attendant. You could literally live alone whenever you want and then you could rent your whole place when you’re flying,” which is probably not that option, and then live for free.
Truthfully, on a regular basis with flying, I’m probably only gone 3 or 4 nights a month. I do travel for pleasure a lot. I am gone because I like to go on vacations. When it comes to flying for work, I pretty much fly my minimum needed to keep my health insurance. That’s for me about 3 or 4 nights a month. I don’t know if you guys know, South Westminster’s in the process of coming up with Airbnb laws right now. I went to a listening session with the city. It’s going to be okay. From what they were saying, they seem pretty receptive to feedback. They also know that they are going to require permits. They’re going to regulate some things, but it sounds like they’re going to allow Airbnb without a primary residence requirement. It’ll be okay. I’m trying to figure out what I’m going to do with this property long-term, as far as Airbnb.
It seems like I like about your property, Megan is because I obviously know Denver quite well. I can have this picture in my head by your description. It sounds like you probably have multiple exit strategies with this one. Z told you one where you could Airbnb potentially both units, you could rent out both units, you could do rent by the room. There are many different options. I’m sure maybe one cashflow’s better than the other, but as long as all of them cashflow and not making you negative each month, no matter what happens, you could do something great. Is that a reason why you bought a property like that?
This one, it made sense. Rent by the room. If I rented all the rooms for let’s say even conservatively $750 a month, which is a pretty reasonable room rent here in Denver, it would still make me money. If I rented it out as a whole house, it would still cover the mortgage. If I have it as an Airbnb the entire house, I’d make all the money with it. It can go either way. I’m trying to figure out exactly how involved I want to be. Obviously with Airbnbs, unless you hire a property management company, there’s a little more involvement. I’m fine with it right now. We’ll see how I feel over the long-term when I’m no longer living in the property.
Another thing you’ll find too is that over time, rents are going to rise and your mortgage payments is relatively the same. Your options become more and more as rents rise and your mortgage payment starts the same. Also, different unique strategies come out as well. One thing that I’ve been digging is doing the Airbnb arbitrage, but being on the other side of it. I’m the landlord renting for somebody at a premium. They run an Airbnb out of it. They manage it. I save on management fees and they get a premium on rent. It’s not as much as if I were Airbnb-ing myself, but it’s still good cashflow.
I wanted to hear a comparison of the two properties now. Going forward, I assume you’re already starting to think about maybe getting something later. Do you like this big single-family home model a little bit better than the other one? Are you enjoying doing Airbnb as part of your strategy?
I do enjoy being an Airbnb host. I like designing everything and making it aesthetically pleasing and that kind of stuff for all my guests. Having a nice place to stay for people, I enjoy. I would be happy doing that on a larger scale. As far as management goes, the long-term rental is a lot less involved. My next property will probably be something out of state that’s a long-term rental or maybe an Airbnb. It depends. I don’t know how much longer I want to house hack, to be honest. Don’t get me wrong. House hacking is great. I also lived roommates for many years.
That’s what you do, Megan. That’s your life. You’re used to it. I totally get it.
I wanted to know before we finish up this property, what did you spend on furniture? How did that experience go for you?
I spent over $4,000 for everything. It’s a two, one. I’ve been told that that’s pretty inexpensive. Since I gave the seller a 30-day rent back, I had this period of a month where I was able to look for things secondhand. I accumulate things in preparation instead of having to get everything done within a short period of time. I was able to find a lot of nice pieces, all modern, west film style furniture stuff for pretty inexpensive second hand. That saved me a lot of money.
Accumulate things in preparation instead of having to get everything done within a very short time to find a lot of really nice second-hand furniture stuff that's pretty inexpensive. That saves a lot of money. Share on XMegan, what’s next for you? You mentioned out-of-state rental.
Probably my next move is an out-of-state rental in maybe a year or so. It depends on the timing. Craig, I haven’t told you this yet, but I’m probably going to leave Denver in the next year or two and move back to the mountains.
Dropping bombs.
She gave us some news.
That’s good, because that’s back home for you.
It’s something I’ve thought on for a while. I’m like, “Denver’s great, but I’ve been here several years. I’m ready to go back to small town life.”
It’s funny because her Instagram is @MeganInTheMTNS. She got to go back to those mountains.
That’s a big change. Denver’s obviously super different market. You’re going back home. Do you think you’ll continue to be a flight attendant? An airport is far. Are you going to continue to be a real estate agent?
Those are all questions that I’m going over right now. I still haven’t landed on exactly where I’m going. I will say I’m not going to go back to Durango, which is where I’m from. It’s way too remote. It’s also a small town and I haven’t been gone that long. Even if I go to Silverthorne or Breckenridge, it’s not that far away. I could probably still do both things as being an agent and a flight attendant and probably still do deals in Denver if I wanted to. We’ll see what that change looks like. I don’t know exactly what it’s going to be like yet.
This is no longer bad news for Craig. Craig’s like, “I could open a new market.”
Megan, are you interested in joining a Silverthorne market? That would be awesome. We get people for sure looking in Silverthorne and Breck. We always end up sending them away. That would be good. Anyway, this is turning into a regular old chat now, which is great. Megan, to recap your story and show where you come from, you’re living in Alaska, broke as heck, flight attendant, not a lot of student loan debt, which is good, but making $20,000 a year. Your friend’s boyfriend changes your life. You’ve found BiggerPockets and Dave Ramsey. You start house hacking. You get your real estate license. Now, greater passengers are ahead.
I will say though I did get my real estate license before I bought my first property.
That’s interesting. Did you represent yourself on the first property then?
I did. It was my first buyer deal.
What would you recommend people do that?
It was good. I honestly feel like I took the seller for a ride. If he would’ve held on another month or two, he probably would’ve gotten way more money for that property because of what happened with COVID. I got it way under list. He also bought me a two-year home warranty. Fun fact, my furnace and my AC broke about three weeks after that home warranty expired. That was great.
That’s the worst.
That’s always how it works. If you didn’t buy the home warranty, it literally would’ve died three weeks after you moved in. It happens every time.
That’s how that went, but it’s a good learning experience for me. It put me in the position to be able to like help my clients more because I’d gone through it.
Megan, before we head into our Final Four, are there any other parting words of wisdom that you want to say to everybody?
If you’re on the fence about jumping into real estate or your first investment, do it. It doesn’t have to be perfect. I know you tell people that too, Craig. People get so hung up on, “It’s got to be the perfect deal. I have to get the best deal.” Get a deal that works and do it.
Where people get that from is they’re listening to BiggerPockets and maybe other podcasts and they put so much emphasis on the numbers. The numbers are important, but they’re more important in a traditional investment. Listen to what strategy they’re doing. If you’re doing a traditional buy and hold or a flip or a BRRRR, the numbers are much more important because you need to refinance it out. When you’re doing a buy hold, you’re going to hold this thing for 10 or 20 years. I’ll be damned if that thing’s not worth at least 50% more in 10 or 20 years. A lot less risk when you’re holding for long-term. Let’s get into the Final Four. Z, kick us off.
Megan, what are you reading right now? Since your whole journey started with a book.
I read multiple books at the same time. I don’t know if that’s weird. I’m about 70% of the way through The Obesity Code by Dr. Jason Fung, which is interesting. I’m also freshly into Published by Chandler Bolt. I’m reading those two right now.
Are you thinking about writing a book?
Craig and I have already wrote a book.
Did you guys write the How to Buy A Home in Denver?
You can get it on Amazon for as cheap as it possibly comes. You can get it free on our website, TheFITeam.com.
It’s great little handy guide if you’re looking to buy in Denver Metro area or Front Range. I am going to write another book. I don’t want to expose what it is here right now. I have been pondering it for a while. After writing the book with Craig, I realized I could do it.
I’m excited to see it come out. Megan, what is the best piece of advice you’ve ever received?
There’s this quote and I’ve heard other people say it, it doesn’t matter how slow you’re going, just keep going. Don’t worry about what other people are doing. Keep doing what you need to do, even if it’s not as fast as a pace as you want it to be or even if you don’t think you are as successful as you want to be. Go slowly.
It doesn't matter how slow you're going; don't worry about what other people are doing. Keep doing what you need to do, even if it's not as fast as a pace as you want it to be or even if you don't think you are successful as you want to be. Just… Share on X“Comparison is a thief of joy.” That is the best quote ever, because you can compare yourself to other people that are doing better than you, or you think they’re doing better than you, but you’re not seeing their whole picture. You’re not seeing the sacrifice that they did. You’re not seeing their personal life, their health, their family life. Don’t think because someone’s successful in business, it’s easily comparable because you can see it and it feels like a scoreboard that other aspects of life aren’t fault and you’re a lot better and those aspects. Everyone’s on their own journey. Compare yourself to yourself every year. Make sure that you were better than you were and then you’ll be okay. That’s my words of advice from that.
I’m on the same page. I’m like, “I want to get better. I want to grow as a person, but I don’t need to be compared to someone else.” That was a good advice that was given to me.
Thanks for sharing, Megan.
Question number three, what is your why?
My why is because I eventually want to have a family and I want to be around to spend time with my kids. My mom’s an entrepreneur. She’s successful. At the expense of that, she was busy when I was a kid. I never went without anything I ever wanted, but there were times where I wish I had more time with her, but she was busy building businesses. I want to be the mom that can pick their kid up every day from school and like drop them off and spend time with them.
Megan, do mermaids have live babies or lay eggs?
They would lay eggs because they have a fishtail. Essentially, I would’ve imagine that you would have the reproductive organs of a fish in your lower half.
Probably. They would be sparkly, shiny eggs. Unicorns or something.
Megan, where could people find out more about you?
My Instagram is @MeganInTheMTNS. Also, The FI Team website. We have some great info there if you want to learn more about real estate investing or you want to connect with me.
You can download your book at TheFITeam.com/buydenver. Megan, thank you so much for coming on. If you’re interested in the Denver market or perhaps Silverthorne or Breckenridge, reach out to Megan. She will definitely help you crush it. Megan, thanks so much for coming on and sharing your super inspiring story. I know we’ll be in touch soon.
Bye, guys. Thanks for having me.
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That was Megan Blythe. Z, what did you think about Megan?
This is a fun show for me. I had a great time. I like Megan’s story because it’s simple. It’s like she didn’t know all the tricks. She didn’t have it all perfectly dialed in to get her first property, but she took action and it worked good enough. She wasn’t able to buy a property the next year maybe because it wasn’t perfectly dialed in and she wasn’t living for free, but she was able to buy a property the second year. She’s still on her path and she’s doing great. She’s cashflowing huge on her next house. There’s only probably even better stuff coming into her future. It’s showing how attainable house hacking is.
It’s great because she goes her own speed and she doesn’t care about comparing herself to anybody else. She’s comfortable buying a property every other year or whatever it is. You don’t need to do this every single year buying a property. That’s the most efficient way, but if it doesn’t work for you and your lifestyle, don’t worry about it. Scoop up properties over the course of your life. You’ll be darned if you’re not pretty wealthy by the time you’re in the middle age. Are you considered middle aged yet, Z?
I am not middle aged. I’m planning on living 120. Guys, we would love it. If you would share this show with somebody you know because we are wanting to build and get this message of house hacking and financial independence to as many people as possible. If you could think of one person and share your favorite episode with, that would be so huge for us. Do it now before you’re gone and you forget.
Share please. Leave us a rating review. It helps the show tremendously. Again, interact with us. Shoot us a DM on Instagram. I’m @TheFIGuy.
Reach out to us. I try to answer everything. Z does as well. Thank you all for reading. We will see you all next episode.
Important Links
- The FI Team
- The Total Money Makeover
- BiggerPockets – Podcast
- @MeganInTheMTNS
- The Obesity Code
- Published
- How to Buy A Home in Denver
- TheFITeam.com/buydenver
- @TheFIGuy on Instagram
- @ZeonaMcIntyre on Instagram
- www.RentRedi.com – Use our CODE: INVEST2FI to get 50% off on their first 6 months
- https://www.KapRE.com/
- https://www.StepByStepBnb.com/a/2147508384/zG79Sujh
About Megan Blythe
Megan is a Colorado native who grew up in Durango. After she graduated with her Bachelors from CSU she left Colorado and lived all over the country (including Alaska!) but realized she didn’t want to be anywhere else other than Colorado.
In 2016 Megan had the realization that she wanted to become a real estate investor. She became obsessed with learning about personal finance, FI and RE investing. Megan started by paying off all of her debt in 2018, becoming a realtor in 2019 and purchasing her first house hack in 2020.
Megan’s goal is to help more women break into real estate investing and create a community of women investors working towards FI. She is currently working on purchasing her next house hack in 2022.
Skiing, fishing, traveling, hiking and constantly learning are hobbies that Megan enjoys outside of real estate. Megan loves her home and is passionate about living and sharing the Colorado lifestyle!
