Lauren Keen Aumond - How I Quit My 9-5 Job From Real Estate Investing
LISTEN TO THE FULL EPISODE ON:
Lauren Keen Aumond is a content creator and real estate investor based in Tampa Bay, Florida. She recently quit her 9-5 job and manages her short-term and long-term rentals. Along with her husband, Aric, they built a portfolio that helped them achieve financial independence in their early 30's. She's also the host of the Adulting Is Easy Podcast and The House Money Podcast.
In this episode, you will be able to:
- Hear how Lauren started her real estate investing journey and built her wealth.
- Understand the short-term rental market better, and how to identify potential lucrative opportunities.
- Learn how to manage short-term rentals effectively for maximum returns, and identify ways to streamline processes.
- Embrace the importance of taking action in the real estate world.
- Discover the path to achieving financial freedom through real estate investments.
The key moments in this episode are:
00:00:00 - Bias Towards Action
00:01:35 - Getting into Real Estate
00:06:13 - Scaling Up
00:09:23 - Investing Mindset
00:11:38 - Investing in Short Term Rentals in Florida
00:13:30 - Overcoming Analysis Paralysis
00:16:05 - Managing Short Term Rentals
00:18:00 - Setting Realistic Expectations for Guests
00:20:30 - Future Plans and Goals
00:23:10 - House Money Podcast and Content Creation
00:23:37 - Real Estate Interviews and Topics
FOLLOW LAUREN 👇
https://www.realadultingiseasy.com/
https://www.housemoneymedia.com/
https://podcast.housemoneymedia.com/
SUBSCRIBE IF YOU'RE LOOKING TO BUILD WEALTH THROUGH OPPORTUNITIES IN THE REAL ESTATE INDUSTRY
✅ http://relfreedom.tv
GET STARTED INVESTING TODAY AND ACCESS OUR DEAL LIST!
📈 http://investwithelite.com
PARTNER WITH US ON BIG DEALS!
💵 https://eliteadvantagepropertieshq.com
BUILD YOUR REAL ESTATE AGENT CAREER WORKING WITH INVESTORS
👨👩👧👦 http://eliteadvantageagent.com
LEARN ABOUT REL FREEDOM & HEAR MORE REAL LIFE STORIES
🎙️ http://www.relfreedom.com
FREEBIES: DOWNLOAD YOUR FREE FREEDOM FOUNDATION BLUEPRINT
💵 https://www.relfreedom.com/blueprint
LOOKING FOR A REAL ESTATE AGENT ANYWHERE IN THE US? FIND A TOP AGENT IN YOUR COMMUNITY
🏠 http://www.eliteagentreferral.com
JOIN OUR FACEBOOK COMMUNITY
👨👩👧👦 https://www.facebook.com/groups/relfr...
SUBSCRIBE TO THE REL FREEDOM PODCAST
🎧 Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast...
🎧 Google Podcasts: https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0...
🎧 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/5nXA5hL...
LET'S CONNECT
👉 Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/mswenson13
👉 Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/getrelfreedom/
👉 TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@relfreedom
🏠 Minnesota Real Estate: https://www.eliteadvantageteam.com
Lauren Keen Aumond
I definitely have a bias towards action. I don't think it's bit me in the butt yet, but I think it potentially could at some point. There's so many people that you see that have been analyzing deals and thinking about getting into real estate for the whole time I've been in it, which, let's say since 2017, since I had that first true rental. I mean, it's been six, almost seven years of people I know analyzing, analyzing, analyzing, and never acting. And the number of transactions that I have done and bought and sold and traded up in that time, it's really set us up really well. So definitely you need to act.
Mike Swenson
Welcome to the REL Freedom show, where we inspire you to pursue your passion to gain time and financial freedom through opportunities in real estate. I'm your host, Mike Swenson. Let's get some REL Freedom together. Hello, everybody. Welcome to REL Freedom. Talking about real estate, leveraged freedom, building time, and financial freedom through different opportunities in real estate. And today we're going to talk about mostly short term rentals. We've got Lauren Keen Aumond on here, and she specializes in short term rentals in the Tampa area and up the west coast of Florida. Recently just quit her job and is now doing this as well as a few other things full time. She is the host of the adult in his easy podcast. Also have house Money podcast. And then we also talked offline about investing in a lot of stocks, too, which isn't necessarily the norm for people that invest in real estate, but excited to hear more about your story. Welcome, Lauren, to the show.
Lauren Keen Aumond
Thanks, Mike. I could not have described myself better.
Mike Swenson
I'm a details guy, so I like to talk in details. So, yeah, Lauren, why don't you just share about your background, how you got into real estate and kind of what you're working on now.
Lauren Keen Aumond
I got into real estate with my first real estate purchase. Right. I mean, the first thing I did was bought a primary home. I did that right out of school the same year. I graduated from the University of Florida in 2012, and I got a roommate, which made me like a landlord right away, which I didn't think of it that way at all. But buying in 2012 was obviously a good time to buy. In retrospect at the time, what I try to tell people is it seemed terrible. Everything had just more than halved in value, and it was actually a scary time to buy. So that's how I bought, naturally, got some appreciation, was able to get rid of most of my mortgage payment at that young age. And at the same time, I got into sales. I started in retail, then I went into accounting for a year, and then I got into sales. And so I increased my skill set, increased my w two income quite a bit. And so in my mid twenty s, I was looking at a good amount of equity in my house. I was maxing out my four hundred and one k and my ira, and I had a little money left over. And so I kind of circled back around and thought, all right, I did a pretty good job accidentally with my money, not paying a ton of attention to it. I wonder what I could do if I started thinking about it more.
Mike Swenson
And so talk about why short term rentals, how you got launched into that.
Lauren Keen Aumond
Yeah. So at first I was thinking, okay, I'm going to do long term rentals. Growing up, my parents had their primary home and one rental property. And actually that rental property my mom bought at 24, right about the time she met my dad. And then my dad was like, that's cool. We're not getting any more ever again. So my parents had their primary home in the one rental. And so at first that was my goal. I bought another primary home when I was 27 and I rented the first one out that I had bought at 23. And I thought, check, I'm done. Golf course, community, BMW, six figure job, hot husband, well, boyfriend at the time, right? With also almost a six figure job. I'm like, man, this is it. I have arrived. And then I did a little bit of math and I was like, can't retire till 55. And we were doing well objectively. And so that's when I started thinking back to house hacking, which is when you buy a property, live in part of it, rent the rest of it out. So we're like, okay, cool, we're going to buy a house with an above garage apartment. We're going to long term rent. That doesn't take too long in Florida, though, to realize I don't need to get a long term tenant. People want to come here all the time for vacation. I'm going to do a vacation rental. And so that's the path that we went down. We ended up moving out of the golf course community. Know, sometimes I still think about that place, but we bought a bed and breakfast. It was actually commercial bed and breakfast at the time. Moved into the house and then rent two accessory dwelling units out, which know little separate cottages in our backyard. We rent them on Airbnb and Vrbo and directly and on a short term basis. It was just a natural thing. It was already a bed and breakfast. It was already being used for vacationers. And so we just kind of continued that. We certainly made a ton of updates to the property, and the property was only, I think, being booked directly. It wasn't on Airbnb and Vrbo. So we went ahead and did that. So that's how we got into short term rentals. And that was in 2020, which wasn't a great time to be in short term rentals because they were shut down, but we took the plunge anyways.
Mike Swenson
So then you were assuming managing it yourself because you weren't on Airbnb and Vrbo. There wasn't necessarily a ton to do in terms of marketing because people just knew of you and came back to you or how did you market?
Lauren Keen Aumond
I was talking about the lady before us. We did immediately put it on.
Mike Swenson
Oh, you did?
Lauren Keen Aumond
Yeah, she was just getting direct booking. So we knew there was an opportunity to increase revenue basically immediately by doing that. But yes, we managed it ourselves. We were renting our camper also on this property because there was already electrical and sewer for that because there had been a mobile home also here, which just sounds like you had two adus.
Mike Swenson
And a camper, plus your house on the same.
Lauren Keen Aumond
It's a very normal size, actually kind of small lot. So it sounds large, but it's not. So we did rent the camper for a while. The camper has paid for itself twice. It's a little bit of extra work. So we've just decided, all right, good job, camper, putting you out to pasture. It's just ours now. But the two adus, they basically pay for the whole property, which is great. And we did that for about, from January 2021 is when we launched to June 2021, and that's when we bought a duplex. And we put one side of that duplex up as a short term rental and put the other side up as a long term rental, actually kept the tenants that were in there. And so once we expanded to that, that's when we really systematized. That's when I got a property management software. That's when we put in the locks that could set themselves using the lock software, got a bookkeeper, really engaged our accountants more and got Quickbooks and all of those things. So once we got to three, four short term rentals is really when we systematized much more.
Mike Swenson
And at that time, all of them in the Tampa area, or did you then start to move up the coast?
Lauren Keen Aumond
Yeah, those are all.
Mike Swenson
Those are all Tampa.
Lauren Keen Aumond
We launched in January 2021 with the Adus and camper added the duplex in June of 2020. Well, that's when we bought it. We didn't launch it until September 2021, which, by the way, is about the worst time you can launch a short term rental in Florida. And then we added a six unit apartment building in December 2021. And so that is when we started, really, that's up the coast. And we started with three short term rentals, three long term rentals there. One more tenant has since left, so now it's four and two, which brings us to a total. And now that duplex has completely flipped over to both short term rental as well. So that brings us to eight short term rentals. We bought another duplex in 2023. So that's all long term. So we have eight short term rentals and four long term rentals right now.
Mike Swenson
So for that six unit, how intentional was that to go to a commercial property location wise, how intentional was it? Or were you just like, we're just finding something that's closer? I'm curious to know your decision making. I work with real estate agents full time. Most of them are residential agents. And I just hear all these, why they can't do something, why they can't do something, how they don't know enough when they're residential real estate agents. So for somebody that didn't work in real estate full time, I'm curious to hear, how did you educate yourself? How did you make those decisions to move forward with making the leap and getting a property like that?
Lauren Keen Aumond
Well, early on in 2017, when I bought my second primary and rented my first primary out, that's when I decided I am like a landlord now. I'm going to listen to podcasts, I'm going to read books, I'm going to understand numbers. And there were some other transactions kind of in the middle there that I skipped over before we got to 2020 with the short term rentals. But I have a finance degree. I sold business finance training for seven years. I took the whole graduate certificate in financial planning from Boston University. A little bit analytical mind, pretty decent with numbers, not as good as my engineering husband, but fine. And so we're good at analyzing deals, and we have basically go or no go metrics. And we were looking for small multifamily. It was pretty early on that I realized it's better to have more units on one plot of land than one. I think single family homes are great investments in terms of appreciation. But my goal was always to be able to leave my sales job if I didn't like it anymore or if I got a manager. I didn't like, or the company sold, or I started to hate the product or whatever happened. I always wanted to have the opportunity to leave my job, which means I can't pay my bills with appreciation. I needed cash flow, and so I decided small multifamily very early on. And so we had bought the duplex on the water that I mentioned in the middle of 2021, and we were like, all right, let's repeat that. Let's find another small multi. And it just happened that it was a six unit typical small multifamily, which is typically something that you can get like a conventional mortgage on is a duplex, triplex or quad. That's sort of what I had in mind. We just happened to find this six unit apartment building, which a lot of the super professional folks, they want bigger than that. I mean, if you're going to go over four and you're going to need a commercial loan, they want to go way over four. They don't usually want six. But we saw it. It's located in the same county as my grandma and my uncle, and my uncle is a handyman. And so I felt like we had a little extra layer of protection there with family being close by. And we weren't put off by the fact that we were sort of looking for a duplex, and it was a six unit. So we bought it for 580 plus, a spare lot on the street for 120. So we sort of paid 705 for it, and we did a 1031 exchange of a duplex that I had into it, and a seller financed at 5% with a seven year balloon. So that was kind of a fun deal because we had the 1031 exchange and the seller financing all at once. But, yeah, we just had our numbers, and it was a home run, that deal when other properties aren't doing well or when we bring new units online, when we renovate anything, it all comes from that property. Basically. It really was a home run, and we hit our numbers, and we just acted as decisively as we could, knowing we had to sell the property to.
Mike Swenson
Buy it in that place. There's no restrictions or anything like that. Or do you have to have licensing, or what's the guidelines there?
Lauren Keen Aumond
In Florida, there's state licensing that you need, and then some municipalities require licensing as well. What's interesting about Florida is in 2011, they passed a law that said whatever your short term rental regulations are is what they are. And so, yes, this county doesn't have any, which doesn't make them legal by default, but they also can't outlaw them. So we have the state licensing there and that does require annual inspections and things like that. I'm trying to think. We had to put like a backflow preventer on our hose bib this year. That was like the one thing they made us do with our second inspection. But yeah, so we have the licensing through that. I want to say it's like 200 something dollars a year. It's not too bad.
Mike Swenson
It's interesting to me because I'm in Minnesota, we have investors here. In terms of landlord laws, we're certainly not the strictest, but we're not the most lenient. And so somewhere in the middle and I hear a lot of investors talk about investor friendly states and so they name them all off and you've got to be there. And then I hear on the short term rental side like, oh, what's the next hot market? Like are you going to be in Disneyland or not? And it's like you can find a really awesome opportunity in a spot where not a lot of people would consider it doesn't have to be the hotbed. And you can still have a really big success story without being the hot state. Now Florida is one of the better investor friendly states, but at the same time the hot market, you're not in Disneyland and you're still making money on a short term rental. And so it's interesting to hear people's.
Lauren Keen Aumond
Perspectives on things I would never own near Disneyland. Like, that's a terrible idea. Everybody goes there and they think I want a free Disney vacation, so I'm going to buy a place so it's free when I come stay there. The competition is insane. The places are themed and beautiful and stacked with amenities and still too cheap. So just side note, that would not be what I would short. I think of short term rental markets really in four categories, one being national tourism hotspots, of which national, maybe even international. Right. Is what I would think of Orlando. And then I think of more the regional tourism hotspots. And that's what I like. It's kind of like within 2 hours of a major airport, my six unit apartment building is 2 hours from Jacksonville, 2 hours from Orlando, 2 hours from Tampa. So you can get any of those people, but it's also going to be a lot of people that are driving. And I also have this hunch we'll see if it comes true in a recession type environment that people that can't afford to go to Orlando, maybe they'll still drive somewhere nearby and come to my areas. I think those really expensive places will probably be hurting more. And then you can also have just like a metropolitan urban area, something like maybe Nashville. You consider that tourism or something in the Chicago area, places where people aren't just going for tourism, they're going for business travel, they're going to visit family and things like that. And then if you think of the fourth, it would be sort of miscellaneous or rural. Just you're in an area where sometimes people come. Maybe it's cheap, but you buy a place and you rent it out. And I'm a fan of the kind of the regional places where people can literally drive to.
Mike Swenson
And I think that goes back to, for people looking for places to invest is you also don't have to overthink it. And you used a decision where it's like, hey, I have family there. If something came up, you've got some eyes on the ground that can help figure things out. You don't have to overthink it. And I see so many investors that think, like, I have to pick the perfect place where I'm not going to do anything. And it's about just getting started and doing something. And then you can maybe get a little bit more strategic, you can get a little bit better, but it's okay. You're going to learn so much by doing it versus is deciding, oh, I can't find that perfect place, so I'm just going to do nothing and sit on my hands.
Lauren Keen Aumond
I definitely have a bias towards action. I don't think it's bit me in the butt yet, but I think it potentially could at some point. There's so many people that you see that have been analyzing deals and thinking about getting into real estate for the whole time I've been in it, which, let's say since 2017, since I had that first true rental. I mean, it's been six, almost seven years of people I know analyzing, analyzing, analyzing, and never acting. And the number of transactions that I have done and bought and sold and traded up in that time, it's really set us up really well. So definitely you need to act. Nowadays, my uncle's not a huge part of our business. I've built a ton of relationships in that area. If he said, Lauren, getting too old for this, I'd be like, okay, no problem, Uncle Lee, you're out. I got this. So I wouldn't necessarily now, knowing what I know and having, I mean, at the time, I had maybe had 100 stays, probably not. I probably had like, 50 guest stays at that point. Now, two years later, I have almost 600. So the amount of experience that I have now versus then, it's invaluable. And you don't get that if you wait. The only way that you can really get these learning lessons is to actually get in. I will say I'm not a fan of just buy whatever. And if you lose money, consider it learning. Your deal should at least pencil, let me put it that way.
Mike Swenson
Strategic moves. So in terms of managing, then, what would you say for people that maybe haven't done property management before and they think, oh, I've got to hire a property manager for short term rentals, how would you help them make a decision on whether they do it themselves? Hire somebody, some sort of hybrid model. What's your experience been with that?
Lauren Keen Aumond
Well, you should definitely analyze your deals assuming you're going to have property management assume that you have that expense so that you can do it. I sort of think, why not try it yourself first? And if you don't like it or you're bad at it, then turn it over. Sort of get your feet wet under you. But you need to be a very organized person to be able to manage short term rentals, long term rentals. I think there's a lot of leeway there. You can kind of get by you. Basically, if you don't hear from somebody, it's like on the third when rent's late, or fifth or whatever, you can look and see if people deposited everything. If not, you give them a call, and then maybe once a month one of your tenants calls you and they have a maintenance issue, and then you set that up. It's very reactive, almost short term rental. You really need to be thinking about it as a business and thinking about your business every single day. You need standard operating procedures. For example, if a hurricane is coming towards Florida, I need to know what I'm going to do. I need to be proactively reaching out to all these guests, and we need to have a plan in place. I need to have very detailed communications to guests about checking in and where to park and what the WiFi is. So I am eliminating some communications that are coming at me. I need to have very good, very accurate listings that really depict both the good and the bad of every property, so nobody is surprised when they get there. And you need to be thinking about your business and at least doing something in that business every single day. So if you're the kind of person that can be organized and can be proactive, is a little bit type a, is a little bit of a control freak, is a little bit of nobody can do it as good as me, then I think those are the kind of people that should manage short term rentals themselves. But you do need to be able to manage people. Also, you have to have obviously good customer service skills with the guests, but you also need to be able to manage your cleaners, especially landscapers, hot tub people, snow removal people, I assume. I don't know.
Mike Swenson
We do pest.
Lauren Keen Aumond
Pest control. Yeah, I don't, but like pest control, you need to have all of these people and you need to also be a good manager and a good leader of them. But I sort of feel like start by managing it yourself and then pivot away if you need to.
Mike Swenson
You mentioned about highlighting the good and the bad about the property, so people have a realistic expectation. Talk about that. Maybe on the bad side, because I know as a real estate agent, we hire professional photographers to make the property look as good as possible. And there's a lot of times we go into a property and we're like, ooh, it doesn't look as good as the pictures. Now, for us, that's a little bit of a win because we get people in the door. But in terms of short term rentals, you don't want people to be disappointed when they walk in because you do have great professional photos, which is one thing you should have. So talk about painting that realistic picture to create realistic expectations.
Lauren Keen Aumond
Yeah. And you guys will be out there virtually staging stuff, too, and really pulling bait and switches on people sometimes. No, I'm just kidding. But if a unit is upstairs, I want people to know. A lot of people come into Florida, they're older, their knees aren't great, what have you. They need to know if a unit is upstairs. They need to know about parking, wi fi, whether there's a grill or there's. I have a couple places that have no in unit laundry. It's because they're really small and I legitimately kind of don't know where I'd put a washer dryer on that property. But I want to make sure that it's very upfront that we don't have laundry. I want people to know. We don't have curry's. You're getting Mr. Coffee. You're getting drip coffee. I do provide the just, you don't want anybody walking and being like, oh, this is not what I thought it would be. You want them to walk in and be like, this is exactly what I thought. I have one unit that has two bedroom, but both bedrooms are upstairs. I need people to know that there's a bathroom downstairs, but not a bedroom. I had somebody book and they didn't realize that, and then they had to sleep on the couch. I'm like, okay, well, I'm sorry, it says it in there. So those are just some of the examples of things that I want people.
Mike Swenson
To know because obviously that dictates the reviews, which really drives your business. And you don't want people to be disappointed. I wouldn't even say disappointed, but missed expectations, and then that leads them to maybe leave a negative review. So talk about kind of that reviews process, making sure that people leave with a good experience, hopefully get that good review to drive future business.
Lauren Keen Aumond
A lot of it is really related to the property. I mean, a little bit of it is who you are as a host and the listing and the guest communications. But some of it, like my 16 apartment building, it's just a really good looking property. I mean, it's remodeled nicely, it's decorated nicely, if I do say so myself. It's just beautiful, and it's a really good price. And people, there is a category of reviews that is value, but I think no matter what you do, that value is going to seep into the overall review as well. And that property, it just gets good reviews all the time, every time. A couple of my other properties, even though they're good budget friendly things, are just objectively, the buildings and the units are not as nice, and they don't get as nice of reviews. But that said, that means I sometimes get fours. You basically get fives and fours, and that's really all you should be getting. If you're getting anything outside of that, you need to fix what the problem is. If it's you, if it's your listings, if it's the furniture, I mean, even if it's the location, sell it. There's only so much you can really do for location, obviously. But yeah, the reviews are the lifeblood of your business. But in my personal portfolio, it's like my nicest units get the nicest reviews.
00:20:28 - Mike Swenson
What are you thinking about in terms of the future now? You've grown quite a bit over these last two, three, four years. Do you want to continue to just add more units? Do you want to hold Pat with where you're at? Explore other locations?
Lauren Keen Aumond
The immediate goal was to leave my job, which I was able to do. The next goal is for my husband to leave his job. He is an owner of his engineering firm, so that makes things a little more difficult. It would be basically when the firm changes hands or he gets bought out. But that is the next goal. And we probably more so than adding would maybe rebalance a little bit, maybe we'd sell some properties that have really built up some equity over the last few years, try to trade up, get into bigger buildings, probably like, let's say, for example, I wanted to sell, I have a duplex that has about $300,000 worth of equity. And let's say maybe I'll trade that up for a bigger apartment building, maybe a long term rental and maybe even get property management for something, depending on the size of it, and maybe not in Florida so that I don't have to deal with the insurance issues we're dealing with here and get some diversification in the portfolio that way. But in the immediate future, like for the next year or so, it's get back to stabilization. We added another property this year, we flipped another unit this year and that required a remodel. So get back to stabilization, get through season. I'm about to be pretty busy January through May and then a little bit in June and July as well. So get back to immediately stabilize and then potentially longer term rebalance a little bit and maybe diversify out of state. But I'm not sure.
Mike Swenson
Talk a little bit real quick. Just about the adulting is easy and house money what you're doing outside of the short term rentals.
Lauren Keen Aumond
Adulting is easy. Started as a way for me to tell my sister about personal finance. She's 13 years younger than me, so I was a teenager when she was born, and now it's me interviewing experts in the personal finance space. So the adulting is easy podcast has been around since October 2019, so just celebrated four years and that's just going strong. Also on Twitter at adulting is easy. Instagram and YouTube. House Money is a partnership with my friend and now business partner Alan. And he and I sort of realized that all the content creators are basically reinventing the wheel and doing everything themselves. And we're like, let's join forces. And so I manage the House Money podcast there. There's also interviews, but they're shorter. And rather than being personal finance experts, they're people involved in real estate and not just real estate investors. We interview a lot of people that are in the real estate space and kind of on real estate teams, if you will. So interior designer, lender, plumber, roofer, people like that. And then we also discuss blogs and other real estate topics there. So I handle the podcast, Alan handles the newsletter. He's also written a few books. And then we have a long term rental course and a short term rental course as well. So that's something that was launched just in May. So obviously your listeners like podcasts. If they want to listen to interview type stuff, general personal finance, they can definitely do. Adulting is easy, but if you really want to deep dive into real estate, then the House Money podcast is the way to go.
Mike Swenson
It's cool to see people that building their own path and being able to leave a job and kind of design what you want to do and have real estate be part of the reason why you can stand on that leg by having that income coming in. So congrats to you and what you're doing. Anything more? I know you mentioned a couple of handles and everything, but anything more in terms of how people can find you?
Lauren Keen Aumond
Yeah, sure. Housemoneymedia.com. You can read the blog, sign up for the newsletter, check out our courses, contact us. That's really the main website.
Mike Swenson
Awesome. Thank you Lauren for coming on and sharing your story and best of luck to you in the future.
