WIIRE 021: The Best Way to Hire Virtual Assistants with Cat Storing

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11/28/22 • 25 min

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We are back this week with episode 21 of the WIIRE podcast and joining us this week is our friend, Cat Storing who recently joined us at our WIIRE retreat in Orlando. Cat is going to be sharing with us all about her experience in hiring Virtual Assistants (VA) to work on her team. Cat had so much to share and brought an amazing energy to the retreat, and we are so excited to have her on this episode.

All About Cat

Cat is a business coach, is really good with technology (her claim to fame), is an author, hosts the REI Podcast, is excellent at figuring out processes, and is really into real estate investing. And while she loves doing all of the things, she is still just one person, so this is where hiring a VA has come in really handy in her business. She has worked as a personal stylist and also in purchasing and now has transitioned into real estate and business coaching. Cat helps people monetize their expertise and is an amazing resource to so many people.

Cat’s First VA

When Cat hired her first VA, she was ready to really dive into the world of social media but knew the demands of social media and the dedication it requires. She also knew she couldn’t be doing all of these things, and posting to social media while still working her full-time job. Cat found her first VA (located in India) on UpWork and her specifics was giving the tasks to her VA and having them complete them overnight so that when she got up in the morning she could review them first thing. The problem (that she now realizes) is that she did not manage them well enough and they wound up taking advantage of her. She paid him on a weekly basis and since she wasn’t reviewing the tasks, he quickly figured that out, and simply stopped completing the tasks.

Now, Cat has learned how to successfully manage her VAs and review their work, prior to submitting payment. Her biggest recommendation for those looking to hire their first VA is to allow them to learn your ways.

Cat’s Best Tips for Hiring a VA

Decide exactly what tasks you need to outsource (or what you simply don’t want to do)
Look for a VA in your niche if you are looking for a real estate VA look for those specifically)
Once you begin working well together figure out if they are teachable and want to learn more tasks before offloading additional tasks on them
Have a system in place to review their tasks regularly
Treat your VA the way you would want to be treated
Start before you need to hire someone (i.e. NOW!)
Test the waters with different VAs

If you want to see more about what Cat does, visit her website or connect with her on Instagram.

Thank you so much for joining us, we’ll catch you in the next episode!

Resources

Join us March 2-5, 2023 for our retreat in Salt Lake City
Check out Cat Storing’s website
Connect with Cat on Instagram
Hear Amelia’s episode on the REI Podcast
Hear Grace’s episode on the REI Podcast
Find your first VA on UpWork

All About Cat

Cat’s First VA

Cat’s Best Tips for Hiring a VA

Decide exactly what tasks you need to outsource (or what you simply don’t want to do)
Look for a VA in your niche if you are looking for a real estate VA look for those specifically)
Once you begin working well together figure out if they are teachable and want to learn more tasks before offloading additional tasks on them
Have a system in place to review their tasks regularly
Treat your VA the way you would want to be treated
Start before you need to hire someone (i.e. NOW!)
Test the waters with different VAs

If you want to see more about what Cat does, visit her website or connect with her on Instagram.

Thank you so much for joining us, we’ll catch you in the next episode!

Resources

Join us March 2-5, 2023 for our retreat in Salt Lake City
Check out Cat Storing’s website
Connect with Cat on Instagram
Hear Amelia’s episode on the REI Podcast
Hear Grace’s episode on the REI Podcast
Find your first VA on UpWork

Previous Episode

WIIRE 020: BTS: Buying A Motel & Manufacturing Business with Amelia & Grace

Hi friends welcome back! This week’s podcast episode is a fun one because it’s another behind-the-scenes episode where we’re going to dive into exactly what we are working on and give you a unique glimpse into some exciting things we each have happening in our businesses.

Amelia’s Updates

A few weeks ago Amelia (and her biz partners) submitted an offer and letter of intent to purchase a motel property and finally heard back from the sellers. While it wasn’t a resounding ‘YES’ to their offer, the sellers did ask to sit down with them and get to know them and their businesses, and really build that ‘know, like, and trust’ factor.

A big part of why they want to sit down with Amelia and her team is because they’ve asked them to carry $1M of the down payment on a seller-financed note. This will allow them to vet them as sellers and learn about their experience and it is a great start to moving forward.

Amelia found this deal by posting on a local Facebook group for investors in Des Moines, Iowa. She had a pretty graphic created depicting her exact buy-box, and what she is looking for, and very quickly a broker reached out to her. Despite it being slightly outside what she was looking for, they anticipated she might still be interested in this unique property. Amelia had previously tossed around the idea of purchasing a hotel/motel type of property so really this wasn’t entirely outside her buy-box. With a higher purchase price, this 41-unit motel has a lot of potential, and she is super excited to see how this deal moves forward (knock on wood).

Grace’s Updates

Grace and Brandt are in the process of purchasing a manufacturing business, even though the purchase is moving a bit slower than anticipated. For this purchase, they agreed on a 20% down over 7 years at 4.5%. A business acquisition works a lot like a large real estate deal where you have your letter of intent and then you have to get your purchase agreement signed. They had their letter of intent signed and sent a purchase agreement approximately 30 days ago and they’ve heard back from their attorney that their next step is to collateralize their real estate, which they had already anticipated happening.

To do this, they made a list starting with the highest equity to the lowest, prioritizing things they want to hold onto. The seller asked for 20% down so they will be financing 80% at a purchase price of $820K. To finance this purchase they are using private money, plus the money they have from cash-out refinances that have been sitting. They cashed out their 8-unit BRRR about 3 months ago and haven’t used that money either, so all of this will be added to their financing.

They’ve submitted their list and are just waiting on the response from their attorneys and they are excited to move forward!

They found this deal because a few months back, Brandt expressed interest to Grace in buying something other than traditional real estate; a business. After doing some research they eventually found this manufacturing business that was up for sale on BizBuySell. With both of their backgrounds in engineering, this was a great opportunity and they jumped on it.

They plan to implement better management as well as better systems and processes and make this business a long-term purchase.

Hopefully, on the next BTS episode, we both have promising updates!

Do you have questions or things you’d like to hear us talk about on an upcoming episode? We would love to hear them! Just DM us on Instagram.

Thanks for tuning in, we’ll catch you in the next episode!

Resources:

Grab your spot for our retreat in Salt Lake City
Connect with Amelia & Grace on Instagram
Get the book Buy Then Build by Walker Deibel
Follow Codie Sanchez

Next Episode

WIIRE 022: MTR Rent by the Room with Jessie Dillon

Hi everybody, welcome back to the WIIRE podcast! We are so excited to welcome our friend and real estate investor, Jessie Dillon, to the show this week! Jessie is not only a member of the WIIRE Community, but has attended two of our retreats, and today she is going to be telling us all about how she rents out a room in her home as a mid-term rental.

Jessie is based in central Massachusetts and rents out the room in her own home as a house hack, and aside from her REI business she owns a beauty business and is a wife and stepmom. Jessie has grown her REI biz to 5 doors and in 2022 alone grew her portfolio from $0 to $1.5 million!

Why rent by the room?

Jessie started investing in real estate in January 2022 and at the time lived in an extremely reasonably priced apartment with a fantastic landlord. While he was a great landlord, he owned multiple properties, causing him to not pay super close attention to each individual property. Jessie decided that she would only move and increase their cost of living if it was the absolutely perfect situation.

Eventually, Jessie found a duplex property on Zillow that had been listed for roughly one month and was only one mile away from their apartment. After looking at the numbers they went all in on it and by that evening had signed an offer (in a smoothie shop, nonetheless) for the property. It was in a great neighborhood, half of it was newly flipped and the listing agent was also the owner who had done the work. It was so easy - no one else really even needed to be involved. They purchased the property in July and moved in at the end of August.

Right away they got a long-term tenant for the other half of the duplex and they began tossing around the idea of renting out their guest room as a mid-term rental. They debated whether they wanted to share their personal space with a complete stranger and eventually decided that the potential income it would bring in was too good to pass up and they should at least try it out. Within 6 weeks they had a tenant locked in.

How much does your tenant pay in rent?

Their monthly mortgage payment is $3,850, and between the income from the other half of the duplex and their mid-term tenant, they only have to cover $50 of that monthly mortgage payment. They basically are getting $700 per month of principal paid down, with their $600K asset appreciating (in a high-appreciation state), and them only paying $50 towards the principal interest, taxes, and insurance, it’s just too good of a deal. Jessie and her husband purchased the property for $590K using an FHA loan and also a private investor from their circle.

Next came furnishing the unit. Jessie kept it super simple and while she considered going the normal marketplace route, she opted to go with mostly new items because that way if the in-house mid-term tenant thing didn’t work out, she would at least have a super cute, furnished guest room.

So, how is it working out having someone else live in your space?

Actually, great! She shares our space respectfully and we get along great. They did a full background check, social media search, Facetime calls, formal lease, etc., the same as they would for a short-term tenant or a mid-term tenant in a separate property. It’s been about 6 weeks and she actually might extend it out further. Jessie listed the property on both Airbnb and Furnished Finder. The tenant pays $1,700 per month, which includes everything, including ‘light pet care’ and laundry service since Jessie works from home (creative bonus income!).

If you want to know about Jessie or connect with her personally, send her a DM on Instagram!

Thank you for joining us this week, we’ll catch you in the next episode!

Resources