Mindy Jensen: Welcome to the BiggerPockets Money Podcast, show number 295, where we interview Antoinette Munroe and hear her journey to financial independence through real estate in just 5 short years.
Antoinette Munroe: I realized that I didn’t want to be a contractor. I was cool with the real estate investing part. And so that’s April 29th, on my birthday at 36, I said, that’s it. Not working for anybody else anymore. I’m just going to chart my own path. There’s enough cash flow that if I don’t want to work, I don’t have to, but I kind of like this real estate thing. So I’ll just keep playing with that. Maybe do like 2, 3 flips a year for fun money, and that’ll be it. So in May I bought another property.
Mindy Jensen: Hello, hello, hello! My name is Mindy Jensen, and with me as always is my inspiring co-host Scott Trench.
Scott Trench: Thanks, Mindy. You just set me up for life with these types of intros and new adjectives each week. Thank you.
Mindy Jensen: Scott and I are here to make financial independence less scary, less just for somebody else, to introduce you to every money story. Because we truly believe financial freedom is attainable for everyone, no matter when or where you’re starting.
Scott Trench: That’s right. Whether you want to retire early and make your neighbors wonder what the heck you’re doing in the middle of the day walking around the block, go on to make big-time investments in assets like real estate, or start your own business, we’ll help you reach your financial goals and get money out of the way so you can launch yourself towards those dreams.
Mindy Jensen: Scott, I am so excited for today’s guest. Antoinette popped up at a meetup at the HQ a couple of weeks ago, and she is just an absolute fireball. Holy cow. She’s so excited about everything. And her story is so interesting because she has taken a desire to not be in debt and a desire to not work anymore and figured out how to make both of those happen. She lives on very little money. She makes a big income and just saves it up to buy real estate and then cash flows that real estate almost from day one.
Scott Trench: Yeah, her story is awesome. It’s just the story of working hard, spending as little as possible, building up financial runway, and then using that to acquire cash-flowing assets that she can actually spend the money that they’re generating. And she’s retired. Her day-to-day is not working and hanging around the block and doing whatever she wants right now at age 36. And it’s phenomenal. It’s just great to see she solved all the challenges that have come up and lives her best life now.
Mindy Jensen: Lives her best life and does not allow somebody to tell her no. She looks for ways to make what she wants to happen, happen. And I love, love, love talking to her. Address, personal email, and phone number stay private. Don’t pay hundreds or thousands of dollars for what you can get from Northwest for free. Visit northwestregisteredagent.com/moneyfree and start using free resources to build something amazing. Get more with Northwest Registered Agent at northwestregisteredagent.com/moneyfree. Here’s a fun fact: you’re not just buying a house, you’re marrying the neighborhood, the commute, the noisy street, all of it. Till death or a very motivated realtor do you part. That’s the kind of real talk you get on Own It with Angie Hicks, the new podcast from Angi co-founder Angie Hicks.
Speaker 2: Today.
Mindy Jensen: Antoinette Munroe, welcome to the BiggerPockets Money Podcast. I’m so delighted to talk to you today. I can’t wait to jump into your story, ’cause I know it’s gonna be fabulous. So welcome to the show.
Antoinette Munroe: Thank you guys. Thank you, Mindy. Thank you, Scott. Very happy to be here.
Mindy Jensen: We had an event at our BiggerPockets headquarters a few weeks ago, and Antoinette came up and said how much she has enjoyed listening to the show and told us her journey. And in a nutshell, she’s a rock star. She is absolutely crushing it. She has made some enormous strides in a very short time. And Antoinette, let’s jump into it. Where does your journey with money begin?
Antoinette Munroe: Well, I’ll say that my journey with money probably began in the womb, right? My mom was really smart, good at math. My dad was entrepreneurial. So I think from day one, I was probably predisposed to be into money. I think my earliest memory was maybe like selling my Halloween candy out on the sidewalk in the second grade. So anything that I could sell from that point through high school, I would sell: cookies, candy, fireworks in the summer. It got to a point where I had like a little distribution network in high school with 2 cousins at their middle school and my god sister at her high school, all selling candy just so I could hoard money. I didn’t really buy much with it. I would save it, pay for field trips, buy Christmas gifts for the cousins. But I’ve always been into kind of making money whenever I could, I guess.
Mindy Jensen: A distribution network in middle school. That’s hilarious.
Antoinette Munroe: Bright ideas. Bright ideas start early.
Mindy Jensen: Okay, so let’s move on to high school. What does high school look like for you?
Antoinette Munroe: High school, still selling candy. I probably graduated to cookies at that point during Christmas, so I added seasonal offerings. You know, basically whatever Sam’s had available, that’s what I bought and sold.
Mindy Jensen: Oh wait, you weren’t baking these cookies, you were just selling? That’s even better, because you’re not spending all of this time baking, you’re just buying goods that are already made and selling those instead. That’s awesome.
Antoinette Munroe: Yes, absolutely. It was work smarter, not harder.
Scott Trench: Were you forecasting your business seasonally as well?
Antoinette Munroe: It would kind of go by, you know, I would go to the store with my mom, I would go to the mall on Sunday and just look around at what looked good. This price seems like a pretty good deal for these cookie tins at Christmas. I can probably sell these for $3 each. Let’s try it. So there wasn’t much true thought behind it, other than if I bought it and sold it for more than what I bought it for, I was winning.
Scott Trench: I was just kidding on that point. What was your position in graduating high school?
Antoinette Munroe: Graduating high school, when you say what was my position—
Scott Trench: Did you have a lot saved up? Were you feeling like you’re a competent entrepreneur and ready to rock and roll?
Antoinette Munroe: No, no, not at all. All of my sellings every Christmas, by the end of the year, I would wipe out because I would use the money to buy Christmas gifts for my cousins. So there was nothing carrying into high school with me. I’ll say the only thing that I did that set me up well for college was I was basically sold to the highest bidder. I applied to schools, and whatever school offered me the most money, that’s where I went, because I didn’t want to pay or have student loans. So that’s how I prepared going into college. But none of that money through high school carried over.
Scott Trench: I love that. Well, walk us through the college years and kind of where the next steps in the money journey begin.
Antoinette Munroe: Okay. So in college, I did go to Florida A&M University. I’m a very proud Rattler. I was able to go on scholarship from the university as well as Florida Bright Futures. So it was really important to me to not accrue a lot of debt just to go to school. So I really wanted to try to graduate for as close to no dollars spent as possible. Throughout college, I would get net checks every semester and kind of hoard those and save them, stash or had money available to me, even though I wasn’t working, because I would save everything I would get. So I think I’ve been a saver always, and that’s probably the number one saving grace — knowing not to just blow my money. I think I was also very mindful about not signing up for credit cards. You know, they’d offer you the free pizza and all those things. So I had like a fake name and social that I would use for those, because I still wanted the free pizza, but I didn’t want the hit on my credit report. So college years were more so just staying out of trouble, trying not to take out any student loans until my very last semester of grad school, when I had to, and avoiding any credit issues or those normal pitfalls you would expect college students to fall into. So that was more of just playing it safe, staying careful, and still saving everything I had access to.
Scott Trench: So you went to grad school. Did you do that all in a row? What year did you graduate and begin working?
Antoinette Munroe: Yes. I did a 5-year MBA program. I graduated in 2008 and started my first job summer 2009.
Scott Trench: Awesome. And well, let’s keep going. What happens next in the money story?
Antoinette Munroe: That’s like — that was the biggest shift. So I knew it was going to be make it or break it. I thought I was going to be an entrepreneur. That was kind of something I always wanted. I never really wanted to take a job, but that last semester I did rack up a couple student loans. So I took a job, and the intent was: I’ll take this job, I’ll do this 2-year program, pay off my student loans, and I’m out. I’m not going to be working. I’m going to go chase a dream or something. So with that very first paycheck, I sat down and created — I guess what I call it now is my budget ABCs. I made an Excel spreadsheet, plugged in the info from the first paycheck, and just laid out a plan for how I was going to get rid of those student loans in those first 2 years. And I think those initial steps were the foundation for everything else after that, like being really tight on how I managed my money, knowing every dime that came in. Those ABCs — I automated everything. I balanced each paycheck, so I never had a week where I felt like I didn’t have any money and would be thinking about just putting it on a card temporarily. And then I tried to stay as consistent as possible with it. And I still follow this system to this day.
Scott Trench: That’s awesome. I never heard that framework. Automate, balance, consistency.
Antoinette Munroe: Yes, right.
Scott Trench: Automation, balance, consistency. That’s awesome. So ABCs. You said you put those together day one, with your very first paycheck?
Antoinette Munroe: Yes. And I’ve been tracking this spreadsheet from June 2009. And I’ve been preparing for this call — I went back and looked at it till 2021. I had a tab there. So every change in pay or job change, I created a new tab. So I’ve been tracking my money story the entire time.
Mindy Jensen: I love it. Listen to that. She has tracked her spending, her money, her jobs, all of this since — I’m sorry, what did you say, 2009?
Antoinette Munroe: 2009, first paycheck out of college. Yes.
Mindy Jensen: That’s awesome. That’s why I said she’s a rock star.
Scott Trench: Do you have any money today?
Antoinette Munroe: Yeah, I got a little bit.
Mindy Jensen: No, don’t spoil it, Scott.
Scott Trench: That’s the foundation of every — everything else. And so I think, you know, you can stop listening now and you know that this is a successful money story. But you should not, because we’re going to have a great story that we’re about to go through. So you graduate college. How much debt do you have at this first paycheck, and what does your calculation tell you about how long it’s going to take you?
Antoinette Munroe: So right out of college, and you can see on that first tab, I write $27,000 in total debt. That was one credit card I had because I did an internship at a record label in New York, so it was unpaid. And then the student loans that I had for that last semester. And then I borrowed money to buy a car from my sister. So $27,000 total was everything that I started with, and that’s what’s on that first spreadsheet. And I think it took about 18 months to 2 full years to pay that off. So I remember March 2011, everything was paid, and I was completely debt-free at that point.
Scott Trench: Awesome. How much were you making? How much were you spending during that period?
Antoinette Munroe: Oh yeah, my starting salary was $50,000. I think my budget — so my goal was to keep all of my bills under $2,000 a month. So $50,000 didn’t go that far. So I kept all of my bills under $2,000 a month. And I would get mileage checks for when I had to drive — it was a sales job, so I would get sales bonuses each year. And I could see on the tabs where I’ve either made a lump sum using my bonus to pay something down, or using my tax return to pay something down. And every mileage check, I would always volunteer to take the furthest route, or to take the furthest sales call, so that I could get a bigger mileage check, because all of that was going towards paying off the debt.
Scott Trench: Awesome. What kind of car was it?
Antoinette Munroe: So this was probably the first money mistake I made. It was a 10-year-old Mercedes, like one of those 2-door coupes. I bought it from my brother-in-law, so it was his old car, and they thought it was better than the little Nissan that I had. So they were like, you should get this instead, it’ll be a more reliable car. But from the moment I hit Memphis, that thing started tearing apart every year. The 10-year-old car — everything that could go wrong went wrong. Had to change the transmission on it. So it was a money pit. Actually, I don’t recommend it.
Scott Trench: Well, just as an observation here, when you have those jobs that reimburse you for miles with your personal car, there’s an arbitrage opportunity there where, hey, if I’m driving a Corolla or something really reliable that gets great gas mileage and doesn’t break down, my cost of driving is probably $0.25, and I’m getting reimbursed at $0.55.
Scott Trench: Sounds like that may not have been the case in your scenario with the Mercedes.
Antoinette Munroe: Not all the way. I didn’t get that full 55%, but enough to be impactful.
Scott Trench: Great. Awesome. So you’re keeping tight control of your spending, and for the first 2 years, it sounds like it’s just a bit of a grind where you’re being consistent about tracking your spending, taking advantage of the opportunities, and then just putting every additional surplus dollar towards the debt?
Antoinette Munroe: Yes. The way you say it, it sounds like it wasn’t too much fun. I still had a little fun in there. I had what I called therapy. I’d go shopping and fill up my cart with all the things that I wanted and feed the impulse. And then after that passed, I would go and put each one back where I got it from, unless there was something I felt like my life couldn’t — you know, I couldn’t live without it — and then I would buy that one. But I would also leave my wallet in the car. So it had to be important enough that I was willing to walk back out to the mall to go get my wallet, to come back in and pay for it. So I still got to shop and have my retail therapy. I went on a lot of dates because I like eating out, but that was not in my budget. So I would say yes to the date — if you asked me, I was going because I wanted the free food. Sorry. So I still lived a little bit.
Mindy Jensen: I don’t recommend that path, but—
Antoinette Munroe: I don’t either.
Scott Trench: That tip would have been hard for me to implement.
Mindy Jensen: Yeah, Scott, that’s not for you.
Scott Trench: All right. Well, so we have a good 2 years here. We have a fun 2 years, but in the financial sense, it’s a grind. It’s fast going in paying off this $27,000 in debt in the first 2 years. Do you have an emergency reserve that you build up at that point? How do you think about your cash position?
Antoinette Munroe: I did. I think the first year, I just saved it and was holding it. And then that last year, started paying. So I had a 6-month buffer before I was due to start paying off the loans. So I had at least, you know, like a month or 2 worth of emergency reserves, but it wasn’t the primary focus at the time. But I know I had enough that when the transmission went out, I was able to pull that $3,000 to replace it. So there was some reserves there, but the majority of everything just went to clearing the debt.
Scott Trench: Sounds good. Nice. So, and are you doing any investing or 401(k) contributions at that time as well?
Antoinette Munroe: Yes. So at least meeting my company match for those first 2 years.
Scott Trench: Awesome. So what happens next now that you’ve paid off the debt?
Antoinette Munroe: I pay off the debt. It’s time for me to quit, right? Because that was the point. But I couldn’t quit living in Tennessee. I needed to get closer to family. So I got a job to get relocated back to Miami, where my family is. Negotiated with my parents, asked them if I could live for a year for free, and then after that start contributing. So I got relocated. I had to stay a year to not have to pay back the relo. So my 2-year plan turned into 3, and I spent that third year saving every single dime, because I needed to have a stash to live off of once I quit. So I think at that point I whittled the budget all the way down. I gave myself about $400 a month for spending, and everything else went into savings.
Scott Trench: When you say went into savings, just like into your bank account?
Antoinette Munroe: Into the savings bank account. So I was still just meeting the company match with 401(k) savings, and all other dollars went into the bank account. My goal was to have $50,000 saved by the end of the year. That way I knew I had a year’s worth of living if I wanted to run off to California and chase a dream or something after I quit my job.
Scott Trench: Let me comment on this, because I completely agree with that mentality, and a lot of people wouldn’t. They’re like, why would you do that? You could have been investing that $50K. No, no — you have $50,000 liquid at the end of that year, and you have every option. You can start a business, you can go into real estate investing, you can take a job that pays no salary and only has commissions, you can become a real estate agent. The world is your oyster at that point. And how old were you at that point?
Antoinette Munroe: I was 24 at that point. And that’s what I wanted. I wanted the option to not need the job, so that I could choose my path, whether it was start a business or pursue a dream or just something else. If I had synced it all into the 401(k), I couldn’t access the money, and so now I’m trapped. I have to stay at the job for money versus having the source of money in my savings account that I have immediate access to.
Scott Trench: Great. A lot of people are going to shake their heads and disagree with that. I’m nodding my head and aggressively agreeing with it. That’s exactly how I viewed the situation when I was getting started as well, right? $50,000 in the hands of an ambitious 24-year-old is way better than $50,000 in the 401(k) of an ambitious 24-year-old. $50,000 in a 401(k) of a 24-year-old who would blow the money is way better than $50,000 in the bank account of that same 24-year-old. But that’s a big nuance I think is really important.
Antoinette Munroe: Yeah, you definitely have to know who you are.
Mindy Jensen: What’s important is this was a choice that you made consciously. This isn’t something that somebody else forced you to do. Antoinette said, I want to have $50,000 saved up. I make $50,000 a year. Therefore, I’m gonna have to save almost everything. I’m choosing to do this because my goal is this. Now, if you decided that there was this really awesome vacation you wanted to take for $1,000, you could have done that. Nobody was saying this is not your money to spend. You were choosing to spend your money the way you wanted to, which was to spend it in a savings account. Here you go, I’m just putting it there. And that’s a choice. And, you know, not everybody’s going to make that choice, and not everybody’s going to be retired at age 31, 39— I can’t remember how old you are.
Antoinette Munroe: 36.
Mindy Jensen: 36. Okay, you know who doesn’t retire at 36? People who say, oh, I would never only spend $400 a month.
Antoinette Munroe: Oh yeah, I got told I was crazy a lot of times by my friends and my family. I watched my friends enjoy their life very much in their condos on the beach or taking cruises and trips. And I was just like, I mean, do you guys not have student loans? Did you do that first? Just trying to figure out how they were able to do it while I was like, not. But it just wasn’t a priority for them. They still had those debts and student loans, but they prioritized kind of the immediate enjoyment of the income. And it was more long game for me. And I think once I understood that it was long game, and that these first 5 years were going to be critical, and I could literally set the foundation for the rest of my life if I got that right, it was easy to block out the noise.
Scott Trench: Yes. Love it. Alright, so what do you do with the $50,000 now you’ve got it?
Antoinette Munroe: Well, now it’s just sitting there, right? Because I’ve been working for 3 years now. All the dreams that I had prior, they had started to fade. So I didn’t know what business I would start or what I wanted to do anymore. And the career, you know, I was getting promoted every 2 years. So I was like, I’ll just kind of ride this out and see what happens. I left the $50,000 where it was, started maxing out a Roth IRA each year. And so for the next 2 years, the $50,000, it was just there, right? I did splurge. And in celebration of kind of meeting, paying off the debt and making that savings, I did purchase a car. I didn’t skimp on it. I purchased the car that I wanted, but I made sure to purchase the car where if I chose to, I could have bought it outright. But I was able to get less than 2% interest, leverage my good credit, and I went that route instead. So the $50,000 stayed there, rewarded myself for my hard work and just kind of went along with the career, just trying to see where that took me.
Scott Trench: Awesome. So can you walk us through the next couple of years and into the next inflection point in the journey?
Antoinette Munroe: Yeah. So I think that next year I ended up moving away from Miami to Orlando. I didn’t intend to stay there. It was supposed to be just like a 2-year stint and move on to the next state with the next job. But I liked it there. So I ended up starting to put roots. So by about 2015, I started looking for a property to buy. And it took like 9 months to finally find one, mostly because I was very strict on the budget. I didn’t want to spend over $200,000. I still wanted to keep all of my total bills under $2,000 a month. And now I had this car note, so I had to pull down my kind of home shopping budget for that. So by the end of 2015, I’d found and purchased a house. I was able to just do conventional. I had my down payment money on hand. It was a house that needed a full gut, and I had that money on hand to be able to do the renovation. So that’s what was next. And then maybe after 9 months of living in that house, after we’ve done the rehab and everything, I added on an addition. Like a one-bedroom apartment of sorts, because through the first iteration of the house, I realized if I made it a little bit bigger, I could get roommates. And that’s what I thought I was going to do, right? Like, I’m gonna get roommates, I’m not gonna have any bills, they’re gonna pay my bills. And then in 5 years, I’m gonna have this house paid off, and then I won’t have to work, right? Like, that’s always the underlying theme— get rid of the expenses, then I don’t need money and I won’t have to work. So we built the addition. That turned out to work really well. In exploring my roommate options, I stumbled upon Airbnb. So rather than a roommate, I rented it out on Airbnb. And that was like the game changer, like game over. We’re done here. Accelerant, lighter fluid, everything changed, like the whole trajectory.
Scott Trench: So you save up $50K, you set it up for a little bit, you buy a house and turn it into an Airbnb and using the $50,000. Do you think that investment worked out better for you than if you’d put it into the 401(k)?
Antoinette Munroe: Oh, absolutely. If it was in the 401(k), I would still be working. But I think taking that money and creating a cash-flowing asset that I could control and that was more tangible— but the biggest thing is it was an asset that eliminated my expenses. So now my entire paycheck, I’m not paying rent or my mortgage. Right? My asset is performing, it’s paying for itself. And now every dollar I earn is either going back into my pockets for savings, or I’m saving it up to invest it into another property. So that’s really kind of what led to becoming a real estate investor. Initially, I just wanted to pay it off so that I didn’t have bills and I wouldn’t have to work. But after going through that process and kind of seeing what the power of real estate could do in terms of like building net worth or generating income, the focus started to shift. Right.
Mindy Jensen: Let’s look at numbers on this Airbnb property really quickly. You bought it for how much? How much you put into it?
Antoinette Munroe: So back in the beautiful days of 2015, I purchased this house for $169,000. Oh yeah. 2015 was nice. The first round of renovations were about $50,000 and that stuff I kind of had on hand and was able to complete that. The addition, which started a year later, the total cost of that was like $95,000. At this point, I had no more cash savings. So I took a 401(k) loan for $24,000 just to get started and went as far as I could go. Of course, I’m still working. So basically every paycheck is kind of still funding this rehab. And it took a full year. And then when I ran out of the 401(k) loan, I don’t advise this or recommend it for anybody, but I leveraged my credit yet again. I had very high limits on my credit cards and I’m pretty sure I maxed all of them out. But again, everything is always on automation, so I’ve never missed a payment. You know, they were getting paid automated. And at the end of the project, I rolled the lump sum over to a zero-interest credit card to buy myself, you know, 18 months to pay that down without it growing.
Scott Trench: Love it. At some point, if you want to get into the real estate game in a meaningful way, you have to lever up. Which is really unfortunate. It’s just part of the reality of it. And it’s scary. It’s terrifying to lever up to that degree on a real estate investment. It can go down the next year with it and leave you in a tough spot. But it was a calculated decision. You obviously ran your numbers ahead of time, or I hope you did, had an idea of the numbers. And it seems to have worked out really well. So what did you end up getting from a cash flow perspective? After all this?
Antoinette Munroe: Yeah. So by the time the renovation was done, the house was probably worth at that time, like about $400,000 now from the $169,000 that I got it for. I moved into the smaller 1-bedroom side and lived there. And then the original 2-bedroom, 1-bath house, that’s what I put on Airbnb. I think our very first month, it was like $3,500 made. And then the next month it was $4,500. And then every time it would go up, I was like, oh my god, my mortgage was only $1,500 a month. So the cash flow just from doing that alone was kind of twice the amount.
Scott Trench: What’d you do with the financing? So you had all these credit cards, you had the 401(k) loan. How’d you pay that all back? Did you refinance or did you pay it back bit by bit with cash flow?
Antoinette Munroe: I paid it back with cash flow. So every dime that I made from Airbnb for that first kind of 12 to 18 months went back to the debt. So that $65,000 that was racked up in the end, by March of that next year— so we started Airbnb full-time in February. By April of that next year, I had paid off all of it, all using kind of the income from my job and the Airbnb money.
Scott Trench: So you’re saving $5,000 a month at that point, a little over that.
Antoinette Munroe: I don’t need much to live off of at all either. So I’m living for free. My biggest bill is gone. Every single dime went to the debt again.
Mindy Jensen: With one property.
Antoinette Munroe: And it was easy. I’ve done that before. Yeah, with one property that I’m living in. So really with 2 bedrooms and 1 bath out of my single-family home.
Scott Trench: So we’re in 2016 now and your debt is all paid off except for the mortgage. You’ve got a little bit in your 401(k), you’ve got this property and some cash, I imagine. What’s next?
Antoinette Munroe: Well, and let’s speed up. So we’re actually at 2019 at this point. So ’15, we got it. ’16, first rehab. ’17, that full year was the addition. So by 2019, okay, we’re caught up, debts paid. What’s next? Immediately I hit payoff on the last debt. And I went and put a down payment on another property. I don’t recommend this either. But the space was small. Airbnb—
Scott Trench: How’d you get a down payment?
Antoinette Munroe: I borrowed it from my brother-in-law. So I never had the cash on hand after that first $50,000. With every investment after that, I just got more and more creative. So this down payment, it was for new construction property. It was still going to be a house hack, right? So it’ll be a house with a garage apartment. Airbnb was kicking me out of my house. So I knew this whole thing would become an Airbnb. So I would still have a good bit of cash flow coming from that home. And then with the garage apartment on the new home, that would pay half the mortgage. So I could essentially move into a new construction property in one of the best neighborhoods in Orlando and live there for free from day one. So borrowed the $25,000 for the down payment from my brother-in-law. And I knew I had a year to come up with the rest of it before we had to close on it. So I borrowed, and spent that next year saving, saving, saving, saving until we closed in 2020.
Scott Trench: Awesome. So in 2020, we now have 2 properties. You have mortgages on both and you owe $25,000 to the brother-in-law.
Antoinette Munroe: Yes. Well, no, I paid the brother-in-law back immediately. So, you know, I borrowed that from him in April. By July, he had his money back. And then in November, I bought another property. November—
Mindy Jensen: of ’19?
Scott Trench: In 2020?
Antoinette Munroe: Of 2019. Yes. So in the middle of that, we grabbed one more.
Mindy Jensen: Okay. So you own a property, you put a down payment on a new construction, and before the new construction is purchased, you buy another property?
Antoinette Munroe: Yes. Okay. This one was my neighbor that I grew up with. She lived across the street from my mom. Decided that she was moving. I’m hearing it through the grapevine. I’ve been doing my research and studying this. I know on BiggerPockets that off-market deals are hot. So immediately I call her like, hey, I want to buy it. I’ll buy this house. Just let me know whatever you want for it. It’s fine. So I ended up purchasing that from her for $192,000. I put $40,000 in rehab on it. So that same money that I had sent back to my brother-in-law, I called him back for it. And then when it was done, that one appraised for $300,000. And so I immediately refinanced it. So every dime I had in there came back out before December was out.
Scott Trench: Awesome. So that’s an easy BRRRR.
Antoinette Munroe: Yes, very easy BRRRR.
Mindy Jensen: And you still own the property. So not everybody who listens to this show knows what BRRRR means. So Antoinette, do you want to enlighten them?
Antoinette Munroe: All right. Yes. So a BRRRR is when you buy a house. Then you renovate the house, you rent the house out, you refinance the house to get your dollars back, and then you repeat.
Mindy Jensen: Okay, when you say you refi’d everything out, you bought the house for $190,000, you put $40,000 into it. That’s what, $232,000 that you have into the house?
Speaker 2: It appraised for $300,000, which means typically—
Mindy Jensen: Were you going to live in that house? Or were you going to buy it as an investment?
Antoinette Munroe: No.
Mindy Jensen: Okay, so you can—
Antoinette Munroe: So I bought it as a second home, and I was able to refinance it for like 75% of the value. So the total mortgage on the end was $225,000. What I left out was after the complete renovation of the first house with the addition, the value was so much higher I put a home equity line on that house so I would have a source of cash to tap into, to get into other real estate projects.
Mindy Jensen: Nice.
Speaker 2: So you pulled all the money that you had into this property, this November property, you pull that money out so you can use that money on something else while still owning this property as a rental?
Antoinette Munroe: Yes. It took 45 days to buy the house, rehab it, and have every single dime I spent back in my pocket.
Mindy Jensen: 45 days. Okay. That is—
Antoinette Munroe: 45 days.
Mindy Jensen: That’s fabulous.
Antoinette Munroe: Best BRRRR I ever did.
Mindy Jensen: So what’d you do with that money?
Antoinette Munroe: So I made the home equity line whole. Of course, I always pay my debts back off. Now the home equity line is whole, and I’m 2 or 3 months off from closing on my new primary home. So I moved forward with that, into the new primary home, immediately rent out the garage apartment so that from the first mortgage payment that’s due, I’m not responsible. The property in Miami made enough rent to cover its mortgage and half of the mortgage of my new home. And then the garage apartment paid the other half. So just in the second home and the primary home alone, I still wasn’t touching any of the cash flow from the Airbnb house.
Scott Trench: Awesome. So we have 3 properties and what’s the net cash flow total for all this?
Antoinette Munroe: At that time, let’s say the Airbnb property was probably cash flowing about $3,000. I’m just going to rough number it. The property in Miami was cash flowing $1,200, and then the garage apartment made $1,250, and the mortgage of the primary home was $2,600. So within the cash flow from all those, my bills were completely covered, and I still had some cash flow left over.
Speaker 2: And start using free resources to build something amazing. Get more with Northwest Registered Agent at northwestregisteredagent.com/moneyfree.
Speaker 1: Okay, what happens next? You got 3 properties at the end of 2019. What’s next? Keep the story going.
Antoinette Munroe: Well, now I’m a real estate investor. Now I’m saying it, right? Like everything else I had been kind of stumbling into, it wasn’t really intentional. It was just things that had happened. So now I’m a real estate investor. This is what I’m going to do. I’m telling everybody about it and looking for things to buy. So I close on the primary home April of 2020. COVID is in full form. And then August of 2020, I get fired from my job. But by this point, it didn’t matter, right? Because everything that I was doing was so that I didn’t need the job. So they fired me and I was like, thanks. All right. And so I didn’t look for a job immediately. My bills were covered. I didn’t really need to work. But I did go and work for a contractor for about 9 months because, you know, I’m getting into real estate. I want to understand this stuff. So I figured just having a job that better aligned with what I was trying to learn and do will be extremely beneficial. He happened to be an investor as well. So by January 2021, he offered me an opportunity to participate in a flip with him. And so that was my first flip. We went in on that deal 50/50, purchased that property in January and were able to sell it and have it under contract by the end of March. So I got a flip in that year. And then April, I realized that I didn’t want to be a contractor. I was cool with the real estate investing part. And so that’s April 29th, on my birthday at 36. I said, that’s it. Not working for anybody else anymore. I’m just kind of charting my own path. There’s enough cash flow that if I don’t want to work, I don’t have to. But I kind of like this real estate thing, so I’ll just keep playing with that. Maybe do like 2, 3 flips a year for fun money, and that’ll be it. So in May I bought another property.
Mindy Jensen: Okay, May of 2021, we’re up to— you bought another property. So you owned the original that was the Airbnb. You own the second house that you bought in November of 2019 that you BRRRR’d all your money out of. You own the third property that was the new construction that was your primary residence.
Antoinette Munroe: Yes.
Mindy Jensen: And now you’ve bought a fourth property, or your third investment and fourth total property. I guess your primary is kind of an investment too because it’s a rental. Okay, so what does this property look like?
Antoinette Munroe: So this property was a 6-bedroom, 3.5-bath, maybe 2 blocks away from the first Airbnb property. But whenever I look at a single-family property at this point, after the experience with the first one, knowing that if you put a door in strategic places, you can have something like separate units. So I did the same with this one. This 6-bedroom house got chopped into 3 units. So now that first house, the Airbnb house, operates as 2 units. The second house purchased in November, same thing, split it with a strategic door that operates as 2 units. My personal home operates as 2 units. And now this new house, I was able to get 3 units out of it. And so I’m not changing the use of the property with zoning or anything like that. I’m just putting doors and exterior entrances in strategic places so it can still flow as the single-family home that it is and maintain its current zoning. But the use, it’s like a roommate situation with a lot more privacy, right? Like everything is separate. It’s still one house, but when you close your door, that’s your entire private space with your own kitchenette and everything that you need access to. So this last property is 3 units. I rent 2 of the units kind of long-term-ish. So I try to stay away from 12 months because short-term is just so much better. So I offer everything furnished with flexible lease terms. And then the one, the largest unit in the front, that’s on Airbnb as well.
Mindy Jensen: Okay, what does flexible lease terms mean? Let’s talk about that.
Antoinette Munroe: It means I won’t give you a 12-month lease. The most you can get out of me is maybe 3 months. But there are people in transition all the time. They just got divorced, or they’re a travel nurse here temporarily, and they need to be able to come and go within a time. So I’ll rent it out furnished, all-inclusive, and you can get 1 to 3 months. And if you need to extend, you need to add a couple of days, you have that flexibility. So there are not the rigid standards of it’s a 12-month lease or nothing. It’s what do you need? Is it available? Yes, we can make this work.
Scott Trench: So what’s the cash flow on this one?
Antoinette Munroe: So this one was purchased with cash, so kind of recycling those same dollars that the other properties got bought with. So it was cash flow unlimited at the beginning, right? So the back 2 units combined, they make about $2,400. And in the first 2 weeks that I put the front on Airbnb, we got a reservation for, what was it, $3,500? Wow. So now that that has been refinanced and has a mortgage of $2,500, I know that the front at minimum makes $3,000. So the cash flow on that property, baseline, is $3,000.
Scott Trench: All right, keep going. Let’s get— let’s— what happens next after this property?
Antoinette Munroe: Well, so that’s where we are now. So that property, I just kind of finished the rehab and got everything rented up, and we just closed on the refi a couple weeks ago. So now I’m looking for the next thing. So there are a couple things on the table. The original use for that house would be for a group home. So that’s a model we’re trying out, and I’m in the last licensing phase of being able to offer that property as a group home for persons with disabilities. Also in the market for an apartment complex. I think I’m done with single family. I don’t really want a large portfolio, a large number of things to be responsible for, because my goal with all of this is really just to maintain my freedom and to not need money. I don’t necessarily want to create a business or basically a new full-time job. So I’m going after kind of big-ticket things, apartment complex, so I can have my base level. I know right now, as is, I can live off what I have and not work. So I’m just going to top it off with another large asset to at least double the cash flow that I have now for a little more comfort.
Mindy Jensen: I love that. I love that you’re not looking for another full-time job. I think that some other podcasts, the real estate podcast, the Rookie podcast, don’t do a good enough job of embracing the fact that you don’t have to own 500,000 units. If you want to own 4 units and they cash flow and they serve the purpose that you need them to serve, it is perfectly acceptable to own 4 units and be done. Or have a few more. But as you start getting into 50 and 100 and all of these units, it’s a job. Even if you’re outsourcing property management, you still have to manage your property manager. And if you don’t want to work, don’t go buying yourself a job.
Antoinette Munroe: Yeah, that was a lesson I had to learn. So there was a time where I was consuming so many podcasts and just feeling overwhelmed, like, oh my God, these people are scaling so much faster. I have 3 properties and I think I’m doing something, but I’m not, because they have 50. And they did that in 1 year. And I would feel so overwhelmed. And then finally, I was just like, but I really just want freedom, right? Like, I want to not need money, but have money if I need it. And I don’t want the added responsibility. I don’t want to be an entrepreneur. So that was another thing to reckon with. Like, I’d always viewed myself as an entrepreneur, but it was just like, no, I don’t want to be an entrepreneur. I kind of just want to be a freedompreneur and do what I want when I want and not have things that are tying me down. So it took a moment to recognize that and make peace with that and be okay with just keeping it small, keeping it simple, and not trying to scale and grow and all these things that I was hearing that I should be doing if I’m a real real estate investor. So it takes a lot to just quiet the noise and know what you want and follow that plan despite—
Scott Trench: What does your day-to-day look like?
Antoinette Munroe: Well, now I get up. I’m usually at the gym by 8:00 AM. I have a personal trainer that I see 3 times a week. Usually after an hour with the personal trainer, I probably take a walk for an hour with my dog, my boyfriend, and his dog. So we walk around our neighborhood. So by about 10:00 AM, we’re probably just getting back into the house after being out walking around, waving at all our other retired neighbors looking at us like, why are we out here? Not at work. Then after that, we’ll probably have lunch. Josh usually likes to take a nap by this time. Yeah, just kind of wing it. If something happens, sometimes I go over and check on the properties, but mostly that runs by itself with the cleaning crew. Yeah, just kind of whatever I decide to do when I wake up that day. It’s—
Mindy Jensen: Well, that’s unacceptable. No, that’s unacceptable. You need to own— you need to go own 57 more units. And then you can call yourself a real estate investor. I have issue with that comment because that—
Speaker 2: You’re not the only person that I’ve heard say that. Oh, I don’t feel like I’m a real real estate investor because I only have X number of properties. If you invest in real estate, and investing in real estate is one property, one deal, one REIT, one syndication, one whatever, you are a real estate investor. I am a stock investor. I have index funds. I have individual stocks. It doesn’t matter what you hold. As long as you hold one of something, you are that type of investor. So yes, you are a real investor. And I can give you people— I can give you a list of people that you’re doing better than. And if you’re not watching the video, I’m doing little air quotes. I can give you a list of people that you’re doing better than who look up to you and say, oh, if only I could be like Antoinette. And I can give you a list of people that you’re doing worse than, and I’m air quoting again.
Mindy Jensen: And I can, you know, oh wow, they have more than me. You have what you want. When you want another one, I, in my crystal ball, can see that you’re gonna go find a way to get the next one that you want. And don’t compare yourself to anybody else, because you are kicking butt and taking names. I have to be family friendly because I want people to listen to this show with their kids in the car. So, but you’re a rock star.
Speaker 2: You have 4 properties that generate more income than you need. You can live off the properties you have. Yes. You never have to buy another property again. And rents are going to go up. Airbnb people are still going to rent from you. They’re still going to generate more and more. Like, your rates are going to go up every single year, I would guess. You’re going to continue to make more money while your fixed-rate mortgages are not going to continue to cost you any more.
Mindy Jensen: Yeah, taxes are going to go up and whatever, but you’re going to have basically the same amount of expenses while your income continues to increase. So if you want an apartment building, and I hope it’s like a 10-unit, not a 200-unit that you’re thinking of, because that’s buying yourself a job, you’re gonna go out and get it. And you’re gonna be like, okay, this is good for a while. Or maybe not, because you have that ambition.
Scott Trench: What do you do for healthcare right now?
Antoinette Munroe: So I have a healthcare policy I found. So I found, like, I don’t know what he’s called, but there’s a guy that sells health insurance, and they have policies that are better for self-employed people. So it’s better than what was available on kind of Obamacare. I pay $400 roughly a month for 2 adults on the health insurance policy. So yeah, that was something that was able to be taken care of and included in there. I also have a life insurance policy, you know, in case anything happens, that the properties can be paid off or secured. So just outsource those things separately.
Scott Trench: Great. That’s always a question mark with like, hey, I’m gonna leave my job and I have to deal with that. So it sounds like you just pay for a plan. It’s expensive, but it’s not something that’s outside of the ballpark of your ability to pay for with the property. So,
Antoinette Munroe: Right,
Scott Trench: for sure, easy peasy.
Mindy Jensen: Okay, so what kind of apartment building do you want?
Antoinette Munroe: So initially I was thinking around 30 units, but I also want to be able to have it under like institutional management. And the advice I’m getting is that it needs to be at least 60 units to be able to have a property management company run it full-time. So now that’s the target. And of course with this, I want to mix the model. I want to peel off some units for Airbnb, because that’s, or flexible lease offerings, because that kind of X’s up the cash flow, and then have the rest for stability.
Mindy Jensen: 30 to 60 units is a lot. Are there— is that a common thing in your area? Would you stay in your area? Would you go outside of your area?
Antoinette Munroe: I’d have to go outside. So I’ve been looking. I’m not really finding that here, or in a price point that I want to pay, because it’s not going to be a syndication. It’s going to be with kind of the money that I’ve cobbled up together between me and my family and a few close friends. So we’re probably gonna have to step outside of Florida for that. So I’m open to other areas.
Mindy Jensen: Okay, interesting.
Scott Trench: So we’ve won, we’re retired, we’re thinking about building the portfolio with another apartment complex. Day to day is whatever I want. Do whatever I want. Walk the dog, wave at the other retired neighbors. Yeah. And all that kind of stuff. And I love it. I mean, you’ve got the goalposts to stop moving from an expense profile very early, and we’re able to parlay that into the first property and then accelerate from there using BRRRR. I think it’s phenomenal, and it’s just a huge success story. So thank you so much for sharing it with us today.
Antoinette Munroe: No, thank you guys for having me. I think when I first started all of this, I would listen to BiggerPockets Money like, man, I want to be on the show one day. I’m busting my ass, you know, to kind of save and do all this stuff. So this really is like a full circle moment for me to be able to share a lot of the things that I may have been influenced by from listening to your podcast. So definitely, thank you.
Mindy Jensen: Okay, Antoinette, we have our famous 4 questions, which, as you have listened to the show, you know, are the same 4 questions that we ask of all of our guests. Are you ready?
Antoinette Munroe: I am.
Mindy Jensen: What is your favorite finance book?
Antoinette Munroe: All right, don’t crucify me for this, but I haven’t read any.
Mindy Jensen: Oh, okay.
Scott Trench: Oh, that’s awesome.
Antoinette Munroe: No finance books, no real estate books.
Scott Trench: I didn’t know that was a possible answer.
Antoinette Munroe: I know, lots of Google. I listen to a lot of podcasts, so I’m still consuming educational information. It’s just not coming from a book.
Mindy Jensen: That’s fine. That’s fine. What is your favorite podcast?
Antoinette Munroe: So, of course, BiggerPockets, the real estate show, BiggerPockets Money. I think also when it came to financial freedom, I was listening to Afford Anything. So just kind of that trifecta. And then when I want to be motivated, I’m listening to Tom Bilyeu or Lewis Howes.
Scott Trench: Awesome. So reading is converted into listening?
Antoinette Munroe: Yes, I read fiction, right? Like, I’m gonna read for fun. If I’m going to educate, I want to hear it. Let me do a podcast. Let me get it in that way.
Mindy Jensen: Okay. That’s fair.
Scott Trench: What was your biggest money mistake?
Antoinette Munroe: Buying the 2 Mercedes that I bought. Those were the biggest mistakes. Loved both cars. But the first car, I shouldn’t have bought it. What I had would have done just fine. And then by the time I bought the second car, I knew that my next role with my company was going to come with a company car. And I got that next role 3 months after I bought this brand new car. So definitely my car purchases were my money mistakes. I probably would be further along if I had not done them. However, they were done so strategically that it didn’t prevent me from achieving the other goals I had.
Mindy Jensen: What is your best piece of advice for people who are just starting out?
Antoinette Munroe: Hands down, house hack, right? Like, everyone will tell you purchasing a home is going to be your biggest investment. It’s not. It’s your biggest debt. It’s the biggest bill you’re going to have to pay, and it’s the reason you go to work every day. If you can eliminate that expense, game changer. So house hack, hands down, don’t buy your dream house, buy a house that pays for itself.
Scott Trench: I think it’s the biggest tactic you can do to skip the middle class in this country.
Mindy Jensen: I was going to say, that sounds like a tactic that has been floated in a finance book called Set for Life. Maybe we can get Antoinette a copy of that.
Antoinette Munroe: I probably should read that. Yes. Absolutely.
Scott Trench: I’m a big fan of that book.
Antoinette Munroe: I heard great things about it.
Scott Trench: Well, we’ll send you a copy following the show here if you’d like to read it or listen to it.
Antoinette Munroe: Awesome.
Scott Trench: What is your favorite joke to tell at parties?
Antoinette Munroe: Oh, I have a good one. Okay, I really prepared for this. So, my boyfriend came last night and he was telling me a story of this guy he sat on the plane next to that told him a corny joke, right? But I’ll just tell it and then I’ll explain it later. So, how do you find Will Smith in the snow?
Mindy Jensen: How?
Antoinette Munroe: You look for Fresh Prints. I know, it’s awesome, right? I love it. And Will Smith is like my favorite everything of all time. So when he told me the joke, I was like, oh my God, I have to use that one tomorrow.
Scott Trench: That’s awesome. Love that.
Mindy Jensen: Okay, Antoinette, where can people find out more about you?
Antoinette Munroe: I am trying to do a better job at sharing more about this journey. So I can be found on social media under Fearless and Free FI.
Mindy Jensen: Fearless and Free FI.
Antoinette Munroe: So that’s Instagram, Facebook, and TikTok, but there are no videos yet.
Mindy Jensen: Awesome. We will include links to all of those in our show notes, which can be found at biggerpockets.com/moneyshow295. Antoinette, I am so glad you came up to me at that meetup that we had at our office. I am so glad you told your story, because it is fantastic. You have 4 properties, you have no job, you’re 36 years old living your best life, and it is very inspiring what you are doing. I’m so glad you had the time in your day to share with us your fantastic story. Thank you.
Antoinette Munroe: Thank you guys so much for having me again. Full circle moment. Biggest fan of everything BiggerPockets. Literally, you know I’m not reading books, so I learned everything from podcasts and websites. So thank you guys for having me.
Scott Trench: Thank you for coming on and sharing your story, and congrats on the incredible success so far.
Antoinette Munroe: Thank you.
Mindy Jensen: Okay, Antoinette, we’ll talk to you soon. That was Antoinette. That fireball of a woman was Antoinette. She is going to continue to do massive, amazing things because she is so amazing. Scott, what did you think of her story?
Scott Trench: I mean, it was a great story. I can’t— I mean, it’s perfect. She’s done the fundamentals correctly from day one, literally paycheck one. And because of that discipline, and because of the fact that she followed that path and managed her money intentionally, house-hacked, and built this real estate portfolio, she’s done. Game over. She can do whatever she wants with her day. She can travel. She can hang out at her house. She gets to decide what that is. Check on her business occasionally. And she directs the course of her life and her day. And it’s just so wonderful to see. That’s what this is all about. I expect big things to come from her in future years, because she will decide to pursue whatever passion she has, or she will just live an awesome, happy, wonderful life with that. I’m a little jealous, and I’m excited and happy for her.
Mindy Jensen: At the end, she said she’s not sure what’s next, maybe a 30- or 60-unit apartment building, which is not something that I want to take on. But if she wants it, she’s gonna go get it. She’s gonna find a way to do it. She’s gonna crush it just like she’s crushed everything else. And I am excited to bring her back in a few years and hear the story of the acquisition of her 30-unit apartment building and how she’s managing it and all the giant cash flow she’s making from it, just by thinking outside the box. Okay, Scott, should we get out of here?
Scott Trench: Let’s do it.
Mindy Jensen: From episode 295 of the BiggerPockets Money Podcast, he is Scott Trench, and I am Mindy Jensen, on behalf of Antoinette Munroe, saying, go fill out those spreadsheets.
