
The Open House Podcast: Where Women Talk Real Estate
The Open House Podcast: Where Women Talk Real Estate is your space for welcoming, inclusive conversations about real estate, where women come together to learn, share, and support one another.
Hosted by Kristina Modares, founder of Open House Education, this podcast dives into the softer side of real estate—buying homes with friends, creative investing strategies, and making money in ways that feel good. Through interviews with inspiring women from our nationwide community, you’ll hear stories about buying houses with friends, exciting creative projects, and unique journeys to homeownership.
Join us as we foster a space where women can grow, connect, and explore creative real estate together.
Ready to join our community yourself? Head to OpenHouseEducation.com
We are welcoming new members from November 12-22, 2024.
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The Open House Podcast: Where Women Talk Real Estate
House Hacking My Dream Neighborhood: Making $4K with a Duplex
Today’s the day! The Open House Education Community is officially open from November 12th-22nd, and we’re so excited to welcome you! If you’ve been waiting for the perfect opportunity to dive into real estate investing with the support of an incredible group of women, now is your chance. Our community on Circle is all about organic connections—whether you’re looking to partner on a property, learn from experienced investors, or just get inspired by others’ creative real estate strategies. LINK TO JOIN.
With membership at only $84 for the quarter or $255 for the year, you’ll gain access to exclusive live events, recorded trainings, a searchable member directory, and resources on everything from house hacking to buying homes with friends. This is the place where your “what if” conversations turn into real action, surrounded by women who are eager to collaborate and grow alongside you.
Doors close on November 22nd, and we won’t open again until mid-to-late 2025. We can’t wait to have you in the community!!!
LINK TO JOIN
Kristina speaks with community member, Alison, about her journey into real estate and focusing on the benefits of house hacking through duplex ownership. Alison shares her personal experiences, including how she transitioned from a corporate job to becoming a realtor, the advantages of buying a duplex as a first property, and her strategies for maximizing rental income. The conversation touches on how "Fortune favors the bold" and the importance of national community support for women in real estate.
Keep Up with Alison's real estate journey at heathcotehomes.com
Chapters
00:00 Introduction to House Hacking and Community Building
04:05 Alison's Journey: From Corporate to Real Estate
05:58 The Benefits of Buying a Duplex
11:39 Finding the Perfect Property
15:01 Maximizing Rental Income: Short-Term vs. Mid-Term Rentals
21:10 Overcoming Challenges in Real Estate Investment
25:50 Future Plans and Community Impact
Get in Touch
Comments, suggestions or feedback? Email Kristina at kristina@openhouseeducation.com
Here is our new Instagram account! It needs some love, please follow :)
Check out our new website!
If you know of any ladies I should connect with about this new venture for potential partnerships, please send them my way. Email us!
Welcome back to the Open House podcast where women talk real estate. I'm Christina Moderas. Okay, today I'm talking to a member of our community, Alison Heathcote, about the incredible way she is able to house hack with a duplex in her dream neighborhood. It is such an incredible conversation and she's also a mom and works a full-time job. I just want to mention this because I love showcasing women from all stages of life to show that you can make a home you live in a true investment and in many different ways. But before we jump into that, today is the day you can officially join as an open house community member. Okay, wow, I've been working on this all summer and I'm so, so excited to bring on new members. You just need to head over to openhouseeducation.com and grab a spot. So we'll be doing registration between November 12th and 22nd and then we're not gonna open up again until mid to late 2025. So I intentionally kept the pricing super affordable. This community is all about making real estate accessible, affordable, and meaningful in a very collaborative way. So we're bringing together women from all backgrounds, you all passionate about building wealth and exploring creative real estate strategies. As a reminder of what exactly our community membership has, like a lot of you have asked me recently, so we host two to three events each month. So we do hot seats, lunch and learns where women teach about a highly specific topic and we do deal breakdown. So this is where a woman will bring a deal they found that's on the market and they present it to the group. So this is not only like a really good way to practice, know, kind of presenting deals, but there are already also like partnerships. brewing because of this. And in case you didn't know, you're like, if you're just starting this, did you already have members in there? Yes. So when I officially launched this community in August, it was like very brand new. A hundred women joined and I was like, my gosh, this is amazing. So they've been in there really acting as like the guinea pigs and like growing this group with me of like what type of events they like or don't like. So it's all ready for you when you join this week. Every event that we do. have is recorded and searchable. So you will have like this valuable library that you can tap into whenever. So, you know, if you do the yearly membership with us at the end of the year, you're going to have 30 plus videos you can watch and they're very specific topics. honestly, way more valuable than any online course that I've ever taken and also way cheaper. Our members are finding real estate and business partners already in this group. So, you know, we've been chatting in the circle community and through these events and they have been meeting offline as well. So they're women from all over the country and they're finding each other, meeting up in person, forming friendships, talking about real estate and like a couple of them even have like started working together on business stuff, which is amazing. And the women in here have really great stories of how they've co-invested with friends. You have so much to learn from everyone in here already. We'll also match you, we're gonna do this in January, new year, new you, there we go. So we're gonna match you with accountability partners so you can set and then hopefully reach your real estate goals. So I've been doing this for years now. Like I have had an accountability partner for a while and it's the only way that I get big things accomplished by having an accountability partner. So I hope you'll at least join us for a few months, but I do know that once you see all that we offer, you're going to want to stick around. These ladies are so inspirational and generous. I just feel super lucky. Okay, well, hopefully we'll see you in the community, but let's just dive into this amazing conversation that I just had with Alison. Okay. Allison, hi, welcome. I'm so happy that you're here. How's it going? So good. So happy to be here. Let's start off by just tell us a little bit about yourself. Yeah, go. Yeah, I am an ex-Austinite. I am a Minnesota Boomerang resident. So I was in Austin almost 10 years, moved back to my home of Minnesota. And I am an ex-corporate girly turned realtor, followed my passion, kind of trust-folded into the universe. And now I get to do what I love full-time. am a mom. I love old houses. And I'm just getting to do what I like every day now. Just recently, you were sharing this really cool deal. So you're in our open house community and you found this like a really cool deal in your hometown. We're like sharing it with everyone. It was, like a bed and breakfast. It's like an old, is it, it's a Victorian home? is. Yeah. my gosh. It's beautiful. Yeah. So yeah, that was such a cool process to see, you know, like you walking us through the numbers, telling us about a creative deal. I love it. But what are you going to talk to us about today? Yeah. I'm going to talk about my duplex, which is something that I think everyone should do. think a duplex should be everyone's first property that they buy. Say more. It's the best way to get in. For me, my goal is to have one per kid. I would love three kids, but we'll see if I'm that ambitious with children. I'm expecting my second. Yes, congratulations. Thank you. And so it's just a really good way to get into an investment property. When you buy a duplex, you can get in. with a primary residence loan, which usually means like 5%, sometimes even less down. And you can qualify for more when it's a duplex because you can use half of that portion towards your qualification. So a lot of people don't realize, even though maybe there's like a 600,000 price tag, you can get into it a lot easier. Yes. so essentially that means Like let's say you're looking at to buy a duplex and rents for each side are like $1,200 that you can use when you apply, can use that 12, well, if you're gonna live in it, half of that income. So when you're applying for the loan, that really offsets some of that debt that you would be taking on. So I think when a lot of people hear duplex, I do think that people think, investment, like I need to buy a duplex. And I think, you know, in this market, especially, it's a really good time to find a duplex. I would say like it's not a particularly like crazy booming like during the pandemic time real estate market. And during that time, you know, maybe it was a little bit harder to find a duplex. But I would say right now less people are looking. There's probably more on the market. And I really love what you said of like your first property should be and could be a duplex because that makes so much sense. It's like you can live in one side, you can rent out the other side and you're not sharing space, right? Like I have something called a sneaky duplex where when I was looking to buy, I wasn't finding duplexes in the area that I wanted to find. So I had to kind of create that on my own. But where you are, there's a lot of them and you know, the duplex that you ended up Finding and living in is kind of remarkable, right? Yeah, it's it's honestly it's in my dream neighborhood. It's so cute. It's like a storybook tutor on the outside and it's like a little slice of heaven and a lot of places that have cities built in like the 1920s will have some of these style of duplexes because they were common back in the day and they actually were more common along where street cars ran. And I'm like, that's just such brilliant city planning that you wouldn't have necessarily thought about. But so that's how Minneapolis is actually laid out for where they're most of their duplexes are, which is really cool and interesting little bit of history. What is the area, the exact neighborhood that you kind of found this house in and, how did you find this like perfect property? When I moved back. So it's actually pretty funny when we moved back we our house sight unseen. we, it's crazy, right? Like totally wild. But I had an advantage because I knew the area really well. I I stuck to my guns as I think any buyer should within reason. But I knew that I wanted to be around the lakes in Minneapolis. My duplex is located in Lynnhurst. And I'm walkable to three awesome restaurants, a cute coffee shop, a bookstore. It's truly such a high quality of life that I have here night and day from where I was living previously. And that difference makes all the difference. And there's lots of duplexes. So I narrowed in on that area. We actually got our duplex off market just from the realtor we were working with. We were under contract for one fell through and then he was like, well, I know friend that might sell and it worked out perfectly. So it was kind of a beautiful thing in that way. But now these days when I'm helping my friends and clients and anyone who's looking for a duplex, I always encourage people like write letters or like have someone help you write letters to people because a lot of people are willing to sell, especially in the market right now, but don't necessarily want to. go through all of the work to put things on the market. And that's how I got mine was they were older, they found someplace they wanted, and it was just the right time when we approached them and said, hey, we want this, we're serious. And so it worked out really. That's awesome. Yeah, they probably were like, a nice family who's going to move into our home, take care of it. They probably have very similar values to you where, yeah, it's like, Yes, you want to return on your money, but you also want to keep the character of the home and integrity of the home. So that's awesome. it's funny that you said you bought it sight unseen. I have done this before. same thing. It's like I knew what I wanted. I wanted something in a very specific neighborhood, very specific price point. I think that was the biggest thing is like I had five options. I was like, is what I'm going to do. So sight unseen, here we go. And the price point made sense. Maybe talk to us a little bit, break down some of the numbers for us and walk us through like, what are the specs of this property? Yeah. So I bought it for $750, which was honestly a little bit more than we wanted to spend, but it was so perfect. Like, if you know Minneapolis, I'm on 49th and Penn. is... right like a block away from Lake Harriet, which is the most beautiful lake in Minneapolis. I'm very biased, but it is. And I'm walking distance to great restaurants. I can go walk to happy hour. Like it is perfect. So it was so worth it. And in the end, I got a property and I love the people that I bought the house from, but they had it very like nineties decor. And I brought it back to its glory. The upper level we renovated right when we moved in. is this duplex set up? Is it like, Up down. is it up? It's an up down. OK, got it. So it's three bedroom, one bathroom on each level. We live in the lower unit. I put about twenty thousand into renovating the upper unit and the foyer, which was so dark. had brown carpet and like tan, dark brown walls. It was not cute. And now it's gorgeous. So we put about twenty thousand in right right when we moved in. And the goal was to get the renovation. done and get it rented as soon as possible. And our mortgage is $4,449.64. And then electric is about $120, gas is about $70, water, trash about $120, and then internet we have flat at $50. So in total, it's about $4,809. And then what we've done is Kind of a mix between short and midterm rent. Midterm rent, would consider anything like a month to honestly, anything under than a standard long-term lease, which is 12 months. we have done like some three month renters. We've done lots of short term. And right now we actually have someone who's living upstairs and he will have, when he leaves, it'll be an 11 month. rent, so maybe he'll stay longer. But he's paying $4,000 a month. that's, we kind of bake utilities into that for him. I like the idea of the flat number. It's more work to divvy all of that up when I know I'm going to be going back to short and midterm after he's gone. But he'll be here through next spring. And spring's the time when things pick up for us. So was a really like mutually beneficial relationship. That's how I love to look at this and what I do, because there's a lot of Airbnb hosts that are like, I'm just going to set a place up and go to Goodwill and get everything and put it in there and I'll be raking it in. for me, I have always wanted to have my own bed and breakfast and hotel because I just love the idea of being able to share a space with someone and have it be something special. And there's such a market out there for people who need something in between. tenant who's upstairs right now and the last midterm tenant I had, they were both going through separations and wanted a great place for them to kind of figure out their next step in life. And I think that's such a beautiful thing to be able to have that for someone, have them not have to be in a, you know, a hotel or like just these other situations or feel obligated to get into a long-term lease and refurnish a place. Like that's just so much. No one wants to deal with that. And so it's a... It's a beautiful thing I get to provide for people. Yeah, it really is. I feel like hospitality is a dying art or yeah, dying or dead art, honestly. And, you know, I just had an experience yesterday with Airbnb guests that are staying at our house, our beach house in Florida that I own with my sister. And they had this horrible experience with our neighbor. And I called them, talked them through. I was like, I'm so sorry. You know, like it's Things like that, like you have to, if you're gonna take on a responsibility of being a host, you need to act like a host. And I think now a lot of these big property management companies are just like, you know, kind of being rude. It's all about the numbers for them. I mean, it is a hard business, I know that, but like, you're making your job even harder and you're gonna lose a lot of clients the way they're acting. But I don't wanna like scoot on by this great number that you just mentioned.$4,000 for the three-bedroom, one-bath unit upstairs that you're getting, that is essentially covering your whole living expense. yeah. Almost, there's like a few hundred dollars that you said, that is incredible. It's covering your full mortgage payment and you get to live in absolutely wonderful neighborhood. My partner Eric is from Minnesota and I remember driving around that neighborhood and was like, you know, I could... I could live here and manage the winters if we lived here. That's exactly how I felt. I was very specific. was like, this is where I will come back to. Yeah. And I do also want to hear about your prior living experience because you were saying that you were living in Austin before and not in this like walkable area. Tell us kind of where you were before and what your situation was here. got my first house with the help of you and the open house team. I bought in, I would say kind of the hood of Austin, but I bought what I could afford. was a single lady at the time and knew I wanted to buy a house and it was, it was what I could afford. And then there was a shed in the backyard that I was like, I can see the vision. I can envision that this can make me money. And it did. I bought a three-bedroom, two-bath house in North Lamar, neighborhood of Austin. And then the shed in the backyard, I brought electrical and sewer lines to it, put in a little tiny bathroom. This was like 220 square feet. And so finished it out and that ended up bringing in that small casita is what I called it, brought in like 3,000 a month on average. And then once I convinced my then boyfriend partner to buy a house, we moved there and then I rented out my entire house. When I was living in the house that I had to, I had a roommate and then my boyfriend who I charged rent to both because this is an equitable situation for everyone. And so I was completely cash flowing. upwards of positive, I think it was like 2000 at the time. I would have to go look at previous spreadsheets, but I was rolling in it. It was great. I used that to leverage other opportunities. A lot of that is what helped buy my place here in Minneapolis. It's all just snowballing what you have. You were a little uncomfortable at first, right? yeah. I had a random roommate live with us. I mean, it's not... a comfy situation necessarily, like, and having to put all of the just infrastructure together around building a tiny home. It was hard. Like it was, it was really difficult, like dealing with contractors. I had to fire probably three all like during figuring out who's the right one to work with. And, but you just figure those things out and everything is figure out a bowl. and you get through it and it's worth it in the end. And I am so glad because all of those things just prove that it can be done. was not the type of person where like I had super like high level of handy person skills. I didn't necessarily have everything. I just knew that. from my family, like I don't come from a lot of money and I knew I wanted to change that trajectory for myself and for my future family. And so that's what I had. And so I used that to just like propel me in the direction I knew I needed to go. love that. I love that so much. And yeah, what was your background before you were in real estate? Yeah, I was in the marketing project management world. Prior to that, I did a lot of events work. I actually worked at South by Southwest for a little bit. And I was like the magician behind the curtain for expos. So yeah, it's really fun. It's funny. I feel like I'm attracting like in this community. It's like all the project management people were like the hospitality people. That was my background too is events, event management for Yonder Real Estate and very much like a project management mindset. So yeah, that's really funny. But yeah, so But you didn't have a real estate background, like you said. I think a lot of people can get nervous about jumping into real estate because it feels so foreign to them and scary. And that's exactly why this community, this podcast exists, is I want to showcase people like you, showing women that you can jump into this too. And knowing that real estate, it's not passive. You're going to learn a lot. You might cry, but it's so worth it in the end. like, look where you are now. Like, how long ago was this when you started? I bought my first place in 2019. So this isn't that long ago. And like, it's totally I also credit my I think it was just like a mix of motherly instinct and just like true listening to my gut. But I sold at the tippy top of the market in Austin and I am So glad I did because then I was able to use all of that. We sold two properties and were able to use that to cushion a move across the country back to a place where like I didn't have that many connections other than family back in Minnesota. And then buying in our dream neighborhood, Dream Duplex, that is only going to once we move out, I mean, if I'm working off the averages that we're making in our upper level, like 8,000 a month for One duplex is insane. And that's only going to be able to propel us. We can use that income to get into, I will be buying another duplex because that's my personal plan. But for someone who maybe wasn't as like, I need all the duplexes like I am, they could use that money to just put it towards buying their dream house, which I know a lot of people that I talk to and friends, that alone is enough to get them to a different level of. lifestyle that benefits them. So yeah, I'm so proud of you. That's it's going to be such a huge game changer for your family. And I heard you say you wanted to buy a duplex for each child. What do you mean by that? So in my head, I don't necessarily prescribe to the 401k very traditional way of investing, although everyone like should definitely think about how they are investing for their future. But I think real estate is such a great way to think of it, especially when you're in your 30s and 20s. that's a perfect, even 40s, like that's a perfect age to invest in something. When you retire, what is the thing you need? You need a place to live. And I think of it kind of as like a trading card too. Like if I wanted to sell one of my properties when I'm retired and buy something in like France or something like that, which is definitely something on my farther out goals. That's, it's a trading card and like for each kid, I'm equating like, okay, college, all of the things, setting them up, being able to hand that down in a trust so that they have more of a trading card than I did starting out that gives them something. And I firmly believe that real estate is one of the best things that you can have. Everyone's always going to need a place to live as long as we're here on this earth. So. I it's a great trading card to have in your pocket. like how you're kind of equating it to like a game. Like I never thought of that before of a trading card, but it is so true. It's like, what do I have? Do you play board games at all? I'm like thinking of Settlers of Catan. I love Catan, yes. my gosh, yeah, that's exactly what I'm thinking of. Like, what resources do I have? Which ones make sense in this moment of time that I can use right now? And real estate is a really awesome one to have, you know, because you can do a lot of different things with it. Like, I'm not like, I want to collect a million properties and like, just hoard properties. But I love the idea of having a few properties and kind of using them in multiple different ways. And your child could one day say, I have this duplex. You know, I could live here. My friends could live here. They could do a lot of different things with it. They could host events or do, you know, they could do whatever, whatever kids are going to do in that time. Like they can, they have lots of options to not only, you know, save money, make money, but also like be a great host, be a great member of society and knowing you like they're definitely going to go down that route. So yeah, they're, they're going to be. the property owners that we want to be property owners, right? Okay, so when you, with your duplex now, how did you decide to do the midterm rental strategy or short term versus like a long term? Were you just like, I'm here the three options, whichever one I get first, or how did you go about that? I knew that I wanted to maximize the income that I could get. Long term rent in my area is like, It varies significantly, I think in most markets around the country. Like they took a dip in the past year or two, rent wise. And I knew I wanted to like maximize that. I was very comfortable with the short-term rental lifestyle. I had done that big time. And so I knew that I can do it right. And so I have that formula in my back pocket. But it's a lot of like churn and burn. Like you're dealing with so many people. And I really loved it's, it's an attractive thing to have the same person, especially when you're sharing a home, like we do share a ceiling with them. So it's like, if I know that person, it, makes it a more attractive situation, less work cleaning and turning over a place. So for me, it was kind of a no brainer. I'm a mom of a, at the time, two year old. And so. having that be an easy way to have some consistency and maybe take a slight dip in what I could make was so worth it. And it makes a big difference just knowing and having that little bit of consistency, but having the flexibility to have that door to short term open up as I need it. Yeah. And you're in this time of your life where you have a kid, another baby on the way, like you're choosing you're choosing comfort where before when you first started out maybe you weren't choosing that as much you were choosing like, you know, how much money can I make now? So I do want to talk about your property management experience. But first I do want to talk about, you know, yeah, sharing walls. what are there any like unique challenges or, know, that you've kind of faced while living in property that you're also renting out? I definitely feel like it was a lot harder back in the day where I had roommates in my house. Because that's just like you're really sharing. You're sharing an energy bubble with those people. You're like, this is easy compared to that. Yeah, it feels so easy compared to that. we're just, mean, both me and Luke, my husband, we're just used to it at this point. We live, that being said, we live in a 1924 Tudor. The floors are creaky. And so like, you. We're just used to it in that way too of like when our tenant upstairs is home, like we hear footsteps, but like that in exchange for 4,000 and our like rent, I always call our proportion of whatever mortgage we have is our rent. Like that's a pretty great trade out. Like that, that's a non-issue for me. So like it might be a little bit annoying, but it's not at all like. I've never been in a situation, just go look at your bank account and you'll be fine. my gosh, that's fair. And you kind of trained yourself in the beginning, like you're used to living a little bit more like quote unquote uncomfortably, right? Like you're used to these experiences and like this is $4,000 a month. Yeah, I would take that. Right. We're all. Yeah. And I'm sure you picked being on the bottom level versus the top because having a kid and like You don't want to hear your neighbor or your downstairs neighbor being like, quiet down up there. So yeah, exactly. That's why we specified a lot of people actually prefer living in the upper unit because they don't want to be the one to hear. I'm like, I have a hundred pound dog and he is a total dork. That would be so annoying. I'm not going to put anyone through that. And it's really, it's really not that bad. You just, your brain and everything, you get used to a lot and I've never, I don't think I've ever even like been annoyed by the footsteps or anything like that. It's not, it's a, it's a non-issue. yeah. Okay. Good to know. Okay. Let's go back to this short-term, you know, real estate company that you worked for. When was this? That was back. It was right when COVID started. I left corporate world literally the week before COVID was announced to like follow my dreams and go down the path of real estate full time. That was a really unique choice on my end. I didn't know it was happening, but then I'm like, OK, no take-backsies. No take-backsies? OK, can I have my job back? OK, sounds good. Guess I'm doing it. Guess I'm doing it. Yeah, as I left, they were doing mass layoffs. And I was like, that kind of sucks. So it was literally right when it was happening. But I'm leaving. I'm going to leave before you make me leave. Yeah, exactly. It was a very unique time. And I was just totally like, think a theme in my life is just kind of like trust falling into the powers that be and just like trusting myself and knowing that I'll be resilient and work hard enough to make something work. And I did. It was a really successful time. had my property that was working for me at that time. So I knew that I had a little bit of padding, which is another thing I love so much about investment properties and like house hacking in general. Like it allowed me to be flexible and like follow my passions and maternity leave, like all of that. It's been so powerful for every aspect of my life in that way. But I started working with someone who had a property management company. I brought in my project management and the skill sets that I had and helped her build the company up to, I think it was like 30 properties when I left. It was like four when I started and it was there like a year, a little over a year, but it was great. It was something that I was able to learn this market and at the time during COVID, like Airbnb was beginning to be a really big thing and like people were talking about it, there was a lot of like, there wasn't as many gurus at the time of like people that you go online and are like, here, do this for Airbnb. There's a little bit of that, but I don't think as much as there is now. And it was a really unknown time. Like, is there going to be going to like do good or is this going to flop? And it actually, at least in Austin was, did great. So that was really cool to be involved in. managing 30 Airbnbs and I went down the road of like helping people do construction, managing like their construction projects. So like building out actual Airbnb spaces, some sneaky duplexes and did that of course for myself. And then also just like designing and putting together spaces was something I loved so much. And so I did a lot of that and Once I departed from that, said, you know what, managing 30 just doesn't one feel like the most like ethical thing because I don't want to just be like, I don't think anyone can work in a way true to what I think Airbnb's mission is, which is to like share a space out of your home with someone, which is like what totally drew me in in the first place. Like that's, I think they're, that's how their company started is like. to share your space and have it be a personal connection. It's just not possible when you're doing too much. So I started consulting people, because I also think it's just so cool on teaching people how to fish and do it themselves, because people think these things are so hard. And it's like, no, no, no, like, you can do this. Like, you got this. And I wish more people had that same. like belief in themselves. And so that's what I try to instill in as many people as I can talk to really. Yeah, because it's really a lot of systems that you have to put in place. you know, I manage my property, me and my sister manage it, our Florida house from afar. And I will say it's testing me this week, ultimately I'd rather do it myself. I know I'm to do it the best. I'm going to get the best reviews. I'm going to offer the best experience. I'm, you know, how many states away? Like so many, like we're 12 hours away from this property at 12 hour drive. And I have the best reviews and I have a lot of automated messages and I don't meet, greet the guests or whatever, but I will call them if needed. Like our house is set up so comfortably. The kitchen is like fully stocked. Like it's our home. Like we go there to. to three months out of the year. like, yeah, it's our home. if you want to self-manage your own property, you definitely can. Real estate is never passive, even if you hire a property manager. they're still going to be calling you and getting your permission to sign off on a toilet that's overflow. Like, that's still going to be there. Some people, definitely like, that's just not their lane. And that's OK. Like, still do it. like, Yeah, just Many of us can. Yes, exactly. More people than they think. Yes. In regards with the house you live in now, what are your next plans for your kind of homestead? Yeah. So we renovated the upper level right away, like I mentioned. We are doing that slower in our lower level because we live in it. And. once we get it into a good place or once I find the right deal, we will definitely be moving out. So honestly, I find deals all the time that I'm like, okay, this could be the one. So we're just kind of waiting for the magic to strike for us and we'll buy another duplex and then move out and do the same formula that we do upstairs, downstairs. And you know. by our trajectory right now, have about 8,000 coming in monthly for this duplex. And it feels like, I mean, just like striking gold with something like that. And it's a great place. mean, the neighborhood's awesome. So it's something that I'm so excited to share with more people. It's honestly amazing, because I've had so many people reach out once my place was booked, like, hey, is your place still available? I'm looking for... like a four month lease somewhere and I've had to say no, no, no. So I'm, I know that the need and the want is there for more from what I can provide. So I'm excited to be able to expand, but yeah, another duplex and then hopefully like one more. And then we'll be rolling whatever we can into a single family house and maybe not moving for a while, but yeah. That's fair. And you're working on teaching others about this as well, right? Yeah. So I have been talking so much to anyone who brings up the idea of investing to me. And there's so much unknown about buying a duplex and what that could look like. So I'm putting together a course for people to be able to learn just the basics and the rundown of how you can apply this formula that I have. and do it on your own. And there's so many great places to do it. So my goal is to not have it be like just Minneapolis or Minnesota based, but where people can do the same thing. Yeah, that's so exciting. Yeah. And you're right now in our online community. Like, tell us a little bit about your experience there. And also, you know, ladies who are listening, Allison is in there and she is If you have any questions about Duplex, she's always gonna hop on and answer. She's been such a wealth of knowledge for the group already. But yeah, tell us about your experience in there so far. I love it. And I've told a few friends about it already because it's so nice to have a community, especially moving from Austin, which is and was my home and where I had a larger community for this type of... thing that I'm doing, the investment world. moving back to Minnesota, Minnesota can be kind of clicky and like, know, it can, it can be hard moving home and it has been a little bit tricky for me in that way. And so having that community of like-minded women to be a national thing versus something that was in person, there are other groups, but it's just so nice for me to be able to like go somewhere virtually and be able to talk about the things I love. with like minded women and get ideas and see what other women are doing. It's so inspiring, especially like as a new mom, I mean, it's just like such a big question mark. Like even though I've been doing these things, pre-mom life and post, like it's still is easy to be like, what am I doing? Where am I going next? What's happening? And so it's just really nice to have that anchor almost of a community to share and evolve. So yeah, well, thank you for being one of the founding members. You've been wonderful. And yeah, it's been so great to learn from you as well. And yeah, before we hop off, is there, know, anything else you'd want to share with someone who's kind of like just starting off in the real estate journey? Yeah. I mean, always have someone to talk to, like share everything you're feeling. And if you want to come and talk to me, I would love to chat things through and you can do whatever you put your mind to. I think the biggest thing is just getting yourself to jump off that ledge. I told a client and friend the other day when we got coffee, was like, fortune favors the bold. So have that in your mind and feel free to reach out and I would love to. It's my favorite thing to talk about, same. I we met up when you were in Austin last and it was great to chat with you about real estate and life and everything and I'm so just so happy to have this conversation with you. So thank you so much, Allison. Where can people find you if they're wanting to reach out besides our online community? am on Instagram at Allison Heathcote, one L and Allison and there's an extra E at the end of Heap Coat is H-E-A-T-H-C-O-T-E-E. And then my website where my course will be going and some of my like stories and you can see some of the work I've done in my deflects. is heapcoathomes.com. Yes, and we'll link those in the show notes as well. So you can go check out Alison's projects and follow her on Instagram. Thank you so much, Christina. Yeah. Thank you so much for being here. Taking time out of your busy day.