Summary: The goal of our Investor Spotlight series is to provide you with stories of real doctors and high-income professionals who are at different points in their journey to achieving financial freedom through real estate investing. Today’s spotlight is on investor couple Kristina and Mario. They grew their portfolio from 3 doors to 22 doors in twelve months and are well on their way to freedom!
[Disclaimer: We are not accountants, lawyers, or financial advisors, so please consult your own team of professionals about the topics covered in this article.]
We interviewed Kristina and Mario during our first annual Fast FIRE to Freedom Summit in August 2021. You can watch the interview hereto hear about Kristina’s and Mario’s real estate journey in their own words!
Want to hear more stories like this? Be sure to keep an eye out for sign-ups for the 2022 Fast FIRE to Freedom Summit!
Kristina and Mario live in San Antonio, Texas with their two small children. Kristina is a pediatric intensivist and inventor. Mario is a health & life insurance broker and is now a property manager for all their properties in the Austin & San Antonio area. Mario has Real Estate Professional Status. He actively renovates the properties and is working on building his dream team to continue on their path to obtaining more doors.
How did you become interested in achieving financial freedom through real estate investing in the first place?
Mario: I bought my first home while I was living in Austin, TX about 15 years ago. And I still have that house today. I decided to rent it out, so that was my start in real estate investing. We decided to refinance that house, which has helped us invest in other properties.
Kristina: I, fortunately, grew up in a household where my Dad had real estate. He was a CEO for Community Health Centers along the border area of Texas. And on top of that, he created a billboard business. Then, he built some multifamily units in our hometown. And it’s a small community, like 30,000. So I watched him do that. I saw him acquire different properties. Including condos, he bought for me when I went to college and medical school in different parts of Texas. And so I just thought that was something that I would do as well.
Obviously, for me, my journey was a little different because I was always studying. I was always preparing for some board exams. So lo and behold, when I finished medical school and Mario and I got married, it was very natural for me to say, hey, we need to purchase some properties!
What is Your “why” behind this? Was there a triggering event that led you to start your journey of achieving financial freedom through real estate investing?
Kristina: Myself and my group of Pedi intensivists were terminated in December 2019 right before COVID. I was pregnant with our second child at this time. The circumstance was an eye-opener that opened the opportunity to take massive action outside of medicine. We want to travel the world with our kids, continue to pursue my passion for global health without financial constraints, create generational wealth and live a life of abundance!
Once you decided to pursue financial freedom through real estate investing, how did you get started?
Kristina: We had three single-family homes before we took the course. And then we found you guys through the awesome community of physicians, and we took your ZTF course in the Summer of 2020. And at that point it really enabled us to say, oh, wait, we only have three single-family homes. There’s so much more to do with our real estate portfolio. So at that point, I set a goal for 10 doors by December of 2020. We didn’t quite meet the 10 doors by December of 2020, but by January 2021, we re-upped to seven doors. So, at that point I’m like, well, I want 20 doors for 2021. I doubled my bet. And lo and behold by June, of 2021 we hit 22 doors.
What type of properties make up your real estate investment portfolio? Were they in-state/out of state?
Kristina: We have six single-family homes (one house has a casita in the back, but was sold as one unit with 2 doors), two duplexes, a triplex, and an eight plex. Our properties are all in Texas. Around the San Antonio and Austin area.
How are you balancing achieving financial freedom through your real estate investing with your career(s) and your clinical work?
Kristina: I’m a Pediatric Intensivist and Mario is a computer techie by training. And we have two kids. We have a three-year-old and a one-and-a-half-year-old. In addition to that, Mario is a broker for health and life insurance. He also does some tech consulting.
We’re also both real estate investors. And we are both full-time parents since we lost our nanny, as we dived into creating our real estate portfolio. So it is definitely possible for anyone even possibly thinking about doing this journey.
We decided Mario was going to be our property manager because he wanted to definitely reach Real Estate Professional Status. So on top of his other jobs, he’s now officially a property manager for 22 doors.
Can you tell us about any difficulties or failures you’ve had in real estate investing? Any big learning points you’ve taken from these experiences that you can share with us in your journey to achieving financial freedom?
Kristina: Yeah. So again, we live in San Antonio. I really wanted to purchase a property in one of the historical areas of the city. I had already found one property listed. And I was a little disappointed because the amount didn’t match my numbers. And so we did try to negotiate and lower the price and they didn’t budge. So I kind of tried to think outside the box and be creative.
How can we increase the cash-on-cash return on this property if we do proceed with it? But I kept looking around that area and I had my funnel for single-family and multifamily on Redfin. I literally would wake up and just start looking before my day went on. And it doesn’t take a long time once you get going. And then I set filters where I would get messages if a property would come up as well.
So I found another property right next to the property we didn’t buy. And it was also a triplex. And it was significantly lower priced. At least more within our budget. So I sent it to our investor agent. And he said, “Wow, this is a really good find. How did you find it?” So I just told him I found it through the single-family filter. He said, “Yeah, you’re right. It’s been on the market for three months. It probably hasn’t sold yet because it’s just mislabeled.” And, so we proceeded with it. It turned out that that was probably our hardest property to purchase because their realtor was not warm and fuzzy and kind of always created some barriers.
Our realtor pushed through with lots of communication. We did have to get the title company involved, almost got the lawyer involved, but it happened. We signed. And we just learned that the property that I’ve been wanting just went up in price an additional $175,000. So hopefully that will continue to add value to our property next door.
Mario: If I can add to that story. Initially, she found that property next door to ours. We actually made an offer. When we got outbid, we made an offer of $15,000 over the asking price. Then we got outbid by $30,000. So that’s when we ended up finding the property next door. We made an offer. We negotiated, I think we got a $20,000 haircut for the roof. So it appraised $70,000 over and we went ahead and purchased it. And now, the one next door went back on the market. They made some additions, some repairs, and updates. And now it’s appraised, $205,000 over the initial asking price, which is good for us because we’re right next door.
How about any big successes? Anything you learned from good outcomes that you can share that might help other real estate investors?
Mario: After we purchased our triplex, We ended up going bigger with an eight plex in New Braunfels. New Braunfels is right between Austin and San Antonio. It was kind of like a sudden purchase because our realtor brought it up to us. We were in Austin. Our realtor told us there’s this great property you might want to drive by. We were then on our way back to San Antonio. So we drove by it.
The location was great. It’s in the middle of a really decent neighborhood. I was the one more skeptical. Mostly because it was one bedroom, one bath in all eight units. Which was another limiting factor that I had. You know, we can’t raise the rent on one-bedroom units as much as we can on two or three-bedroom units. But, you know, she was pretty adamant that it was a great property. And once we drove by it, I think we both agreed, because of the location. There will be a great increase in property value in that area. It’s near San Marcos, Austin, and San Antonio. And then, just knowing that Amazon and other major corporations are coming into town. So we ended up buying it.
Kristina: One other thing about that property, the value that I saw and I felt very persistent about was, it’s in great shape. The siding was beautiful. All the units had really upgraded kitchens and bathrooms. And each one had its own little European washer and dryer in place already. So then I looked at Rentometer, which is an app you can use to kind of get a brief overview of what rents are going for in that area. And I saw the potential to definitely raise rents without even having to add a lot of value to each unit.
Mario: Right. In addition, we also negotiated that the roof should be replaced before we purchased the property. So that was an extra added bonus.
Kristina: I think just a few more points are, I think mindset for me has been a big deal. Not only in the goal-reaching aspect, but I try to live more in abundance than in scarcity. So there are multi-family and single-family properties for everyone. You’re not really competing against your friends. Surround yourself in a community that thinks like you and shares properties. If you’re not going to move it, maybe that’s a property that does work for another (investor) family. And so I think that another learning lesson for me is to try to live more in abundance.
Where are you now in your real estate investing journey and achieving financial freedom? What are your goals for where you want to be in 1 year, 5 years, or 10 years from now?
Kristina: I would love to get to 50 units. I would give myself until probably the spring of 2023 to get there. Ideally, it would be December 2022, but I would like to stabilize all these units. And part of that is Mario is doing all the property management of these units as he’s reaching real estate professional status. As we go through this journey, I want to stay married and I don’t want to overwork him!
Mario: You know, of course, it’s hard. I think once we have a general contracting team in place it will be easier. I have found some good contracting or subcontracting people that I’ve really liked. So, once we get at least a couple of sets of subcontractors in place, I think it would be much easier to purchase additional properties.
Kristina: Thankfully Mario is handy and he likes to fix things. So it’s been a little easier for us to keep going with the properties without waiting and depending on another team to show up.
Mario: 5-10 years down the road…the sky’s the limit!
A conservative outlook would be to add 5-10 doors per year. We’d like to venture out to add additional STR’s/vacation homes, 20-100 unit apartments, and maybe even commercial/retail properties.
Have you found a way to creatively fund your real estate portfolio and achieve financial freedom? Join the conversation! Follow our Semi-Retired MD Facebook page and join our Physicians (for MDs or DOs only) or Professionals group! Also, if you missed it, check out our prior Investor Spotlight.
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