{"id":117760,"date":"2019-10-23T05:00:29","date_gmt":"2019-10-23T11:00:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.biggerpockets.com\/blog\/?p=117760"},"modified":"2021-03-16T14:56:32","modified_gmt":"2021-03-16T20:56:32","slug":"female-advice-investing-real-estate","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.biggerpockets.com\/blog\/female-advice-investing-real-estate","title":{"rendered":"From Woman to Woman: There&#8217;s No Reason to Be Intimidated by Real Estate Investing [Interview With Ashley Kehr]"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>At times, real estate investing can seem like a male-dominated field. We&#8217;re often asked at BiggerPockets why there aren&#8217;t more women who are doing this.<\/p>\n<p>On <a href=\"https:\/\/www.biggerpockets.com\/blog\/biggerpockets-podcast-348-ashley-kehr\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">episode 348<\/a> of the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.biggerpockets.com\/podcast\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">BiggerPockets Podcast<\/a>, I asked investor Ashley Kehr what her experience has been like as a woman in the industry. Is it extra challenging? Or are there some benefits to it?<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/lKKUUvegKok\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<h2>What It&#8217;s Like to Be a Female Real Estate Investor<\/h2>\n<p>I asked Ashley how she&#8217;s navigated the industry and what advice she has for other women who want to get started. Here&#8217;s what she said.<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>I actually have a good story for that. When I had driven by this <a href=\"\/renewsblog\/2013\/05\/15\/commercial-real-estate-investing\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">commercial property<\/a> one time, there was just a commercial sign out front for it: &#8220;For Sale.&#8221; I called. It looked like residential units upstairs.<\/p>\n<p>It was a Realtor, and he said that his father owned the property and actually had more properties for sale. If I&#8217;d be interested meeting him in the area, he&#8217;d show me all the properties.<\/p>\n<p>That right there was great; I was really excited.<\/p>\n<p>So, I get to the property, and I get out of the car. He&#8217;s standing there, and we shake hands and stuff. And he&#8217;s just standing there, and I&#8217;m like, &#8220;OK, can we go in?&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>He&#8217;s like, &#8220;Well, is your husband getting out of the car?&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>He just assumed this is my husband&#8217;s deal and he was a part of it.<\/p>\n<p>I was like, &#8220;No, it&#8217;s just me. I&#8217;m the one interested in buying it.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>I&#8217;ve actually ended up buying about 12 units from his dad from that deal, so we&#8217;ve become good friends because of it. And the six I have under contract now are from the same guy! But it&#8217;s just really funny that he assumed that my husband would be a part of it.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><strong><em>Related: <\/em><\/strong><em><a href=\"https:\/\/www.biggerpockets.com\/blog\/full-time-real-estate-working-mom\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">How I Learned to \u201cHave It All\u201d as a Working Mom (Hint: I Ditched My 9-5)<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n<p>Ashley went on to describe why investing in real estate shouldn&#8217;t be intimidating\u2014for anyone.<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>I think it&#8217;s very easy to do because you don&#8217;t need to do the maintenance. There are people out there that will do the maintenance for you. And I feel like that&#8217;s why a lot of people don&#8217;t want to do it. They&#8217;re like, &#8220;I don&#8217;t know anything about the construction of a house. I don&#8217;t know how to repair things well.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>But I have no idea either. My 21-year-old sister did a better job doing her home maintenance and updating her property than I ever could. But I can hire all that stuff out. And as long as your numbers are good, you can make that work.<\/p>\n<p>I probably have had my husband go to a property one time in the last five years to do a repair for me. He is very hands-off from it. I don&#8217;t recommend NOT having your husband on board and doing it\u2014my husband&#8217;s very supportive and loves talking to me about it\u2014but I honestly don&#8217;t think he knows where any of my properties even are.<\/p>\n<p>So, it&#8217;s just an interesting perspective. You don&#8217;t need to have a man to do that maintenance.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-108633\" src=\"https:\/\/www.biggerpockets.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/03\/aerial-view-neighborhood.jpg\" alt=\"Aerial view of a green leafy suburb\" width=\"702\" height=\"336\" title=\"\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.biggerpockets.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/03\/aerial-view-neighborhood.jpg 702w, https:\/\/www.biggerpockets.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/03\/aerial-view-neighborhood-300x144.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 702px) 100vw, 702px\" \/><\/p>\n<p>Next, I asked Ashley about the advantages that a woman might have in the industry that may be overlooked.<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Well, sometimes I can use the excuse, &#8220;Oh, you know what, I need to talk to my husband.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>If I don&#8217;t feel comfortable giving an answer right then and there, it&#8217;s a perfectly believable excuse. Anyone is just like, &#8220;Oh, yeah definitely. OK, you don&#8217;t need to answer now.&#8221;<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>I told Ashley that Brandon and I use an imaginary partner in the same way: &#8220;Oh, I gotta go run this by my &#8216;partner.'&#8221;<\/p>\n<p><strong><em>Related: <\/em><\/strong><em><a href=\"https:\/\/www.biggerpockets.com\/blog\/full-time-real-estate-working-mom\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">4 Steps to Take the Leap of Faith &amp; Start Investing Now<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n<p>Brandon chimed in next, asking Ashley, &#8220;What&#8217;s been your biggest challenge so far in real estate investing?&#8221;<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>I think a lot of it was at first money\u2014that is until I got that mortgage line of credit. But then after that, I&#8217;d say tenant relations. If you&#8217;re going to manage your own property, you really need to be understanding and you need to learn how to deal with your <a href=\"\/renewsblog\/2013\/01\/27\/tenant-screening\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">tenants<\/a>, because it can break you.\u00a0And that honestly has been the hardest thing for me.<\/p>\n<p>Even at my job [as a property manager], I&#8217;ve grown so much from the day I started to now with handling tenants. You know, just knowing what they expect, what I expect, and how to draw a fine line between us and not give into anything and still be compassionate about their situation.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Ashley started investing in 2014. Reflecting on the past five years, we asked her to share a memory related to investing that still makes her smile today.<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>I paid off my husband&#8217;s truck with my <a href=\"\/renewsblog\/2013\/01\/04\/how-to-rent-your-house\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">rental property<\/a> income\u2014and I just loved that, the day I clicked that button and submitted that final payment. Because he has always supported me forever, and it was just so nice to be able to do one thing for him.<\/p>\n<p>I work so hard, and I&#8217;m gone a lot. I&#8217;ve been traveling to conferences lately. So, it was about a year ago that I was able to do that for him. And since then, I&#8217;ve actually paid off his farm equipment. I have one more\u2014a skid-steer\u2014to pay off for him.<\/p>\n<p>But it&#8217;s just great showing that all this time I&#8217;ve wasted on real estate actually hasn&#8217;t been a waste. I&#8217;ve been able to provide for our family and get his farm paid off, so that really has been worth all of it.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>The entire episode of the BiggerPockets Podcast featuring Ashley Kehr is available at <a href=\"https:\/\/www.biggerpockets.com\/blog\/biggerpockets-podcast-348-ashley-kehr\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">BiggerPockets.com\/show348<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.biggerpockets.com\/podcast\" target=\"_blank\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-114262\" src=\"https:\/\/www.biggerpockets.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/08\/1-1.jpg\" alt=\"ad-biggerpockets-real-estate-podcast\" width=\"706\" height=\"125\" title=\"\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.biggerpockets.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/08\/1-1.jpg 706w, https:\/\/www.biggerpockets.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/08\/1-1-300x53.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.biggerpockets.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/08\/1-1-702x125.jpg 702w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 706px) 100vw, 706px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p><em>Do you agree with Ashley&#8217;s advice about why real estate investing shouldn&#8217;t be intimidating for anyone\u2014male or female?\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n<p><strong>Weigh in with a comment below. <\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>At times, real estate investing can seem like a male-dominated field. We&#8217;re often asked at BiggerPockets why there aren&#8217;t more women who are doing this. On an episode of the BiggerPockets Podcast, Ashley Kehr describes her experience as a woman in the industry. Is it extra challenging? Or are there some benefits to it?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5362,"featured_media":117827,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5524],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-117760","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-real-estate-investing-for-beginners"],"acf":[],"comment_count":0,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biggerpockets.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/117760","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biggerpockets.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biggerpockets.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biggerpockets.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5362"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biggerpockets.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=117760"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.biggerpockets.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/117760\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biggerpockets.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/117827"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biggerpockets.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=117760"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biggerpockets.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=117760"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biggerpockets.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=117760"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}