May 17, 2023
Today’s Episode features Dedee Boring
As a self-storage and multifamily investor, deal sponsor, and commercial real estate investor, Dedee Boring is dedicated to building wealth through strategic investments. Dedee is also the founder of the Women in Multifamily Association, connecting women in the industry and fostering collaboration.
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Starting a Networking Group [00:00:00]
Challenges in Multifamily Investing [00:01:13]
Lessons Learned in Partnerships [00:05:17]
Networking for Women in Multifamily and Storage [00:08:02]
Starting a Women's Group in Multifamily [00:10:48]
Empowering Women to Invest in Real Estate [00:13:45]
Starting a Women's Multifamily Networking Group [00:16:18]
Challenges in Multifamily Investing and Pivoting to Self-Storage [00:17:03]
Approaching Building a New Team for Storage Investments [00:19:11]
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Connect with Dedee:
Connect with Sam:
I love helping others place money outside of traditional investments that both diversify a strategy and provide solid predictable returns.
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/HowtoscaleCRE/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/samwilsonhowtoscalecre/
Email me → sam@brickeninvestmentgroup.com
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Want to read the full show notes of the episode? Check it out below:
Dedee Boring(00:00:00) - I started a networking group here in Austin. It was supposed to be women in multi-family Austin. Um, but then, and the reason it was I started going to these different, um, events and noticing that maybe there would be one woman on a panel and maybe one speaker, but for the most part it was 90% men, 10% women. And then looking out in the crowd thinking, what did they just not come today? Or where, where are girls at? Um, and so I just thought, well, maybe I know that there's some really great women out there. Let's start this little networking group and see what we get. Welcome
Intro (00:00:35) - To the How to Scale commercial real Estate Show. Whether you are an active or passive investor, we'll teach you how to scale your real estate investing business into something big.
Sam Wilson (00:00:48) - Dedee Boring is a self-storage and multi-family investor, and she's dedicated to building wealth through strategic investments. Deedee is also the founder of the Women and Multifamily Association connecting women in the industry. Deedee, welcome to the show.
Dedee Boring(00:01:02) - Thank you for having me. I appreciate being here.
Sam Wilson (00:01:04) - Absolutely. The pleasure is mine. Deedee, there are three questions I ask every guest who comes in the show in 90 seconds or less. Can you tell me where did you start? Were you now, and how did you get there?
Dedee Boring(00:01:13) - Well, we've had a family business for 18 years. Um, my husband and I have worked together for that long. It's been a fun time. Um, in 2020 we sold everything we had in Midland and moved to Austin and took our business with us. Um, our children were less than excited about joining in the family business, which was advertising. So we looked for something that we would all enjoy. So, and we decided real estate was where we were gonna be. Um, we pretty much got our butts kicked in 2022. Uh, we had three deals that the interest rates just tanked and multi-family. Um, and so we fought violently for those, but it didn't, it just didn't work out. Um, and so we've decided to pivot to storage and we have partnered with, uh, some really great people, pinnacle storage properties and impacts capital. And we have a storage, we just closed on a storage facility and we're looking to close on a couple more pretty soon. So we have a storage facility in Forney, Texas, which is right outside of Dallas. Um, and it's about 75,000 square feet. Okay.
Sam Wilson (00:02:21) - Okay. Very cool. Well, let's hear, let's hear this kind of, um, not transition, but, but how this evolved. So you, in 2020 you said, Hey, we're moving to Austin. Uh, you're leaving the oil fields moving to, I guess, you know, what's, what's Austin now? The tech city I guess, if you will. I don't know what Austin is. Yeah, yeah. There's
Dedee Boring(00:02:38) - Austin's Hill country. It's beautiful. And w where we were living is just not very pretty. Right. And, uh, my, all of our kids graduated from high school. Our youngest one was going to school and we said, you know what? We've done our time in Midland, Texas and we're gonna go to someplace pretty and it's very pretty here. So we decided that's what we're gonna do. So while everybody else was un under quarantine, we were moving
Sam Wilson (00:03:02) - . Yeah. Well there's a lot of people doing that in quarantine, uh, as well seeking, seeking a greener pasture elsewhere. That's really cool. You decided to get into real estate. What were some of the things that you feel like you did right? And then maybe we can talk a little bit about 2022 in your terms, uh, kicked your butt. So what, what were some, some things you feel like you did well there? Learning and then getting involved in commercial real estate?
Dedee Boring(00:03:26) - I think we did well by getting into a mentorship program where we had people, um, encouraging us and teaching us the business. I think, um, we have, we were, we're very good at underwriting properties. We have a template that we've gotten very good at. We, we underwrote the heck out of a lot of properties before we ever put a L o I on anything, just to make sure that we knew what we were doing. So I, I think we evaluated the market as much as we could. Um, and we tried to pick partners. We thought we were, well maybe that's not something we did well, but, um, we, we thought we, we think we have networked. I, I think our, we are as a family are, we are really good at networking and getting out there and not being shy. Um, and just getting our name out. So networking, you know, the, the cliche your net worth is, your network is your net worth. So Yeah,
Sam Wilson (00:04:21) - Absolutely. Absolutely. So you guys said, Hey, we're going long there in multi-family and then yeah, 2022 happened. What did that mean to you?
Dedee Boring(00:04:30) - Ooh, so we got three off market deals in a row. Um, we picked some partners that we felt were pretty solid. Um, and basically we did an l o I in May and then June interest rates start going up and we had a lender pull out and then we had a whale investor pullout. And so it was just a combination of a whole bunch of things and, you know, we've been fighting, we fought valiantly for it, um, to see if we could do it, but it just, in the long run, it just didn't work out for our investors. So we pulled, um, it was better for us to lose that money, which was a lot to lose that money and, um, as painful as it was and learn those lessons. Um, and you know, the lessons learned were make sure you really know your partners.
Dedee Boring(00:05:17) - I mean you're, this is a marriage for five years and make sure that they're gonna, if things go bad, that they're gonna stay. Um, cuz we learned that that's not always the case. So yeah, 2022 happened and then, you know, we had thought about being in storage for a long time and just didn't, hadn't taken that plunge. And I believe it was a god thing. I got a great email sent of a property sent to me and uh, you know, and multi-family, a 14 million project is not a big project, but in storage, that's a really big project. Um, so, um, you know, I didn't really, because multi-family was the only thing I really knew. I didn't get surprised by the price. And so I've had this whole team built up and um, we went after it and it was a, you know, owner financing great leverage, great interest rate. So it was kind of a dream that's, it was great.
Sam Wilson (00:06:09) - . That's awesome. And that, was that a deal that you uncovered?
Dedee Boring(00:06:13) - Yeah, um, just through my network. So again, network, network, always stay in front of people, always. You know, it's everybody's busy. So it's not even a personal thing If an, if a broker doesn't remember who you are or remember to send you that off market deal, it's top of mind and just, I think a lot of people find that it's personal and they haven't felt that connection and they probably have, it's just a matter of the, you know, the squeaky wheel thing, just always keeping in front of people. Yeah. And making sure you're heard.
Sam Wilson (00:06:43) - Absolutely. It's funny, uh, you know, not funny cause there's nothing funny about this, uh, your experience there of losing your earnest money. I mean, uh, it's not a, it's not one that, um, is uncommon unfortunately, but I think there's, there's, there's some things there, some things there to learn. And I've always said that the last 10 years have really covered up a lot of potential mismatches in partnerships. They've covered up a lot of, I mean, gosh, the last decade almost, not exclusively, but you could throw a dart at a board, pick a multifamily property and you probably would've made money. And I've said, it's covered up a lot of those kind of mistakes and or things that, that could be mistakes. And I said, I keep saying this, I think that the tougher the times get, the more we're gonna see those kind of cracks in the foundation and or poorly formed general partnerships, all of those things.
Sam Wilson (00:07:34) - What are, what are some, and, and we, and I say this to our investors and uh, you know, to everybody else, which is the, the, the, the thing you should be evaluating is the team, like the oh yeah, the deal is the bottom, maybe 10% of the whole, the whole shoot and match it's team market. Then the deal and the deal is only 10% maybe of that equation. So tell me, when it comes to the team, you learned some lessons the hard way the first time on the team. What did you d do differently when you started picking your storage partners?
Dedee Boring(00:08:02) - So I keep saying network, network, network. I had a fabulous conversation about minions, um, with a man at a networking event for a very long time. Um, and the only thing I heard besides minions was that he was in storage, uh, that he had invested passively in storage. He wasn't even a, an active investor. Um, so when we got the deal, uh, obviously the per the seller who was also the bank on that deal wanted to know that the team that is coming in to take this deal over had experience and we did not have that. So I reached out to my network and I remembered that conversation of sitting there going, why am I here listening to this conversation? And um, and here we are and man, that guy, he's, he hooked me up. So he, we had built some trust and he felt like I was somebody he wanted to pass on to his network.
Dedee Boring(00:08:53) - And he connected me with the, the guys at Pinnacle Storage Properties, um, through a series of meetings and, you know, the evaluating the property and, and we have decided that that's something that we wanna continue doing after this project. Uh, but we've worked on it to the point where we've had meetings where we come in and say, okay, this went well, this didn't go well, how could we do better in the future? And just that willingness to be able to do that and to want to do that is something that we haven't necessarily had in previous relationships. So, um, we, that was very important to us this time around that we do that. Um, I did have a really great mentor that I, her name is Kim Winland with Quatro Capital. I don't know if you've ever met her. Um, and she, well, she, right out of the gate, she's like, network as much as you can get to know all these people, it's a small world in the multi-family space, in the storage space that's even smaller.
Dedee Boring(00:09:53) - Just get to know all these people. You'll figure it out who's gonna, who you wanna do business with and who you don't. And she couldn't have been more. Right. Couldn't have been. I mean, so yeah, so now I'm just trying to help others, um, with their women's group, , trying to help others understand that network. I got it. Uh, Kim Winland paid it forward for me by mentoring one-on-one for free. She didn't have to do that. Um, and so I started a networking group here in Austin. It was supposed to be women in multi-family Austin. Um, but then in the reason it was I started going to these different, um, events and noticing that maybe there would be one woman on a panel and maybe one speaker, but for the most part it was 90% men, 10% women. And then looking out in the crowd thinking where did they just not come today or where, where are girls at?
Dedee Boring(00:10:48) - Um, and so I just thought, well maybe I know that there's some really great women out there. Let's start this little networking group and see what we get. Um, I had never met a female broker here I had, so, and I don't know that there is one like a Marcus Millichap, j Lll woman broker here in Austin. Um, so I looked at a property in Houston and there was this beautiful woman that's a broker there who's a unicorn cuz you know how many women brokers are. So she was kind enough to say that they would love to host a win in Houston. And then from there it just grew. So it, and now we're in Dallas, San Antonio, Houston, Austin, Denver, and we start Seattle and Raleigh next month.
Sam Wilson (00:11:29) - Whoa. Whoa. That's, that's a really cool story I think for anybody looking to start a meetup group. I mean, there, there, there had, and, and you, you know, your family business of marketing and advertising and cert certain has played a role in helping you get that launched. But I mean, that's gotta be intimidating, especially coming off the heels of, you know, getting your teeth kicked in in 2022. Like it was, was there any kind of self-doubt that was like, who am I to start this? And then if so, how did you overcome it?
Dedee Boring(00:12:00) - So I think women have a, they struggle, especially more than possibly men do with imposter syndrome, so Of course. Um, yeah, and I, I think that, I mean, I heard something somewhere that men need to only qualify for like 60% of a job and they'll apply for it where women want a hundred percent of the qualifications before they'll apply for it. Um, so of there is, I've never gone into this network where I was the guru or the the person that knows it all. I have always gone into it as, hey, we're here together, let's skip people that know more than we do to come in and speak and learn altogether. Yeah. And through that we're building a foundation of trust, which is what our five core values are. Our trust, identity, belonging, purpose, and thin competency. So instead of coming in and saying, I have all these storage units and I do this, and then you should trust me because I have that, which I do feel like some networks do, they, you know, they build it on their competency, which is great, uh, for them.
Dedee Boring(00:12:57) - But we're, we're gonna go with help trust, uh, and build this group of women that we can all trust to collaborate with and network with. And, and because we just know that together we can do more. That's our slogan. Um, and and that's really, women love to do work together and build teams and that's just kinda how we are. So it's exactly what's happened. Um, what was a surprise from this group is after going to these towns, um, Austin's very savvy investors. Uh, they're lots of short-term rentals, lots of, um, single family flips. Austin is a group of women that really have been investing for a long time. So, but I would, as I ventured out even to Dallas and to Houston, um, I realized that there's a lot of women that don't know that how to invest or they've been, they've had generational limitations put on them.
Dedee Boring(00:13:45) - Um, generational limitations being that, and you're from the south, um, that the man is the head of the household, that they control the money that, um, you know, and so I've heard story after story of women who have gotten divorced and they had nothing, no credit in their name, no, didn't, don't have a bank account. And they're starting from scratch. And so they've made a big first step of getting to the door and coming into the room to hang out with other investors and learn. But, um, that's been a, a side bonus to win is that component of empowering women to even remotely think about real estate investing.
Sam Wilson (00:14:22) - That's really cool. I I love that. What were some actionable steps you took to get that launched? I mean, it's one thing to dream that up. I mean, it sound like you put a lot of thought into it, everything from your core values to what your slogan is, but I mean, finding that investor, not investor, let me rephrase that. Finding that particular avatar of person that would be a great candidate for your groups. How do you do that?
Dedee Boring(00:14:50) - Well, I, I mean basically I, okay, so I used to work in children's ministry for nine years. Okay. And so, um, I used a lot of my skills from that and what I learned from there. Uh, so basically if I came up to you and I said, I need you to hang out with sixth grade boys for and teach them Jesus, teach 'em Sunday school, you would probably go , I don't think I can do that. Right? But if I said, I want you to, I feel that you're well abled and equipped to do that and I would love for you to join us and, and just see if you like it, just see if this is something you wanna do, then all of a sudden that's a lot easier, right? That's a lot easier for you to even remotely think about that possibility. So we really, we don't need these people to come to our group. We want them to, we want them to join us, we want to help them move forward. We want to grow them. So if it's, it's less of a plea of please come to my meeting, I'm more of, we really want you to come, we really want you to belong here.
Sam Wilson (00:15:47) - Right, right. No, and that makes a lot of sense. But I guess even even finding those people that aren't already part of your natural network, uh, it would seem like it's not a, not a heavy lift, but, and I'm sure it, it gets to a point where it snowballs and it's much easier where people are telling people and okay, now the groups are growing more organically, but in the beginning there has to be some sort of critical mass, I would imagine. Yeah. Hey, there's five of us. There's 10 of us that are gonna get together on a regular cadence and bring somebody in that we can learn from. Was that the way it worked or did you go about it differently?
Dedee Boring(00:16:18) - Absolutely. Yeah, absolutely. So we had a group of ladies in Austin that were our, I call 'em our OGs. And they, um, basically I said to them, no pressure. I would love for you to be a part of a board, a wink board to help get this started. Um, and we sat one day on one Saturday in January, we sat in my living room and we talked about all the possibilities, everything from an education program to conferences, what did we see? What was the big picture? I tend to be a small picture thinker, like my husband's a big picture thinker and we, that's how we work so well, is that I think about the next step where he thinks about this giants and, um, I have a lot of big picture thinkers as most real estate investors I feel like are, um, big picture thinkers.
Dedee Boring(00:17:03) - So they, you know, they want more, they, all of us have been in different networks and paid for mentorship programs. All of, we've all gained knowledge from them, not to bash anybody. Um, but we also have seen where maybe things could be different or better. Yeah. Um, or, or how would we like to see it? Um, so we have a lot of great ideas. We just got off of a, another planning session. Um, but, uh, I mean Raleigh is because of a network that I, my mentorship program that I bought into, I had met two ladies through that, that network. Um, and Seattle's the same. So basically it's leveraging other people's network is how we're growing, right? So some people are in a network that's based out of Dallas and I'm in one that's based out of Florida. So, um, I have our, my network and core people are, is just this much. And then there's all these people that have the Dallas net network, they can go through theirs. And, um, so basically leveraging everybody's network in that board that we have is how we're, how that's working. Got
Sam Wilson (00:18:03) - It. No, that make, that's really cool. I love that. And those are, those are, um, I'm probably more your big picture. I often wonder like the details, like how did somebody, and thanks for sharing that because I wonder that like how do you get from not critical mass to now, you know, opening up multiple chapters in multiple cities. And that was really super helpful there. We've got just a few minutes left here and I want to kind of circle back to our conversation on self-storage. This was a, this was something I thought of and and didn't get a chance to ask you. It's one, it's one thing to bet a sponsor, right? And to figure out, think there's enough sponsor checklist, how to beta sponsor checklist, things like that, which are very, very helpful. Um, but it's another thing for a sponsor to vet you. When that sponsor comes to you and you say, cuz and I, and I'm at, at this juncture now where, you know, people are coming to me saying, Hey, we'd love to capital raise for your next fund. Here's how this works. And I've not, I've always been that partner that's partnered with the sponsor and now I'm doing it in reverse. I'm curious, what were some of the things that the sponsor did to get to know you and make sure that you were a good fit for what it was that they were doing?
Dedee Boring(00:19:11) - These guys, um, pinnacle, I don't know how to describe them more than they're just some good old Texas boys and they're salt of the earth people. Um, so for them it was just being very transparent and honest. So I, I think if I had come in and said, we're we're the best and we want a huge part of the deal and, you know, and I couldn't really back that up with my storage experience, could I, um, so being able to be very transparent on our process, um, and what we're trying to gain from it. And uh, and all the way through, uh, you know, we've have, we had some issues and hiccups of, of course, so, um, I'm the person that really talks back and forth with all of the partners in the deals. So, um, you know, two of 'em are kind of, um, real abrupt in how they communicate and one is very passive and likes to kind of dance around the subject before.
Dedee Boring(00:20:06) - And so I'm the mediator that manages those communications. Um, and that, I think that's probably one of my skillsets for, for that. Um, but really it was a matter of can you handle that? Can you handle their personality and could they, cuz they could handle mine cuz I'm fairly easygoing, but could they handle, could we work with them? Do I know what it takes to get along with them and do they know what it takes to get along with me? And so it doesn't take much try to feel like I'm pretty easygoing, but I I think that there's a lot of people that are harder to get along with and these guys have a system and we respected that and we did not try to, um, probably get more than we should have gotten out of the gate, uh, because we didn't, we're learning from them. So I, we respect their authority in the space and I think that's really important to really respect that authority in the space.
Sam Wilson (00:20:56) - Yeah, that's, uh, that's, that's a great, uh, absolutely great point. Deedee, this has been a lot of fun. Thank you for taking the time to come on the show today. Certainly learned a lot from you. Thank you for also taking the time just to share your kind of battle scars if you will here No problem. From launching into the commercial real estate space. It's not for the faint of heart and clearly you are not faint of heart cuz you're still doing it and uh, still doing it. Still doing it. You forged your own path. You've given us great ideas on how to start a networking and meetup group. Kind of some of the things it takes to get that you give, give us kind of real, real practical steps on how to get those, uh, started and launched as well. So again, thank you for coming on the show today. I do appreciate it If our listeners wanna get in touch with you. Yeah, absolutely. If our listeners wanna get in touch with you and learn more about you, what is the best way to do that?
Dedee Boring(00:21:40) - Well, you can go to boring and co.com. Um, our last name really is boring. Um, and you can schedule a meeting with me anytime. So I don't know if I have any of my information up on the screen or with you, but boring and co.com has all of that
Sam Wilson (00:21:55) - Boring and co.com. We'll make sure to put that right there in the show notes. Deedee, thank you again for coming on. I do appreciate it.
Dedee Boring(00:22:01) - All right, thanks so much.
Speaker 3 (00:22:03) - Hey, thanks for listening to the How to Scale Commercial Real Estate podcast. If you can, do me a favor and subscribe and leave us a review on Apple Podcast, Spotify, Google Podcast, whatever platform it is you use to listen. If you can do that for us, that would be a fantastic help to the show. It helps us both attract new listeners as well as rank higher on those directories. So appreciate you listening. Thanks so much and hope to catch you on the next episode.