FIRE by AirBNB: Reaching Financial Freedom through Short-Term Rentals with Zeona McIntyre

[00:00:00] Eric Brotman: Welcome to Don’t Retire, graduate, the podcast that asks you what you want to be when you grow up so you can graduate into retirement with purpose and passion. I’m your host in valedictorian, Eric Brotman, and today our guest is Zana McIntyre. She’s an author, a realtor, an investment consultant, a speaker.
And joining us all the way from Mexico today. So apparently she’s also a traveler. Um, she’s been an Airbnb host since 2012, so an early adopter. She now uses her decade of experience to help her clients’ house hack and build portfolios of short and medium term rentals. She’s an avid real estate investor owning a double digit portfolio of furnace rentals across five states in the us.
She’s the co-author of The Bigger Pockets Book 30 Day Stay. A Real Estate Investor’s Guide to Mastering the Medium Term Rental and I was on her show, which is Invest Fi back in 2022 and now she’s in [00:01:00] my world and I couldn’t be more excited. Ziana, welcome to the show.
[00:01:04] Zeona McIntyre: Thank you so much for having me.
[00:01:06] Eric Brotman: And I’m so glad that you’re, you’re coming to us from, from Mexico because it makes me feel like I’ve done something wrong in my life, that I’m currently in Maryland and you’re in Mexico, so apparently you’re doing something right.
You can me, I’m ready to learn from you and I know our audience will too. Um, I, I guess start with some of your background because you do wear a lot of hats. You’ve done an awful lot of things in your, in your young career. Tell me sort of where that started and a little bit about yourself and we’ll start there.
Yeah,
[00:01:35] Zeona McIntyre: so it started with arbitrage and I’m not sure if your audience is familiar with that, but basically that’s the concept of renting and rerenting or subletting. So when I first heard about Airbnb, I was in $50,000 of student loan debt. I was working for minimum wage. I just didn’t really have any, any money, uh, to get started with a venture like.
[00:02:00] Renting out homes or buying homes. So I, I thought it would just be a little side hustle. And a friend of mine told me about Airbnb and he had a lot of success with it. He got laid off from his job in New York City and he had this really expensive apartment I. And he just needed to take some time off and travel.
So he heard about Airbnb, he gave it a try, and then he extended his trip again and again, ended up being out of the country for a year. And at the end of that year, he had made $50,000 on his apartment that he didn’t own. And so at that point I was like, wow, okay, I’m listening. I need to go try this thing.
And luckily around the same time, I had a roommate leave and I was renting a two bedroom apartment, and I had furnished it with all my own furniture, and so it was really easy for me to just plug that in on Airbnb and see if anybody would buy it. And it worked. Um, and I thought again, that it would just be a little side hustle, but [00:03:00] here we are, you know, 11 years later and I’m still doing it.
And that one apartment turned into more apartments and then buying places and then going outta state and managing for a bunch of people. So it’s really evolved over the years.
[00:03:17] Eric Brotman: So this is truly a, a, a, a success story and a story of bootstrapping. It’s a story of being not so much at zero, but in a hole and then finding something that’s repeatable.
And now you’re teaching people how to do this. So you’ve, you’ve written a book on the subject, um, and you’re teaching people how to do this, and you’re also, I think, doing some of it for them, right? You’re, you’re allowing people who want this concept, but don’t want to do the, the, the blocking and tackling, so to speak, to, to work with you as well.
Is that true? Yeah,
[00:03:48] Zeona McIntyre: so I became a realtor so I could help people during their process. It wasn’t enough for me to just have my own deals. Now I want to be involved in more and more deals. So that’s, that’s the way I get to [00:04:00] do that. Um, and it’s just so fun to be on people’s journeys with them, and then also just to set them up correctly so that they’ve got a really good foundation to get started from.
[00:04:11] Eric Brotman: So, so when we rewrite your bio for the show notes, we’ll say author, realtor, investment consultant, speaker, and real estate mogul. Some form of tycoon. I dunno. I mean that’s pretty depends
[00:04:22] Zeona McIntyre: on the day.
[00:04:24] Eric Brotman: Well, bigger, bigger pockets, first of all, bigger pockets has been very, very good to us. I mean, I, I was a guest on their show years ago, uh, and I’ve gotten to know the folks and it’s just a phenomenal show and, It’s a really good place to learn about real estate.
Um, you know, our show is not dedicated specifically to real estate, but certainly it’s one of the ways that people create financial independence, financial freedom. And so you, you’ve now been doing this for 11 years. I’m sure you have, uh, plenty of wonderful success stories, but I also bet you have a couple of.
Oops. Stories, a couple of things that happened where it went a little bit [00:05:00] wrong. Can you, without divulging too many details or, or outing anyone, can you, uh, can you share some of the things that sometimes go wrong when you do this strategy?
[00:05:09] Zeona McIntyre: Well, I’ll give you my most recent one cuz this one still hurts a little bit.
Um, I bought a property in Atlanta. And I’ve owned properties in some gentrifying neighborhoods. Like, uh, St. Louis, if people are familiar, ha is very street to street. And I never had an issue, ever. Um, and I had heard so much over the years of break-ins and people being robbed and all kinds of stuff, but I never put up cameras, I never had any problems.
So this place in Atlanta, we had, it started like the end of January and by mid-March. We had a break-in and these people had the gall to go in the middle of the day with a U-haul. They broken through a back window that just so happened to be unlocked. You know, sometimes guests leave windows unlocked, [00:06:00] um, and that’s not caught.
They climbed in through the window. They proceeded to move out 70% of the furniture out the front door. In the middle of the day between one and five. And then when our guests arrived that evening, they, you know, arrived to at Ransack house and we had to get the plea there and then now refurnish the home.
So we’re almost back up and running. It took us about three weeks to get it going again, but I learned a lot about cameras. So now mm-hmm. All my properties are getting cameras. Mm-hmm. So I think things do go wrong occasionally. Yes.
[00:06:36] Eric Brotman: Now what about in terms of security? What about security systems where, you know when a window is still open or you know when a door is unlocked or any of that?
I mean, is that too sophisticated? I mean, I know it exists, but I Is that something that would just be too expensive to to deploy you think? It
[00:06:52] Zeona McIntyre: sounds like overkill. That’s kind of why it never did cameras, but I think there is definitely value to a front and back cam. So that can [00:07:00] be on like a, a doorbell or um, a motion light, something like that.
At least we would’ve seen them coming and sort of snooping around. Um, that would’ve helped. Yeah.
[00:07:11] Eric Brotman: Well, uh, certain sounds like, sounds like you’ve had a horror story and it took you all of three weeks to get over. So that’s a win in and of itself. Uh, that would not have been possible. I presume had this been your first property, it would’ve been much more disastrous.
Is that a fair statement? That now you have the, the bandwidth to handle a, a couple of run-ins with unfortunate circumstances?
[00:07:32] Zeona McIntyre: Probably, I’ve always been someone who springs into action and like, you know, fixes things right away. It’s, there’s not enough time to just kind of like. You know, cry over spilled milk.
It’s like, okay, well what do we do about it? So luckily we had just furnished the home and we had a list of everything so we could pretty easily reorder and make another list for the insurance adjuster and all that kind of stuff. So we had all the receipts, like I think it’ll be fairly easy, but [00:08:00] it’s a lot of stress and a lot of time that you don’t get back.
Mm-hmm. Right.
[00:08:04] Eric Brotman: Sure. So you’ve been involved in the fire movement. For a long time, and as a guest on your show, you asked me how long it had been since I had learned about fire, and I had told you it had been about six years and you were dumbfounded that it took me that long to even hear about this. Much less, uh, know how people are, are utilizing it for their own lives.
When did you discover that there was a way to reach financial independence, potentially at a younger age and not to punch a clock for somebody else forever?
[00:08:36] Zeona McIntyre: Yeah, 2011. So it was about the same time that I was hearing about Airbnb, so I now realize that probably wasn’t a coincidence, but I didn’t put them together at the time, and that came from, um, An early desire to figure out money.
My parents were struggling a lot through my life. They didn’t understand how to save, [00:09:00] invest, and around the time I was about to go to college, my mom started getting interested in it and so she was watching the Suzy Orman show and reading some of her books and got me kind of into that. But I quickly realized that Susie’s path is very slow, and I think that’s just the traditional path that you see.
Um, but saving 10% of your income, um, is not gonna really work. I mean, it might work if you wanna retire at 65 or 70, but a lot of us are trying to do it a little bit sooner. So after some tinkering around on the internet, this. Was the time of blogs. I feel like people don’t blog anymore. Um, I found Mr.
Money Mustache, an Early Retirement Extreme, and I was reading those and Mr. Money mustache story is retiring at 30 and so I believe I was 26, 25. And so I thought, well, I’ve got time. I’ll figure this out. Right. But like I said, I’ve said it was,
[00:09:59] Eric Brotman: I’ve got four or five [00:10:00] years ahead. Oh my gosh.
[00:10:01] Narrator: Yeah,
[00:10:02] Zeona McIntyre: yeah, exactly.
Geez. I was like, I have no idea how I’m gonna
[00:10:05] Narrator: do this. I was not making any
[00:10:07] Zeona McIntyre: good money. I was still like in college, but holding this idea. And sometimes it’s just knowing that someone else has accomplished something. So holding this idea allowed me to get to that place, and at that time I found Airbnb, and two years later I hid it.
I was at my retirement number. And so it’s incredible how fast that can happen and how fast real estate can make it happen.
[00:10:35] Eric Brotman: So, you know, we don’t believe in retirement in the traditional sense, but there’s also nothing traditional about the way you’ve done this. You’ve truly. Graduated to a financially independent life at a really young age.
And I know we have listeners who are like, wow, I’m three years away from my pension. I’ve been at this 42 years. What is wrong with me? Uh, and I’m, I’m sure there’s some of that angst out there. There’s also a lot of angst, I think, amongst parents. So I’m gonna [00:11:00] put on my dad hat for a second. Um, I have a teenager, I’m gonna put on my dad hat for a second and, and think about if, when she finished college three, four years outta college, she said, you know what?
I think I’m gonna not do the traditional. Job I’m gonna start investing in, um, arbitrage rental real estate on a short and medium term basis. I think I would probably be extremely concerned by that. Were your folks, uh, nervous about that? Were they thinking, I hope you know what you’re doing, honey? Or were they like, go get it.
[00:11:32] Zeona McIntyre: It’s interesting because the first property that I got outside of the one I was already like living in. So there was a period where I, I started doing it. It was gaining some traction. I had that two-bedroom apartment I was talking about. I was renting out that former roommate’s room, and then I started renting out my room and trying to be out of the house.
I was like, Pet sitting or staying with friends or doing whatever I could do. Um, and I realized I need another place. [00:12:00] And that felt like a really big leap cuz I would have to have another security deposit. I would have to, um, pay first month’s rent, last month’s rent, get furniture. So I borrowed $4,000 from my dad and he was all about it.
Yeah. And actually that place I got kicked out of, so, uh, my mistake there was that I, I rented in a building where there was one owner, he owned like all nine apartments in that building and the neighbors ratted me out. You know, nobody knew what Airbnb was then, but they knew I was doing something. And they didn’t like it because there were different people in and out
[00:12:38] Eric Brotman: all the time.
So I kicked, yes. Oh my gosh.
[00:12:41] Zeona McIntyre: Uh, I got kicked out of there, but it was no harm, no foul. They were like, you are doing something really creative and we appreciate that, but you can’t do it here. So that was fine. Um, okay. But at that time, I told my dad like, man, I’m feeling really bad. Maybe I should just stop doing this, you know?
And he [00:13:00] said, no. He said, you know, is it successful? And I am like, yeah, it’s working. And so he was just like, go out and get yourself another place. And I think that was a real turning point for me that I could have just quit, you know? Mm-hmm. Like I said, mm-hmm. It was just a little side hustle. Mm-hmm. But my dad kept me going.
So it was great.
[00:13:23] Eric Brotman: All right, dad, dad of the year award. I’ll share it. Um, in terms of, uh, in, in, in terms of doing these kinds of things, well, first of all, what’d you study in school? I
[00:13:34] Zeona McIntyre: studied merchandise marketing. I went to a fashion school and then okay, then I pivoted Uhhuh. Yeah. I realized I couldn’t live in a cubicle and that wasn’t gonna be my work.
Uh mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. And te tell people that they weren’t good enough unless they could own the finest fashion brands. Right? Like, I didn’t know, I didn’t want that life. So then I pivoted to being a massage therapist, which was really random, but that was what I was doing at the time that I started [00:14:00] Airbnb.
[00:14:01] Eric Brotman: Really. So you went from being, yeah. So, so you went to college for fashion and merchandising and marketing. Mm-hmm. Then decided to be a massage therapist and then discovered because you were without a roommate and needed to solve a problem that you could rent the second room out for short-term visitors.
And here you are now. I, I presume not doing, uh, massage therapy anymore.
[00:14:27] Zeona McIntyre: No, I’m not. That was a long time ago. Those days ago. Those
[00:14:30] Eric Brotman: days are done. Okay. Alright. Now, how did you get involved with bigger pockets and with and with co-authoring a book? Because that’s, that’s exciting. First of all, you, you linked up with some phenomenal folks and secondly, you know, as someone who’s done it, writing a book is a heavy lift.
It’s a, uh, an enormous undertaking. So how did that come to be?
[00:14:48] Zeona McIntyre: Yeah. So, um, I was first on bigger Pockets in 2017, so that was a while ago. Um, but I think my easy entry into that was that I lived in Boulder, Colorado and Bigger Pockets [00:15:00] is in Denver, Colorado. And Mindy, who is mm-hmm one of the podcast hosts at Bigger Pockets, she’s really big in the fire movement.
Um, cuz her husband is a five blogger. And so there was a really nice. FI community in Longmont, that was pretty close to me and that’s where Mr. Money mustache lives and just a bunch of people have kind of congregated there. So I knew them and so I kind of just bothered Mindy until she got me connected with the show.
And you know, back in 2017 it was still a big show, but it was a little more accessible. And once you’re in that family with bigger pockets, I feel like you’re just kind of there. Right. You keep kind of networking. Yeah.
[00:15:40] Eric Brotman: Mindy’s that and everything. Yeah. Yeah. Mindy’s been great. I mean, I, I’ve, I, I got to know her as a guest on that show also, and it was, um, it was amazing how many people reached out to us as a result of that guest appearance.
Um, you know, I, I started this show now, this, we’re in our fifth year of Don’t Retire, graduate, and it. It, it feels a little [00:16:00] like what you were talking about with Suzy’s path to building at 10%. Like it takes a long time to grow a show, at least it has for us, um, sure. To grow a show to critical mass, where now, um, we have people contacting us to be guessed, which is very, very cool because when you first start, I, I gotta confess, I didn’t really know what I was doing.
And so when I listened to the first episode again, I think, oh my goodness, this is, and now this is something that I do every week, that at that time it was just this idea. So I totally get that. Now, the, the, the book, um, are there, is there more writing on the horizon for you? Do you, are you, do you love to write?
Was this something you wanted to do or something that you’re happy is out there but never wanna do again?
[00:16:43] Zeona McIntyre: I feel mixed about it. Um, I loved it. Mm-hmm. It was a great experience. But I think what people don’t tell you about writing is that it’s such a, Personal growth experience. So there’s days where everything’s flowing and you can’t get it down fast enough.
Mm-hmm. And then there’s [00:17:00] days where all your demons are out, right? And it’s saying, mm-hmm. Okay, well, you know, am I good enough? Am I an imposter? Have I done enough? You know, is anybody actually gonna read this besides my two friends? You know? Um, so it’s a lot of work in those times to slug through it and say, you know, it doesn’t matter.
I’m gonna do this because if it helps even one person, then it’s worth it.
[00:17:27] Eric Brotman: So now you have multiple sources of passive income. The most beautiful two words ever. I, I joke with folks that back in the day, my two favorite words were free and beer, which I still don’t hate, but now it’s passive in income because it just feels like this is a good thing.
And, and so you’ve found a number of different ways now. Now, what kind of speaking are you doing? Are you on a circuit at all? Are you doing mostly remote? Are you, um, what, what’s keeping you, what’s keeping you plugged in and, and keeping your, your wiglets so to speak?
[00:17:59] Zeona McIntyre: [00:18:00] Yeah, I’ve been doing a ton of conference speaking, but I’m not sure that that’s going to continue.
I think it’s. There’s a lot of opportunities that come from a book, and I’m just trying to figure out which directions I wanna go into. Virtual is great, but the little known thing about speaking engagements is unless you’re doing a certain type, like speaking at universities and stuff, you’re not necessarily getting paid for it.
And so it is a lot of time traveling, going to different conferences, paying for a hotel, you know. So it’s not always worth my time, I think. So I’m just trying to figure out how to streamline, so I’m doing a lot more virtual like
[00:18:39] Eric Brotman: today. How about, how about the podcasting? Are you still, you still putting out content on Investi?
[00:18:45] Zeona McIntyre: I’m not, I left that as well. Um, they got a replacement co-host. It was a great time. I loved all the people that I met through it. That’s like the best part. Mm-hmm. And I was learning so much. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. But again, I, [00:19:00] my biggest value is freedom and I need to walk the talk. And when I find myself working too much or being stressed mm-hmm.
Or anything like that, it feels like I’m not. Living that true five path. And one of the things I don’t like is having something every single week at the same time on my calendar, because what if I wanna go on a trip that day or, or go surfing or something. So, um, yeah, that’s just one of my
[00:19:28] Eric Brotman: quirks. Okay.
Well, I I don’t know that that’s as much a quirk as a, um, as, as really being self-aware. Because one of the most important words in the English language is absolutely no. It’s, no. I mean, we, we, yeah. You’re getting opportunities thrown at you on a regular basis, and if you said yes to all of them, you might not be in a cubicle, but you’d feel like you were on a treadmill.
You know, there, there’s definitely something absolutely do that that, that we all have to deal with. Figuring out how do we say no, whether it’s to a customer or client, whether it’s to a [00:20:00] project, whether it’s to a nonprofit engagement, um, whether it’s to host co-hosting a show. And by the way, when I was on your show, um, Craig was your co-host at the time, and he didn’t even show up for our episode.
So to heck with him, The heck with that show. I’m sorry I brought it up. No one should go to that show. Oh my God, I’m only, I’m only kid. Well, look, there’s no free lunch here. I understand. You beat on me pretty good that day, and you did it all by yourself. That’s not, that’s not right. So I, I want to come back to the realtor piece of, of your business because you know mm-hmm.
You’ve written the book, you do some speaking, you’re doing some other things, but, um, are you, in what markets are you still involved as a realtor? Because that can be, Not only time consuming, but soul sucking in some various ways. Like how, how do you manage that? Cuz that’s stressful.
[00:20:45] Zeona McIntyre: I am so glad you said that because I think that
[00:20:47] Narrator: people,
[00:20:48] Zeona McIntyre: uh, it’s the social media kind of like sheen.
You know, people are like, oh, I’m a realtor and I have access to making so much money and everything’s so great, but it can be a really soul sucking job. So I’m [00:21:00] glad that you said that. Yeah. Just so people know. Yeah. Um, but I think one of my. I don’t know, magic tools is that I have the ability to figure out a way to make any kind of thing work for me in the way that I wanna do it.
And so I knew very quickly that I couldn’t be a realtor if it meant that I couldn’t travel still. And I think a lot of times people think, oh, well I have to be in town. I have to show people places. It’s not gonna work if I’m out of town. So I figured out ways to leverage having a team or other people that I partner with.
And so now at this point, A few years in, I do a lot of referrals. That’s what’s really worked out well for me. So even though I’m licensed in Colorado, all of my deals are with another agent. So I’m more of like an advisor and I just split the commission that way. And then I can help people invest anywhere in the US and sometimes I help with, um, projects abroad.
So actually the house that I’m in right now in Mexico, my friend was the [00:22:00] developer and I was able to sell it to some clients in mine in Colorado. So that’s why I’m here, which is
[00:22:05] Eric Brotman: great. That is great, especially if, if you’re not paying a whole lot of money to be there for, for the stretch of time that you’re there.
That’s wonderful. Let me know, let me know where to go. I’m, I’m going. I’m on my way. I’m gonna go straight to the airport and come to Mexico. Cause that looks like a nice spot. I love it. To me, if you’re surfing every day, you’re doing something right. No doubt about it. Um, so, so you’re, you’re traveling, you’re, you’re living your best life in lots of ways.
Um, what are the, what are the things, if anything, About this lifestyle that maybe keep you up at night or scare you a little. Is there anything about, um, ha have you maintained this, this attitude and this abundance mentality straight through? Are there days where you still feel imposter syndrome? Like what, what keeps you up at night, if anything, about some of the, some of the ways in which you’ve, you’ve chosen to, to live your life?
Yeah,
[00:22:56] Zeona McIntyre: I think one of the things you brought up earlier is this idea of passive [00:23:00] income, and I don’t know if I really believe in that. I think maybe the book is the only true thing that’s passive. I mean, there’s very few things that are passive, and I think real estate is put in that category, but probably shouldn’t be there.
So I think it’s important for people to know that going in.
[00:23:16] Eric Brotman: Yeah, there’s no free lunch, right? You still have to work even if the work is a little different. So you, you’re working with teams and they’re the ones showing the houses, but you still have to find the prospective buyers or, or sellers or everything else.
So it’s not like you’re idle. There’s not, I know you, you are. Well, and it’s old massage therapist. You’re, you don’t have cotton balls between your toes every day, right? I mean, you’re still, you’re still working. I just, I wanna make sure. Yeah.
[00:23:39] Narrator: I think it’s also,
[00:23:41] Zeona McIntyre: yeah, go ahead. Renting properties in just that sentence, like owning properties.
I think people think, even if it’s a long-term rental, that you do nothing, even if you have a manager, that you do nothing and it’s not entirely true because, um, your manager may not find a tenant fast enough and then [00:24:00] you’re sitting with vacancy, or they may, may not be maintaining the property very well and then you find out that.
You know, you have to replace a bunch of stuff, or you have a tenant that wasn’t screened properly and then they did a lot of damage, and so you actually lost all the cash flow for the entire year. So, I mean, there’s a lot of things that come up with owning homes and I love homes, and so that’s a vehicle that works well for me, but I don’t know if that will always be true.
Mm-hmm. So I, I just think it’s important for people to know the realities
[00:24:29] Eric Brotman: of it. I’m really glad you said that. And the same way you’re glad I mentioned the soul sucking nature of the realtor realtor business. I’m glad you mentioned mm-hmm. That this is not a panacea. You know, we, we have, I can’t tell you how many clients over the years, or listeners or or what have you have said, oh, what we wanna do is we want to, to buy a house and rent it out, and that’s gonna be our plan.
And it’s having one property is not being in the real estate business, it’s having one property. I think you really have to do. [00:25:00] This as if not a career, more than just a side hustle in order to do it well, I mean, don’t you think there’s a critical mass where you need a dozen or two dozen properties in order to make this so that A, you can survive the nightmare tenants and, and B, you can make enough of a living that you don’t have to still be punching a clock.
[00:25:19] Zeona McIntyre: Yeah, I think diversification helps, right? Because then when one house isn’t rented, you’ve got a few others. Um mm-hmm. But that can be a lot of different things. Like another thing that feels more true passive income is investing in syndications, which is something I’m kind of moving towards. Mm-hmm. Um, but I am so grateful that I had the time in real estate because even if it’s not the cash flow every month, that actually makes money, homes do appreciate.
And so they can be a really cool bank account that you can leverage later into other things. Mm-hmm. So that is something that is true that people should be, be aware of.
[00:25:57] Eric Brotman: Yeah. I’m going to ask you a loaded question and you, [00:26:00] you’re free to not answer it. If you want, but it’s sort of a loaded question, and that is, when you do buy properties, are you owning them all in their own LLCs?
Are you, um, are, how, what are you doing to protect yourself from the liability of a tenant when you have, uh, those kinds of things? Or do you have one real estate entity? Do you have 30 real estate entities that are all unique and file their own tax returns? How, how, uh, how do you run the business side of the business?
[00:26:27] Zeona McIntyre: Yeah, so I think I’m doing it a very simple way right now, and that might change this year because I’ve got finally a really good CPA who wants to dial it in a little bit better. But the way we’ve been doing it is just owning it in our names, and then having a, an umbrella policy that covers everything mm-hmm.
Above what your homeowner’s policy covers. So that’s worked well. I’ve never had a claim for liability, but I’m knocking wood, it’s just good to have something in place.
[00:26:54] Eric Brotman: Yeah, totally. I’m noting wood right now. Yeah. Knock, knock on something. Okay. Well be, because if you have a good [00:27:00] CPA and you have a good lawyer, um, you know, making sure that you ha that you are, in fact limiting your liability is an important piece of, of that pie generally.
So, and then there’s are, are you a mom? Do you have children?
[00:27:14] Zeona McIntyre: I don’t, and I’m not intending to. So that intending simplifi things a little bit.
[00:27:18] Eric Brotman: Well, so, because the question then is how do you leave behind a real estate empire? Potentially a, if you have children, sometimes one of ’em wants to run it and one of ’em wants nothing to do with it.
Now if you don’t have children, are you looking at this as a, a philanthropic opportunity? Are there other things you’re doing to, to, to carry a business on in your absence? Like have you thought about your legacy? I know you’re young, but have you thought about what legacy might look like if you’re leaving this behind?
[00:27:45] Zeona McIntyre: It’s interesting. I don’t really believe in that because I think if you hand something over to someone, it can actually take away from their, uh, desire to build something themselves or the ability to do so, and I think that’s [00:28:00] what I. The journey is about Right. Okay. I think it’s more interesting. It’s really cool to have something to start with.
If you wanna help someone with a down payment to get their foot in the door, that’s awesome. Mm-hmm. But I don’t know if I would wanna just give someone a few million that they could live off on the beach. Mm-hmm. Their whole life. I think that would be a path to depression. Yeah.
[00:28:20] Eric Brotman: Uh, I totally get that. We call that the Billy Madison syndrome, uh, in, in deference to the, the Adam Sandler movie about that, about being left.
That kind of money where you literally do nothing. So what is the plan? Yeah. If you’re, if you don’t mind divulging it, are you, are you looking at leaving something to, um, causes it are important to you? Are there because, you know, there’s no obvious, there’s no obvious next step. There’s no obvious succession plan.
Is this a business you could sell? If you wanted to, so you had liquidity at some point or what? What does that look like?
[00:28:52] Zeona McIntyre: So funny, I’ve actually not thought of this, so it’s great for you to bring that up. I think it’s always just been this journey of [00:29:00] making sure I have enough for me, which sounds very selfish.
I think the good thing about having children is that it forces people to think about more than just themselves. Um, but yeah, I. When my nephews were born, I bought them a quad, and that was supposed to be for their college. Now, I don’t know if they’re gonna go to college if they don’t want to. I’m not gonna force anybody, but I figured that if I put in this down payment for a quadplex, That money every month my sister could use towards their schooling.
And then once, you know, 20 years later when they’re gonna go to college, we could just sell that quadplex and they could use it for college tuition. So that’s sort of the plan. That was the thing I did for helping them. But yeah, I think right now it’s just having enough to enjoy my days and maybe retire my husband who is working in tech.
So it’s pretty
[00:29:55] Eric Brotman: simple. That, that is all really good [00:30:00] stuff, and it sounds like now you have a cpa. Um, I, I hope you will find one or more legal advisors to help with some of those things to go with your insurance stuff, and then it sounds like you could use a really good financial advisor. So we’ll talk later.
Um, let me get to the, the last two questions of the, of the day, because unfortunately we’re almost out of time. Sure. Um, and yeah, this is, we’ve sort of talked about this a little bit already, but have you thought about what you want to be when you grow up?
[00:30:26] Zeona McIntyre: Hmm. It’s a really interesting question because I feel like that evolves a lot.
Um, I think right now I wanna be a really good surfer. I think that’s just what I wanna
[00:30:37] Eric Brotman: be. Ah, okay. And, and how are the waves in Mexico right now? I.
[00:30:44] Zeona McIntyre: They’ve been really good and I noticed that I have a lot of fear. This is interesting because I think a lot of people think, oh, she must be so brave because she just goes out and buys all these properties and tries all these new things and takes a lot of risk.
But actually I live with a lot of fear. [00:31:00] Um, and that comes up in real estate investing, but also in surfing and snowboarding and anything that I’m doing. And I think the thing that works well is that even with the fear, I go and do the thing. And that helps. Well, that’s that through my
[00:31:15] Eric Brotman: life. That’s courage.
And that’s a beautiful thing. All right. We need an extra credit assign. We need an extra credit assignment. Yes. And it can no longer be face your fear. You’ve already gone there and I’m with you. Um, but we need an extra credit assignment someplace that folks can, uh, if they’re interested in doing some of the things you’re doing, that they can learn them, or just that one takeaway from spending a half an hour with us today.
[00:31:39] Narrator: Yeah. Hmm.
[00:31:42] Zeona McIntyre: I mean, this sounds simple, but I think actually reaching out to me on Instagram and telling me what is that one thing that will be the thing that you wanna do when you have this retirement? Because I think the problem is people think, oh, all [00:32:00] I wanna do is get to this amount of money, or to be able to do nothing on the beach.
But nothing on the beach is actually gonna get boring really fast. So, After that, you’re gonna be responsible for creating your own happiness and what does happiness look like to you? So I would love to hear from people. I think that’s the coolest part about being on shows like this. Mm-hmm. If they wanna reach out to me on Instagram, uh, it’s just, my name’s Zana McIntyre and tell me what is that thing that’s gonna be your happiness thing.
[00:32:30] Eric Brotman: Great extra credit assignment and I’m in total agree with you. As much as I love to lay on the beach, I can’t do it for more than a few days. I mean, I get bored instantly and I, and I think not having a purpose and a reason to get outta bed every morning will eventually keep you in bed later and later, and, That’s not the way I wanna spend the last half of my life for sure.
So this has been awesome. Where can folks, you mentioned Instagram, where can folks check out your, get, get your book or check out any of the resources that you have? Or is Instagram just the, the number one spot? We’ll make sure it’s in the show notes. [00:33:00]
[00:33:01] Zeona McIntyre: Yeah, bigger Pockets is the best place to get the book.
So bigger pockets.com/thirty days stay. And um, I have a website@zanamcintyre.com so that’s where all the latest and greatest are.
[00:33:13] Eric Brotman: Yeah, perfect. This has been phenomenal. I thank you for joining us. I hope I didn’t go too, too hard on you. I tried to make it. Tried to make it even handed. Cause you were a very tough host.
You were a very tough host. I really had to work that day. This has been fun. Thank you. Aww.
[00:33:30] Narrator: Thank you.
[00:33:31] Eric Brotman: Thanks to all of you for listening and watching today. We’d love to hear from you, so please send us a message or leave us comments at don’t retire graduate.com or on social media. If you enjoy the show, please don’t keep it a secret.
Share it with friends and family so they can join you on your journey to financial independence. Please leave us ratings and reviews on your favorite podcast platform. They are priceless to us. We’ll be back next week with another installment of Office Hours and in two weeks with another engaging guest.
For now, this [00:34:00] is your host, Eric Bratman, reminding you don’t retire. Graduate
[00:34:13] Narrator: securities offered through Ketra Investment Services, L L c Ketra, I s member. FINRA, S I P C, investment advisory services offered through Ketra Advisory Services, L L C Ketra A s an affiliate of Ketra is, Ketra is, or Ketra as are not affiliated with Brotman Financial or any other entity discussed.