Hey Side Hustlers! Pick up my FREE Quiz, “Which Side Hustle is Best for Me?” and figure out which of these four would be the ideal direction for you as you start your first side hustle.
It’s always great to learn more about couples who side-hustle, so I was thrilled when this couple reached out to me. Suzy Sevier and Michael are definitely serial entrepreneurs and I LOVE what they are doing in this space.
Suzy and Michael are the Founders of Adventurous Real Estate Investors. They specialize in a different ROI - Return on Impact. Their journey began in the UK, where they are currently living. Michael is Active Duty Air Force, getting his Ph.D. at the University of Cambridge. Suzy is currently a program manager for a biotechnology company. Together, they have closed on 380 units in a year in Oklahoma City and Tulsa, OK. During the lockdowns, they also started 2 other side hustles, an e-commerce store and a Land Rover Defender import business.
And here’s the transcript of the episode! ENJOY!!
[00:00:42] Kris: Welcome back everyone to another fun episode of GOT SIDE HUSTLE. I'm your host, Kris McPeak. And today we have a side hustle, a couple joining us. I'm very excited to have Susie and Michael Barnhart on the show. Welcome to
[00:00:59] Michael: Thank you so much, Chris. We're really excited to be here. So thanks for having us.
[00:01:02] Kris: Yeah, it's a pleasure. Yeah. Well, thank you for looking me up. I have a particular interest in this conversation because like y'all, I have a business with my husband as well, and, and between the two of us, we have multiple things going on. So I definitely want to dig into that for reals. So if you could start by telling us who you are, what you do, and then we'll, we'll dig into.
[00:01:27] Michael: Yeah, of course. Thanks for asking. So I am still active duty air force. I've been in the air force about 17 years now and currently stationed in Cambridge, England, which is about an hour north of London. And I am currently getting my PhD at the university of Cambridge in biochemistry. I was teaching beforehand at the air force academy.
[00:01:48] Michael: I'm towards the end of my career. And so, like, I feel like I always say that there are forces hooked me up in a way, like I've been in my blood, sweat and tears to get to this point. And I got my dream job, which was teaching at the air force. And so I was just teaching with a master's degree. So they sent me to get a PhD and then I'll return and continue teaching.
[00:02:07] Michael: And that'll be my last tour before I retire. So
[00:02:10] Kris: that's awesome. Well, thank you so much for your service.
[00:02:14] Michael: Thank you, Chris. Appreciate that.
[00:02:16] Suzy: Yeah, and I am actually a full-time real estate professional now, so I know we'll get into this, but. When Michael and I first started our side hustle. I was working as a project manager for a biotech company over here in Cambridge, but when, as a military spouse.
[00:02:37] Suzy: So there's like a lot of things I have to think about. Right. But the biggest part is the move and like what that kind of does on your identity. And so when we initially first moved over here, like I had recently gotten my MBA and I thought I would be totally fine getting a job and then boom. I have to wait like nine ish months to get a visa.
[00:02:55] Suzy: And so when, yeah, it was, it was a little intense for my soul, but it's like, once we found out how much we really loved our side hustle and like, thought about all of the like pros that it could do, like for me, for our moves, like for everything all around, I decided to transition like out of my traditional, you know, nine to five and actually.
[00:03:20] Suzy: Our side hustle. My full-time just because of all the things I mentioned before, and it's been actually a really good transition as of now. And it's been pretty cool to be able to even still do it with Michael cause that spin them pretty much like the most fun part from the.
[00:03:36] Kris: Yeah, absolutely. Well, I think, I think first of all, determining which side hustle you want to jump on is a big decision and enough in itself.
[00:03:45] Kris: So what made you guys think that real estate was going to be the thing that you wanted to do initially when you started yourself? No. So that's a
[00:03:53] Suzy: great question because we didn't have a hundred percent know and okay. Yeah. So this is how it all started. So over here, like during COVID-19 in the first walk down like Michael and I were like, okay, well, what are we going to do?
[00:04:07] Suzy: Because over here, everybody was sent home from work and we didn't know how long that was going to be for. So I suggested that we start a mini book club with each other. And so one of those books was the slight edge. Pretty much talks about like how to be like 1% better every day and how that compounds.
[00:04:23] Suzy: But in the back of the book, he had a pretty like long reading list. And so we're like, okay, let's buy a bunch of books off there. But one of them was multiple streams of income by Robert Allen. And like the whole first section we read, you know, like Michael has been entrepreneurial, like by. Like from the beginning and he's like, oh, okay.
[00:04:45] Suzy: Like here's some new ideas, you know what I mean? It's talks about stocks, but it can talk about like creating a business and everything and what that all entails. But then the whole second section is real estate investing. And so once I got to that section, Michael's like, I think you should just skip the first part.
[00:04:58] Suzy: And I think we should try to focus on. Real estate investing. And then once we found out that like the whole entire real estate investing world had gone virtual, we knew that we had the same opportunities as anyone else in the us, because everybody was at the same virtual meetups and everybody was getting used to communicating via zoom.
[00:05:17] Suzy: So we knew that like talking to brokers and lenders and all of that was going to be like, just as easy, if not easier, especially from like living all the way over here. Sure.
[00:05:29] Kris: So that blows my mind, first of all, because like, wow, you started with just a book club between the two of you as a way to kind of, you know, keep connections going and learning new things.
[00:05:40] Kris: And that just opened up a whole world for you guys. And I'm reading in your bio here that you closed on 380 units in a year in Oklahoma city. And Tulsa did that all just happen during lockdown. And you discovering this business for yourself.
[00:05:54] Michael: Yes, it did. For sure. Yeah. And so, yeah, like you said, we did a 388 units and it's across, you know, we have multifamily, but we also have like a short-term rental portfolio as well, which is pretty cool.
[00:06:05] Michael: And you know, since we're talking about side hustles as well, like Susie and I also have like e-commerce stores and other, other businesses as well, like import businesses, stuff like that. So yeah. But the whole real estate thing kind of just started during Kobo. We're looking for other streams of income and that was our kind of our ticket.
[00:06:24] Michael: And, and we just kind of dove in. So like
[00:06:27] Suzy: the driving factor though, was like once Michael and I got to spend all that time together during lockdown, we were like, okay, how do we get more of this? You know, like, because Michael has a commitment to the military. So it was like, okay, when Michael has to exit the military or gets to retire, sorry, in seven years, What will that look like and how will we get there?
[00:06:49] Suzy: And like, that's really, I guess, even to go back to the other question was how we chose real estate, because we found out like the power of what real estate investing can do. And we're like, okay, like if we can take down this many deals and replace my income, that means I can then transition into real estate full time.
[00:07:06] Suzy: But now the goal, like just my personal goal is like, how can I. Three X Michael's income. By the time he comes to retire, because we really just sat down and thought about our why. So like, besides spending like a lot of time with one another, like we wanted to find a way to like, keep our love of like education, but how do we, how do we do that outside of a traditional classroom?
[00:07:31] Suzy: And so actually like our big, big why. Right? Cause like that's what helps like drive us and gives us motivation and like has us wake up in the morning and be like, Hey. It's really fun doing two jobs at the same time was that like, we'd love to be able to like live in different countries because it's just Michael and I, and our cat.
[00:07:48] Suzy: So like we don't have any children and like, we want to be able to live in these different countries and really like, get to know the communities and like see how we can serve them best. So like if helping build a well would serve them best and we can do that if like building a school would serve that community.
[00:08:04] Suzy: Well, then that's how we would like to serve them just because. Th so much can be done with just like basic education. And I'm not enough of the world has that. And it really bums us out and it's like, how do we just continue that love? And that's really. Real estate was like, okay, well, this is how we can do it.
[00:08:25] Suzy: And this is how we can do it from anywhere in the world. Cause even if we want to continue to do it once my Cobra tires, like now that we've put the systems and processes in place from the UK, we know that we can do them in like Asian countries and African countries and wherever we need to go.
[00:08:39] Kris: That's amazing.
[00:08:41] Kris: That is so beautiful. You guys, I love your story. And when you were talking about like a well for a community or other, like what does that community need? I am reflected back to something else that's in your bio and that's when you talk about the different ROI and that's return on impact. I love that idea.
[00:08:59] Kris: And I, when you talk about. Building a wall in a community that made me go back to that. So w at what point did you decide that that was going to be your focus? Because I think that's definitely not. It's not introspective or it's not egocentric. It's, it's very much like I'm doing the side hustle because I want to give back, I'm doing a side hustle because I want to make a difference.
[00:09:21] Kris: Let's talk a little bit about that. Like how. How did that come to inspire you? Cause it's, it's very clear just from hearing you tell your story that this is not just about making, making money so you can travel.
[00:09:33] Suzy: Absolutely. I'd love to. So like actually one of my undergraduate degrees was wasn't anthropology because I loved, loved looked to people.
[00:09:41] Suzy: Like I love humans. So like I, when I initially. I was in that major. So many people were like, what are you going to do with that? What are you going to do with that? And I was like, I don't know. I just really liked the classes though. So like, I'm going to just keep taking them because I'm not going to like spend four years and not like, like the classes that I'm in.
[00:10:01] Suzy: Yeah. But with that too, I was like, okay, I'll also get a communication studies. We'll see where this goes. But then when we got into real estate, I was like, wait a second. Like, not that my MBA wasn't valuable or anything, but. If I, a lot of people can like understand numbers, but if they don't understand people, it's really hard to like run a business effectively.
[00:10:22] Suzy: And so when I like, I just, yeah, I just thought back to like everything anthropology. I was like, wait a second. Like, no, I want the people like in these apartment communities to like thrive. I w I don't want them to just be in like survival mode and. Just from everything I've read. And like just how I even feel like when you treat people like people, the conversations change.
[00:10:45] Suzy: And when you talk about people instead of profits, like the way people's minds work change, and the motivation changes behind it. And so just talking to people about people was like a huge part of it, but then we knew, Hey, if we can. Impact the residents. And then we can also impact our investors. How can we get to this place where all we're really doing is thinking about impact, because when you think about impact, like with, in yourself or with your family or with your friends or with your community, right, just like us as people, the way that you start to even think about your life changes and that's really how it was all driven, just.
[00:11:27] Suzy: And the anthropology degree that I love that I never thought I'd use
[00:11:32] Kris: makes me so happy. That's so awesome.
[00:11:36] Michael: Talking about like the actual like business plan development and things like that. You know, we looked around, we saw with the, you know, multi-family community was doing and like all these operators were doing, it was just like, a lot of them were just like turning and burning units, like, you know, renovating them and sometimes like putting.
[00:11:55] Michael: No, let's say putting stainless steel appliances in a C class property, you're like right where it doesn't really fit. And then just raising rents to a price where it doesn't make sense for the, for the community. Right? So like we also take us, you know, as we're building our business plans for each of the properties that we acquire, we, we take a look back and take a step back and take a look back us, take a step back and we take a little.
[00:12:20] Michael: At, you know, what the community is, what the community can support, like what impact we can make on the residents that live there. Right. Because we're not just acquired. Apartment complex is right. We're acquiring apartment communities, right? And these aren't units, these are apartment homes and these are not tenants they're residents.
[00:12:40] Michael: Like just changing that language as well. Really helps you to think about the people that are there. And the investors that we bring on to these, these investments are also driven to make an impact. Right? When we, when we talk to investors, we say, you know, what is your number one goal? Right? And we try to figure out, okay, are they going to be a good fit for us?
[00:13:00] Michael: Because we'll tell them it's people first profit second, right? Because like, let's say. Somebody has a, a leak in one of their, in one of their kitchens and it leaks all over the carpet or whatever ends up becoming rot and long story short, we ended up paying, you know, five to $10,000 for that repair. Like that's going to take place, right.
[00:13:20] Michael: That doesn't take priority or anything else. Right. Because making safe, affordable housing where people can thrive in versus just survive like that is our. Right. So we communicate that to our investors and the people on our team. And we also have aligned ourselves with some amazing property managers who also share the same values that we do.
[00:13:41] Suzy: Yeah. And I've never actually like owned a home I've only ever rented. And so even from that aspect, I was like, wait a second. Like even right now. Right. If my landlord were to come in and just want to change a bunch of stuff, just so that he can make the rent higher, I'd be like, wait, wait, wait. Yeah, how can we come to this together?
[00:14:02] Suzy: You know? Cause like not everybody wants, like Michael was mentioning like brand new stuff every single year. So like, and without the residents, like we don't have a business. Right. And so we have to like listen to their needs. We have to listen to their concerns. We have to listen to a lot of what they're saying and figure out like who they are as people.
[00:14:21] Suzy: And so that was like a big part is like, how do we figure out what this community actually wants? It needs.
[00:14:28] Kris: That's amazing. You, you guys are blowing my mind. Y'all are amazing. And I'm thinking of, like, I'm thinking of like four or five different shows I want to connect you with because you would really make an impact on those podcasts as well.
[00:14:38] Kris: But I digress. Speaking of podcasts, let's talk a little bit about your show, the adventures of a real estate investor. When did you start your show and how are you liking that messaging platform?
[00:14:50] Michael: I think it's, you know, it's amazing. So, first question, when we started this show, we started June 1st of this year,
[00:14:56] Kris: third year up question.
[00:14:57] Kris: What made you decide to start a podcast?
[00:14:59] Michael: I guess? Okay. Sorry. I thought you were gonna say something else. Yeah. So again, when we're looking around in the community as well, and the multifamily community, we realize that everybody's just talking about how to close a multi-family deals or how to asset manage or how to do this, or how to do that.
[00:15:12] Michael: Like, there was nobody talking about how to make an impact in the community. That you serve or just in your community in general. And so we designed our podcasts all in where we just talked to real estate investors about how they are making an impact. In their world, right? Like whether that's in the communities that they acquire or just in the communities where they
[00:15:37] Suzy: live, I just like saw a strong saying was like, we strongly believe that like everyone was born to make an impact, but we also know that not a lot of people think that way it's like the whole thing behind.
[00:15:50] Suzy: It was like, okay, if we can just give. Other people, other people's ideas, hopefully it'll spark their own. Like to know that like, impact does not have to be huge. You know, like that definition means something to everyone, but most people think it's like making this astronomical change, but it's not, you know, like just opening the door for somebody that you don't know is an impact, whether you would love to believe it or not.
[00:16:13] Suzy: But like, if that like makes that person smile that day, like that's still like a 1%. And that even goes back to. Like the very first book that we read the site edge. It was all just like 1% better every day. And it's like, okay, if I'm 1% better every day, and then I help somebody else be 1% better every day.
[00:16:31] Suzy: Like, what does that ripple effect look like? And what does it mean? So we just really hope to like spark people's ideas with impact and like different ways that they can be able to do that while leveraging real things. But.
[00:16:45] Kris: That's awesome. And I'm going to go pick up that book tomorrow. Cause it sounds like it really opened a lot of doors for you guys.
[00:16:51] Kris: Let's talk a little bit about what it's like to work with your spouse and, or live with your business partner. Let's do, let's do a couple. What are some tricky things about having a business with your spouse and then what are some of the beautiful benefits of doing
[00:17:07] Michael: that? Yeah. So, you know, I would say the tricky thing, and I think this is, this is what helped us initially.
[00:17:13] Michael: So when we first started this business, we were kind of both doing the same thing. And we're both, you know, trying to find brokers, trying to find deals, underwriting deals, doing all this. Right. So very early on, which I think lends to a lot of our success was that we sat down and we said, Hey, you know what?
[00:17:29] Michael: Like. We're doing the same things. What we need to do is divide and conquer, and then we can be two people, right? So from the very beginning we split it, we had our different swim lanes. So I was focusing on underwriting on the acquisitions, broker relations, things like that. Susie was focusing on the marketing investor relations, everything that like.
[00:17:47] Michael: And so we were able to basically divide and conquer. What also that helps do is like, you both have creative, you know, each individual person has creative influence over what. Doing right, right. Not to say that we didn't cross paths ever, but like, cause we would always ask each other for input and stuff like that, but like it wasn't, you know, I'm doing underwriting, but then she wants to underwrite differently.
[00:18:08] Michael: And then we have this like disconnect and then we were butting heads all the time, which then could lead to arguments and things like that. And so by having. Two different swim lanes really helped out, I think for the very beginning. So that was, you know, that was, that was a challenge early on. And we overcame that pretty quickly.
[00:18:23] Michael: The best part is I just get to spend more time with my favorite human in the world. So I say that I'm not being very sweet right now. I say that all the time.
[00:18:36] Suzy: Yeah. I think the coolest thing is that I'm trying to word this in like a non weird way. So because we know each other's love languages. Yeah, it's very easy to be able to like pick the other person up quickly and not till I get into too much detail. If I can, like, hold Michael's hand or like somehow just do like skin to skin contact.
[00:19:01] Suzy: Like I know that that makes him feel better and like calms him down a little bit, but like in a workplace, traditional workplace, I'm not about to go do that to my coworker. Right. You know what I mean? So just little things like that, or if he needs like a positive affirmation, then I can provide that differently.
[00:19:19] Suzy: And so I think that. Like deeper connection is really cool because it helps you move on from, I don't want to say like setbacks, but it helps you move on from just like those grumpy attitudes. And I don't mean like you have to not feel the emotion. It's just much easier to like move past the emotion and like move on to the solution rather than focusing on the
[00:19:40] Michael: problem.
[00:19:41] Michael: The other cool thing too, when we are like, if I'm, if I'm upset about something or stressed out about something or Susie is, you know, upset or stressed out about something, if the cool thing is like, I can just start dancing or Susie can start dancing. Right. And like, even though we're in a. You know, crappy mood, we see the other start dancing and then it just puts a smile on your face.
[00:20:05] Michael: Maybe it might take a little bit longer sometimes like 30 seconds, 60 seconds, something like that. But you know, it does put a smile on your face and then you just start dancing yourself and then you forget about why you're so stressed out. So it's definitely another benefit there.
[00:20:17] Kris: Okay. So which of you is the better dancer?
[00:20:18] Kris: Because I know in my house, me starting to dance is going to make Charles want to like, leave that.
[00:20:25] Suzy: That's funny. I'm the better dancer. I just can't keep, come up with more creative moves or Michael's got like his standard. Yep. Couple of movements.
[00:20:35] Kris: I know that all too well. He, I am married to a very good dancer. I'm lucky in that aspect real quick. Before we close, let's talk a little bit about the other two companies that you have and sort of how you decided to then continue adding to your, your plethora of, of side hustle, gigs.
[00:20:57] Michael: Yeah. So the, I mean, the e-commerce business was just something that when our friends kind of turned us on to is like, you know, a way to make additional cashflow and it's handled, you know, it's not really handled by us at Santa, by a team of people.
[00:21:11] Michael: So it was kind of more. Passive then, then real estate is sometimes or like the active park, which is nice. And then the other one is, is slightly more active, slightly passive though. Not as active as real estate as well, but it's an import business. So basically we're importing older vehicles that are in the UK over to the U S and we can sell them for a premium over there because people love right-hand drive vehicles in the U S so.
[00:21:37] Kris: Fantastic. Well, you guys are impressive. You are definitely an inspiration to the rest of us, married folks who are trying to run a business together, have a life and all of the things. So my hat goes off to both of you. I'm super impressed. And I would love to have you back on the show to dig in deeper on.
[00:21:56] Kris: 'cause I think you guys have the finger on the pulse and super amazing. So where can everybody find you if they want to listen to your show? If they want to learn more about the real estate investing? All
[00:22:07] Michael: of the things. Yeah, absolutely. Thanks Chris. Throw this into our podcast. We've talked about making impact, right?
[00:22:12] Michael: So if you're looking, if you're listening out there, You know, I, I love to like build well and make an impact at the same time. Like, please feel free to go to adventurous rei.com/impact. And there you'll be able to find a little guide where we can, where we basically talk about how to make an impact through real estate investing.
[00:22:34] Michael: But if you want to find our podcast, go to adventurous rei.com Ford sites info, and there you'll be able to find our podcast. If extras of real estate investor, you'll be able to find our YouTube. Are you seeing their YouTube channel and then also you can connect with Susan I on LinkedIn there.
[00:22:52] Kris: Fantastic.
[00:22:52] Kris: Well, we have been chatting today with Michael Barnhart and Susie savvier. You guys are amazing. Thank you so much for being on God's side hustle and to our listeners. I will check in with you next week. Have an amazing.