RG 080 – Being Boss as a real estate entrepreneur with podcast heavyweight Kathleen Shannon
About Kathleen
- Kathleen is the co-host of Being Boss podcast
- Her expertise lies in personal branding and business coaching
- Kathleen also invests in real estate in Oklahoma
Nuts and Bolts
Kathleen graduated from college with an art degree and started 
work ad a graphic designer, she later went to work with her sister at an advertising design agency. While at this agency she became senior art director and won awards in advert design. However, the world of advertising was starting to shift with the introduction of social media and so she launched her own blog while remodelling her home, this was a lifestyle blog on which she shared her design for her wedding invitations. This post became very popular and allowed her to start a side job creating wedding invites that then became a full time career. She launched “The Thing” as a continuation of her blog about honing a personal brand and while she was doing this she blogged about being a freelancer. After a year she had already made up her previous salary from freelance work and convinced her sister to come and work with her to create “Braid Creative and Consulting”. A couple of years ago her business partner and friend reached out to start a podcast based on the accountability chats they were already having monthly.
While Kathleen was at college her parents bought a house for her and her brother and after they finished school she stayed on and managed the property through the first few sets of renters. This taught her a lot about being a landlord. After she moved on the property was passed through levels of student renters and was maltreated until her brother moved in and rehabbed it. Kathleen’s investment journey began when she bought her first flat with her then-boyfriend but when they broke up she moved out and rented it back to him for 6 years. She now has 8 investment properties in the Oklahoma area which started when her husband ran the numbers and realised if they bought 7 homes they could buy a new house each year from the profit of the first 7. Each time they get to $25,000 in their checking account they go and spend $15-$20,000 on a down payment.
Kathleen invests in Oklahoma because it’s easy to manage the properties when she lives close by but also because it’s a growing city with a large jobs market in energy and oil. Housing is still very cheap in Oklahoma and the rental market is strong because of the housing crisis people can’t get loans to buy homes. Her first property was bought in 2011 and cost $70,000 and all the homes are rented out at double the mortgage. Once the extra costs for taxes, maintenance etc have been paid there isn’t any money remaining from the rental income however Kathleen is happy that any extra money is being put back into the business.
Top tips
- Most important habit – Working out every day
- Most influential person – Dr Berne Brown
- Most important tool – Asana project management software
- Most important mistake – Starting a new website with a friend when she’s a blogger, not a journalist. The website didn’t return any revenue and taught her to be careful when investing.
