From No Money and No Knowledge to 7 Doors with Sunitha Rao

Feature Image - From No Money and No Knowledge to 7 Doors with Sunitha Rao

Sunitha Rao – Company Owner of Griffix Property Group, talks to Neil Henderson and Brittany Henderson, the hosts of The Road to Family Freedom podcast. 10 years ago, Sunitha retired from nearly a decade of playing tennis professionally at the age of 23 with a sixth-grade education, quite literally no money and very little knowledge of how the world worked outside of her sport. Fast forward to today, she has earned a bachelor's in business and finance from Babson College, an MBA from Villanova University, has no student debt, a successful career in corporate finance, and a real estate business with seven doors in her portfolio. Her goal is to achieve financial freedom while also having a positive impact on others' lives through investing in real estate by purchasing distressed properties and repairing them to provide safer, cleaner, higher quality living environments for her long term tenants and short term vacation rental guests.

Post-Interview Analysis 

  • Key Lessons Learned: Building her team through networking. Make sure she had an understanding of what a person’s job was. Perhaps do some of these jobs on your own before hiring it out. Get a feel for how much things should cost. The number of hours you can work to generate income is limited. It’s important to start looking for ways to generate income from other sources that don’t involve your time and ongoing labor. 
  • How did they acquire their knowledge or what knowledge did they need to acquire? The finance tools for purchasing real estate. Really getting to know the different tools available to purchase a piece of real estate. From seller finance to HELOCs, to private money.
  • How much money did it take to get started? $37,000 to buy her first property
  • How much time does it take now? 2-4 hours a day depending on whether she is in acquisition mode.
  • Could they do this strategy from anywhere in the world? Pretty much yes, but she currently lives near where she invests.

Episode Highlights: 

  • Schedule a video chat with Neil Henderson at roadtofamilyfreedom.com/selfstoragecall
  • How Sunitha decided to add additional streams of income to her corporate finance job using cash flowing rental properties.
  • Why she decided to refrain from taking other people’s capital in the beginning.
  • The key things to remember when evaluating a property on just the cash on cash return
  • How analyzed various real estate markets and decided on Indianapolis to invest
  • And much more…

Books and Resources Mentioned

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About the author, Neil

Neil Henderson is the co-host of The Road to Family Freedom, a self-storage investor, and avowed proponent of short-term rental house hacking. He founded The Road to Family Freedom to guide busy parents to financial freedom through passive real estate investing.