A FEMALE-FOCUSED LEADERSHIP TEAM
OFTEN, THE PATH TO SUCCESS STARTS WITH ASKING QUESTIONS.
K aylee McMahon, known as The Apartment Queen, started her journey in multi- family real estate investing by asking the right questions. And although she relied on curiosity in the beginning, she soon realized the person giving the answers is just as important as the questions she was asking. McMahon knew her curiosity would serve her well and she wasn’t afraid to ask and learn. But what she wishes she had access to when she began her real estate investing journey was a female mentor. “All the men who helped me in the beginning were great. I have noth- ing against them, but women deal with life experiences from a different lens and know how to navigate cer- tain challenges that only females go through. Having someone understand your viewpoint really helps,” she said. She now sets out to be a lens for other women in the industry. And what she has seen through that lens in her four-year REI career has been eye-opening. For McMahon, work- ing with mentors, finding partners, and helping other budding investors comes down to not only trust, but verification. McMahon began actively invest- ing in flipping a rental and passively investing in a house note. “I didn’t have enough money to invest in large apartment deals, but I had a small IRA and invested with a group on a house note before getting into multifamily.” Now, four short years later, her businesses are thriving. What other
industries can take you so far so fast? “Maybe tech,” she said. “But that depends on if you have a unicorn idea and stick to it. Unicorns are not born every day. Real estate is amaz- ing that way.” But anything amazing almost always comes with tough lessons. LEARNINGTHEHARDWAY McMahon, like some real estate investors starting their business- es, found herself in a bushel of bad apples. People in the industry talk about bad actors and the non-trust- worthy individuals. Sadly, every industry has them. McMahon learned this lesson the hard way—twice. Being the type of person who knows how to ask the right questions but also having trusted the wrong people, McMahon’s number-one question became: “Whom do I trust?” “Someone’s past behavior is always indicative of their future behavior. You must trust but verify,” she said. She admits that she naïvely assumed that other people operat- ed like she does—with honesty and integrity and living by the golden rule. “I just trusted. I did not verify,” she said. Had she verified the first bad apple, she would have learned that person had no one to verify their business deals. That person had no track record. “When you’re getting started in the industry, you might not have a track record, but I didn’t spend enough time with that person to learn if they were aligned with where I want-
Deep Paknikar
Erica Neal
Karolina DiMario
Amy Tiemann
Kaylee McMahon encourages her team of forward-thinking females to lead with her actions. “They all have a seat at the table,” she said.
16 | think realty magazine :: january – february 2022
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