We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Zeona McIntyre a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Zeona, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. Do you wish you had waited to start your own firm or do you wish you had started sooner?

I’ve had a love affair with homes my entire life. Whenever I enter a new space, I always want a tour and find myself optimizing decor, changing paint colors and moving furniture around in my mind. The first time that I considered a career in Real Estate was in my early twenties and yet my parents never really owned property so the understanding of the inner workings felt so out of reach.

Fast forward to age 26, when I start renting out a room on Airbnb. This simple trial, would unexpectedly change the course of my career and my life. Renting out a room taught me about understanding the numbers behind what expenses are involved in a short term rental business, what I could earn in profits, seasonality and the trails of running a business. This allowed me to dip a toe into the investment world without buying a property. I eventually saved up to purchase and continued buying an average of 1-2 properties per year from there, mostly out of state.

Now with over 12 years of personal experience in the investment space, I have an incredible amount of lessons to share with my clients to help them make the best choices. Four years ago, before I was licensed, I had 3 different people in the same span of time come to me for an agent referral. I think the universe was trying to give me a strong signal to finally get started as an agent myself. After missing out on over $60,000 in commissions from those 3 sales, I finally dove in.

For those in your 20s with a passion for real estate, I’d say don’t wait! Sure there are all kinds of excuses available, like people won’t take you seriously because you are too young, but there are incredible mentors that you can pair up with to do deals, until you feel confident in your own abilities. As a real estate agent, it can take years to build up a steady flow of clients, so don’t wait, I wish I had started 10 years ago!

Zeona, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?

Like I mentioned earlier, I got into Real Estate Investing by accident through renting out a room on Airbnb. This slowly grew into renting out full apartments then buying locally and out of state. I continued to grow by incorporating partnerships and perfecting my marketing strategies for my rentals as complementary softwares were developed.

In 2017 I started a blog to teach others what I knew and this grew to guest spots on podcasts, which allowed me to offer cohosting or management services internationally. When Covid hit in 2020, I knew travel was changing and if I wanted to keep my rentals full, I would have to pivot to a medium-term or furnished rental strategy by the month. I also got my real estate license towards the end of the year so that I could start helping clients invest in their own properties. In 2022, I released a book called “30 Day Stay: The Real Estate Investors Guide to Mastering The Medium-term Rental” that became a bestseller.

In 2022 the Real Estate industry threw us another curve balls as interest rates shot up from the 2-3%s to 8%! I took this opportunity to learn everything I could about structuring creative financing deals. Last year I helped clients close 16 of my 40 total transactions with creative financing, which kept my income steady when many other agents will struggling to make ends meet.

Now, I am working on my second book all on how to use creative financing, for both agents and investors, which I plan to publish in January 2025. One of my gifts from being in this industry for so long is the ability to see changes coming and to pivot quickly to stay successful and ride the wave.

How about pivoting – can you share the story of a time you’ve had to pivot?

When I was first starting out as an agent, the friend that connected me to my brokerage had been building a team of agents and from the outside, seemed to have a lot of success with it. As my business was ramping up, he encouraged me to do the same.

One thing that I had promised myself when I decided to get my license, is that I wouldn’t let this career change take away my freedom to travel. I am an avid traveler, spending an average of four months away from home. I saw having a team as a support for allowing me to be away while still give my clients great service. What I didn’t foresee is that as an entrepreneur for the previous 8 years, I was self motivated and driven, which is not the norm. I struggled with my new agent recruits. Many wanted clients to fall into their laps without doing the prospecting required to make it happen.

I quickly and painfully learned that I do not excel at driving a team and holding them accountable to do their work. I realized that I needed to acknowledge this and “fail fast”. Make a decision to end the team portion of my offering and instead, find a new way to work with the agents that felt like a good fit. This happened through partnerships. Rather than being responsible for their business and keeping them motivated, I could bring clients and share in the work and profits at the end!

As an entrepreneur for over 12 years, I have failed countless times, but I don’t let it tear me down or slow me down. I recognize it for what it is and pivot. I’ve come to realize that this game of business is in many ways an experiment. I am in the lab, constantly testing new ideas and strategies, tweaking and iterating as I go.

Any stories or insights that might help us understand how you’ve built such a strong reputation?

I believe transparency and honesty has helped me build trust. I’ve built a decent online following and in my community I share both the good and the bad of owning rental properties and being a real estate agent. Many people who teach online are just out to sell something and I think followers these days have become sensitive to that. I think my community respects that I give my true perspective, whether or not it’s going to help me make a buck.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.zeonamcintyre.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/zeonamcintyre
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/zeona.mcintyre
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/zeona-mcintyre/
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@ZeonaMTR