Avery: Hey everybody, welcome back to the short-term show. Today we’ve got a really cool guest, Jennifer, who’s got a lot of experience in a lot of different types of real estate but definitely a subject that is very near and dear to my heart, coming out of the music business and into real estate or doing that vice versa. Jennifer’s got a cool book out called “The Backstage Guide to Real Estate.” I’d like to welcome Jennifer to the show. Thank you so much for coming on, Jennifer! How’s it going?

Jennifer: Thanks, Avery, it’s a pleasure to be here. Thank you, so why don’t we start by you just telling us a little bit about yourself and what it is you do, how you got into real estate, you know, start from the beginning.

Jennifer: Okay, I was born in Orlando, Florida, and I moved to New York City in 1992 to pursue a career in theater. I was a musical theater guy, right? And I always wanted to be a rock star, but I wasn’t quite cool enough; I didn’t have the vibe, so I ended up in musicals. It was the second-best thing and a lot of fun. I love musicals, thank you. I mean, I would have much preferred to be rocking out with a guitar on a stage, but that just wasn’t in the plan for me.

But something I love is that I went to a show the other night, which was awesome. So then I started getting involved in website development. This was like the mid-90s, and instead of waiting tables at the Hard Rock Café in between acting gigs, I started doing website development. So much development was coming in that I actually started my own boutique agency doing digital marketing projects for many clients.

Then 2001 came along, and the dot-com bubble burst. All my clients were going out of business or not spending money on digital marketing, and my business was imploding. It was a perfect storm. I got a phone call from my landlord telling me I had 90 days to get out of the apartment I was living in, so here I am in New York, needing to find a new place to live without a job and with a business that had essentially failed.

So luckily, I ended up getting a job at Showtime, the television cable channel. They were a client of mine, and they offered me a position in-house. I was looking for a rental, but I actually found an apartment to buy. It was way uptown, almost the Bronx, in an area called Washington Heights. It wasn’t necessarily where I wanted or dreamed of living, but it was something I could afford.

Two years later, I ended up selling that apartment and saw that my initial investment more than quadrupled in value. That was a big light bulb moment for me. I was making a pretty good salary at Showtime, but in that one real estate transaction, I made more money than an entire year’s worth of salary. So I thought, “How do I make that happen again?” That’s what set me on the path to look for real estate opportunities.