Dedee Boring Discusses Lessons Learned and Empowers Women Investors

Today's guest is Dedee Boring.

Dedee leads acquisitions and asset management at Boring & Co., focusing on self-storage investments across the Texas Triangle—Austin, DFW, San Antonio, and Houston.

She specializes in identifying high-performing opportunities, optimizing property operations, and maximizing investor returns through strategic, data-driven decision-making.

With a background in marketing and advertising, Dedee brings innovative thinking and a deep understanding of investor needs to her work.

As co-founder of WISE (Wise Women Invest in Real Estate), she is passionate about empowering women in commercial real estate.

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Creator/Main Host: Vish Muni

Show Advisor/Editing: DBT Marketing

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Transcript

>> Vish: 0:02

Well, Dedee so you starting the group Wise Network made a huge difference to a lot of women. You really wouldn't know until you started what, what a blessing it was. Now, you did also tell us that, this is in multiple cities and you really empowered and inspired a lot of women to become investors. Now tell us a little more about how does it work and what is the value you bring to the group.

>> Dedee: 0:31

Wow. so we've come a long ways. We have local chapter meetings in all of these cities. Those are always free. I have something called the Michelle Effect. And Michelle is a woman from Austin that told me that she wanted to be in commercial real estate, but she felt like the barrier was too high to entry. So I have designed a program around Michelle. and, and largely I think that's because most of us who have go into commercial real estate had bought into a network or a system or a program that maybe is$35,000 or $50,000 or. And if you haven't, you know, people that have, and then they didn't really find the value, or maybe the value just wasn't quite what they thought it would be for that kind of money. And so we have a program where you can get the tools that you can get from those other Networks. But it's $37 a month. So it's a subscription based program. there's, you can cancel anytime. There's no contract. It's just a easy 37amonth. And there's a foundations course, because if I hear it once, I hear it 100 times a month. What do I need to do to get started? I got you, I got a course on that of what you need to do to get started. We, have, access every Wednesday it's Wise Wednesday. And on Wise Wednesdays, we have things called Hot Seat Hustle, where you can bring your challenges and hopefully the other ladies in the group can help you overcome those challenges. we have a Q and A. so if you are maybe struggling with lending and you're not sure what you're doing wrong or an underwriting question, then you can come and the ladies in that group can help you with those questions. today we had an invested women webinar and that we had a woman that taught us all about lending and, commercial and residential space, DSCR loans. so that's once a month. And then we have a virtual networking, not time, that's called Coffee Wise, and that is everybody in the country that's on in the network. We can we all get on and we're able to do networking, so all the local chapters can get together and meet each other and therefore, expand our network. Because as you know, all of these spaces, multifamily, triple net, self storage, all of these spaces are remarkably small and we all get to know each other eventually. And so this way you kind of speed that process along and grow your network pretty quickly.

>> Vish: 2:49

Well, that's, that's pretty interesting that. I'm glad you did that. Now with that being said, I know you're a full time, educator now and inspiring groups and networking and educating them. And I like that model, the subscription model. I mean, it's not just you or a few other people who paid into such big mentorship programs by spending 30,000 to. All the way up to 100,000.

>> Dedee: 3:14

Sure.

>> Vish: 3:14

Only to realize that, only to realize they're in the wrong groups. And a, lot of people are extremely good at talking and presentations, but they don't, they forget what they speak, they forget what they preach. They, they really don't, follow what they, they really don't practice what they preach, in other words. And that, that being said, there is a big disconnect, huge disconnect. And it has happened to me also. And you, over a period of time, you lose interest. You feel, you feel that you've been robbed out of your money.

>> Dedee: 3:50

And wouldn't you have rather been able to put that in a deal?

>> Vish: 3:54

Yeah, I would have been, I would have been better off not joining those programs, if you ask me. And because I've been a full time investor since 2009, I mean, I must have been slow, but at least I did not lose money.

>> Dedee: 4:08

Yeah.

>> Vish: 4:09

At least people, did not scam me. So. I mean, you don't mind donating to people, but you don't like being scammed. Nobody likes being scanned. It's like.

>> Dedee: 4:22

Yeah, no, and it's, it's really important to, find that value. And I just, and I, right now I'm, I'm actually having a hard time communicating the value because I think people are like, why is she doing it for $37 a month? and it's, it's because I've done it. I've, I've paid 35 grand. I got no value from it. and you know, it was the most basic of education there ever was. And it didn't, it got me to loi. Not even past loi. You know, like what, okay, now I got the loi. Accepted. What happens next? And There is nothing there. And it's like, oh, okay, you have to sign up for the advanced class for that. so, you know, I have done all of those things. I've heard everybody else's experiences. And so really this is a, a network that's designed to get women comfortable with investing in commercial real estate. Because I've got to tell you that a lot of these women, invest in single family, and it's like the wild west out there for them. They've got home equity loans on this and they've got hard money loans out here, and they're just, they're just, you know, gunslinging these loans and these houses and flipping, and they think nothing of it, of, of, the risk of what that is. And then they hear a commercial real estate deal and they're like, whoa, that's too big. It's too risky. I can't do it. And I'm like, you guys are crazy. I mean, there's some luck, at least some protection with the SEC and some regular regulations around commercial real estate that's not there in single family. And anyway, I, I have, great respect for people that do single family because I think it's wild and crazy risky. And, they a lot of work. And as is commercial, as we both know, commercial risky.

>> Vish: 6:01

Well, there's a lot of, lot of people out there. Like, you know, there's one networking group I used to go on every Tuesday in Austin. And, that networking group, the guy who organized the networking group told us there are so many people who are scamming everyone who's just walking around in plain sight in front of me and you. We don't even bother to Google their name because only after two months you get to know they were wanted by the FBI, they were, investigated by SEC and all these things because those people are so convincing, you wouldn't even bother to look up their name. And, that is one thing I've learned is in real estate, you got to watch out. Buyer beware. Okay? Want to watch out. And with that being said, now, now, what kind of, asset, classes do you invest within real estate? And, since this podcast is all about, we're talking about the experiences of the investments which have gone wrong. And like, like you, like, we fall 100 times before in. Before we learn how to sit down as babies, and we fall again another 100 times before we learn how to stand. I mean, that applies to anything in life. You're going to fail a few times before you get really, really good at it. So that being said, and this out here, we are here to discuss one failure, what you had in any of your investments, which has made you a better investor and how my audience can use it.

>> Dedee: 7:40

Well, I think our first one, so I think al one of the failures that we did that kind of snowballed into the next one, into the next one was we bought into this mentorship program. We trusted everything that they said. we, we thought we were doing everything. Life by the book. and so we got into some partnerships that we didn't fully understand. that we maybe should have vetted more carefully. not maybe we should have vetted more carefully. and then we trusted in our ability to maybe raise capital faster than we thought we could. and so we got into three multi family deals right out of the gate. I mean we hadn't been doing it very long. we thought we had some lead sponsors on the deal that could, could really handle the load. They were confident in their ability to handle it. and then they kind of, they went mia. So we learned really quickly that we were going to be on our own on that. And right when we signed the PSA for all of these and put down almost $200,000 in EMD money, our lender backed out. they decided that they, with the interest rates and the risk and it being South Texas and they were, they just weren't willing to do the loan anymore. we got a new lender, it was more expensive. so, so then our investor backed out. And so it's just a one thing after another. And finally after about six months we said that's it, we're done. And we decided that the way things were going we would lose our investors money over losing our money and that wasn't going to be okay. So we ended up giving the investors all their money back, and pulling and pulling out of the deal and losing that $200,000 in EMD money in order for us knowing now, you know, looking ahead, what would have happened with the interest rates going up and what the loan was at the time, we would have deals that would be in serious trouble, and probably would be losing those deals in the situation that they were in. So we were able to see that and pull out. And so that was a huge hit to us financially, obviously and, and made us really sit back and go, oh, what are we doing? What's going on? So that would, that would be our biggest one so far. So our, our big lesson that we learned from this whole thing was that we wanted to communicate very effectively right out of the gate. Your role, my role. What have you done before? What are you actually capable of? Are you, you know, at the end of the day, are you going to be able to raise some money or are you going, are you really kind of shooting too high and thinking too big? and just being very realistic on all of those things and, and asking the right questions like how many, how many deals are you on right now and how many deals are working for you and how many deals are you raising money for at the same time? just a lot of things that I think, you know, it was all good questions to ask and you don't know until you know, to ask them. And so that definitely wasn't in our training. It wasn't through the net. You know, they didn't say that who said vet the deals. But we would. All these people were like, oh, these people are great. And they were, there are, they are good humans. They just weren't great at doing this.

>> Vish: 11:07

All right, so, so do you still invest in multi family or you diversified into other asset classes?

>> Dedee: 11:14

So we had a really great opportunity after all of that happened to diversify and get into a different asset class. And boy, do we love it. So I have a family business, it's my husband and I and our four adult children. so we invest in self storage. And so we own, three self storage facilities in the DFW area. And that is our primary focus from this point on. It would have to be a great multifamily deal, which are hard to find right now. it would have to be a really great multifamily deal for us to go back into the multifamily space, most likely, because we really love self storage.

>> Vish: 11:51

So in multifamily people talk about a number of doors and in self storage, how does it work? Do you still call it doors or, ah, square feet or how do you, what do you call it?

>> Dedee: 12:03

Right, yeah, we, we have about 250,000 square feet of self storage. That equates into about 1500 doors. The difference on that obviously is that, you know, for the most part apartments are around the same size. so you can really go by doors where, as you know, you can have 200 units, but they're all 10 by 40s, and have a hundred thousand square feet because they're just huge, you know, huge units, but they're only 240 of them. Or you can have 800 units and 75,000 square feet because they're all little tiny. So all those numbers can be misleading if you saw them on somebody's LinkedIn profile. Does everybody always put their doors on there? Of course they do. because that's what multifamily can understand that and grasp around that. So I can say I have 1500 doors in self storage, and that's easier to understand than 250,000 square feet.

>> Vish: 12:58

Well, so I used to get carried away initially. Wow, this guy, this guy has, has 400 doors. This guy has thousand doors. This guy has 5,000 doors.

>> Dedee: 13:08

Yeah.

>> Vish: 13:08

And, and once I understood the concept of number of doors and, and what type of investors, lp, GP and other investors, then I figured out that those doors don't mean anything.

>> Dedee: 13:25

What do you own? Do you own like 0.25% of 500 doors? And so now, oh, I have 500 doors. You know, like. Yeah, I, that is, that is exactly right. Because there are a lot of people that'll say, oh, I have 1500 doors, but their LP's on a deal.

>> Vish: 13:39

Yeah, so that, I mean, I've invested 25,000 in, you know, in in a portfolio which is a $500 now 25,000 at $500 and I'm going to tell people I invested in 500 doors and.

>> Dedee: 13:53

Yeah, yeah, right. It's all, it's all marketing and PR and how you spin it. Of course. Exactly. Yeah. So we, we definitely you know in one of our deals we, we don't have less than 25% of the deal in any of our deals, currently.

>> Vish: 14:10

so this self storage you have across three locations you have, you have more than, more than 200,000 square feet. Right. So across three locations. Now in terms of management, I know there are no tenants, there are no toilets, there's no trash and there's no sewer. With that being said, I'm sure there's no, there's no concept of delinquency. Even if there's delinquency it may not be as high as other asset classes because most of the payments is automated. Either they have credit card or debit card on file. And how difficult is it in terms of management?

>> Dedee: 14:53

Okay, well first of all there's tons of trash. So people leave their units all the time and we have to get people out. So it's no tenants, no toilets, no termites, no trouble. It's a little cliche but we got some trash. and it's, it's not like we have to go pick it up every week or anything but we definitely have to deal with people just walking their units and And so then we have a whole unit full of stuff that we have to get rid of. as far as delinquency goes, you know, right now we just, we took over one property and we're dealing with some delinquency issues at about 20% and the largely that's because we are trying to get them on a system where it is paid monthly. and it, you know when you take over a property, lots of mom and pops own self, ah storage facilities still. So they'll take cash because they can not report it or you know, they, it won't. It, they can just be like oh well it's a delinquency or whatever. So we are trying to get everybody on a payment plan, you know where they're paying with their credit card or debit cards. And it sometimes can be a little tricky when you're first starting out so your delinquency goes down or goes up. but that being said, I mean we have a part time person on one look at one location and we are going to no person no employees, completely remote managed on another location. and so the cost associated are obviously lower. Now we are also charging an average of $100 a month versus a$1,500 apartment. So all of that is in consideration when you're underwriting. We can raise rents every six to nine months as opposed to once a year. so you know, that's kind of common. So that's a, that's a really great thing. it's harder to get lending for self storage because they're month to month contracts. So there's plus and minuses on every asset class and little nuances that you have to understand when you're underwriting them. ours are that there's you know, rental increases every six to nine months. but you know, people are month to month so they can leave at any time. There's no long term contracts in storage.

>> Vish: 17:02

How, how difficult is it to increase occupancy in these normally tenants for a long time? Or what is the average term of each tenant?

>> Dedee: 17:13

Average term is about two years. tenants are sticky. So once they put something in there, especially in Texas, right, Because it's so hot, tenants are sticky. They don't want to, they put all that grandma's furniture into that storage unit and then they're like, oh, it's 100 degrees outside. I don't think I want to move it. so even if you go up, it's, it's. They're sticky. That's what they're called, sticky tenants. because it's such a pain in the b*** to have to move them out of a unit. so you know, we have seasons in self storage. Obviously that goes along with the moving season, as do multifamily because people move, tend to move in the summer as opposed to the winter. and right now is our slow season and we're still seeing and generating decent move ins, every month for all of our properties. So what we like to see. We're not big developers at Boring & Co. Our my family business. We yet, we're not big developers yet. I think that's something we definitely want to look into in the future. But right now, based on our business experience of having an advertising agency for over 20 years, we love to come in and get a mismanaged property and turn it around and start the marketing and start getting everything streamlined and getting these people from, you know, paying regularly on a payment plan and all of the things that you do in a very well, well run, efficient business.

>> Vish: 18:35

So you streamline the systems and processes and so do you buy class A? What, what class properties do you guys buy? A B or C?

>> Dedee: 18:44

I, we have looked at, we have one that's considered a class A. That's what it was marketed as. I don't, I would say it's probably a B. and the reason why it was marketed as a class A is because they added some units within the last few years but the majority of the property was as older. So most of these mom and pops are 10 to 20 years old and so that puts them in the B C category. we don't buy anything that's really run down. I got an offer sent to me by a friend that's in the New Braunfels area and it's, it's just a little rundown for us. It's not something that I think we want to take on. and so especially when there's so much development for self storage going on right now, I don't know that you would want to really run down property that would have to compete with a class A here in three years or five years or so. But we have most of our, all of our properties are probably B plus A minuses I would say, probably let's say in solid B. And they are drive up. We're not doing a whole bunch of the climate controlled situation. Most of ours are dry. But drive up. We have climate controlled on all of our properties but we really like the drive up. No air conditioners to deal with that kind of situation.

>> Vish: 19:59

So that's good. So now are all these syndicated deals or do you guys buy it with private funds?

>> Dedee: 20:06

These are all syndicated deals. and moving forward we're looking to do more JV type syndications where it's just us and another partner that can come in with capital and help with the capital part of it. and they're just smaller deals. So you know a big storage. Our biggest storage facility that we have is, was $14 million and our smallest, it was six and a half. So I mean these are not these huge 500 door, 50 million dollar apartment properties. Right? So these are, we don't, we're not trying to raise $20 million. We're trying to raise one and a half, two. So you can definitely do that with maybe one or two partners instead of doing, you know, one where you have to have all these people come on to raise money.

>> Vish: 20:52

Well, we, we get better by doing deals. Right? More than anything. So, so I'm sure you, you had to do three deals and a lot of multi family to to figure out what is your strengths and how to structure deals going forward now.

>> Dedee: 21:07

Well and one thing that we love and how we like to do deals with other general partners is that they're, that we're all on the same team. So very rarely are we ever on a deal where somebody doesn't come to the asset management meetings or isn't involved in the decision making. So if you're part of the deal then you are part of the deal and you help run this deal. And I'm a very good facilitator and people manager and so I like to build teams where we can work together. And I really dislike, you know, over and over again I hear about people getting on deals and the main sponsor of the deal doesn't let all of the GPS in on what they're doing. And so they really have no idea what's going on in the deal but they've raised money for it, they have investors in it. That's just not fair, anyway, across the board and so that's not how we. Yeah.

>> Vish: 22:03

So on the, on the other note, what what do you do and if you're not doing real estate, what you would have been doing?

>> Dedee: 22:11

Well, I think we probably would have still been in our advertising business. We still have it, we've had it for 25 or 20 years. the reason why we're not doing it is largely because our family, our kids, we have three boys and one girl. they wanted, we all wanted to do a family business. They weren't really that interested, doing the advertising business. It's changed so much since we first started. So since it's changed so much, that's less creative, way more analytical. Which is great for people that love that. But we got into it for the creative part. so it's, it's a lot less Mad Men than it used to be. And because of that we decided to look at other things to do, and franchises and some other things. And so I don't know, I, I think that we probably maybe would stay in the advertising and just kind of maybe nuanced it a little bit more where we were, more online and digital. But it definitely wasn't something that our family wanted to do long term so we would have found something else.

>> Vish: 23:11

Well, with your, with your advertising background I'm sure that's going to, that definitely is helpful to your investing business. You're able to market, market Your projects the right way.

>> Dedee: 23:25

Right. So our biggest obstacle in that was just kind of getting our 20 years of network and contacts, used to the idea of, oh wait, we're not doing that anymore. we're not doing advertising now. We're investing in real estate. And I'm going, oh, that's different. I mean I have I think I mentioned to you before I was in children's ministry for nine and a half years and I have some, a family that was part of my program in the church, that are investors now. So everything that we have done in the, that has, everything that we've done in the past has led up to this moment. So every volunteer job, every PTA I was on, every booster club that we were members of, every job that we've ever had, every business that we've owned has helped us get to this point and helped us be able to manage people, manage our investors and manage our properties in a better way. All of those experiences have helped us. And so that's one thing that I try to share with our women, that are investing and women that are looking into wise and getting part of that network is all the experience that you have in single family or all the experience that you have. And whatever it is that you've done in the past will help you with what you're going to do now. So just take it with you.

>> Vish: 24:38

Well, I'm a firm believer of it's all, it's a relationship business. More than anything. Because I've been on several deals and I figured out the real estate component is easy, but dealing with people is difficult.

>> Dedee: 24:53

Right.

>> Vish: 24:54

But but what is. But I haven't stopped doing business. But you do it with different people. That's all. But you learn. You learn every time you fall down, you learn why you fell in the first place. And does it, I mean, you've got to learn how to fall next time. Right. Even if you fall. Right.

>> Dedee: 25:12

Well, and, and even people that, you know, not everybody's perfect and not every, you know, I have some really good partnerships right now that I love, but they're not perfect. not like we all run around with our holding hands and singing songs all day. This is, you know, we have had to learn how to work together. We've had to learn. But we've all been willing to do that. We've all been willing to put in the work to say, okay, I don't agree with you on this. How can we come to a solution? It's when you get into those partnerships where somebody closes the door and says nope, that's when it's, that's when it goes wrong. That was when you know you shouldn't do business with them again. But healthy conversations and healthy relationships usually require some compromise and that's, that's always good.

>> Vish: 25:51

Right. So, so what is, what is your plan with real estate? What is your long term goal, five year goal in real estate? Are you going to just build, build self storages or you're just going to take a break, pause at some time, focus more on education or what is your long term plan?

>> Dedee: 26:10

So we have a big family so we're able to be able to go in different aspects and our long term goal is to build generational wealth through self storage investing. That's what, that's the long, that's the short term and the long term goal of Boring and Company. through that obviously through Wise, I'm able to get investors and help our Boring and co business through finding other investors who are interested in wanting to be part of deals. and then that's kind of more of a passion project for me and one that I feel very, very strongly about. I, I have a mother who did not think big and could only work for other people and had a very small world, a very small scope and I, I want, I hear that story over and over again and I, I could have easily been that way. My husband is a huge big picture thinker and has brought me out of that and so I want to help other women see the big picture, see that they can be that generational wealth building leader in their family.

>> Vish: 27:16

Well, well thank you for taking that lead and, and and being a, being a leader out there now with that. how can, how can anyone reach out to you in case if they, they're having problems like they don't want to go to networking events and they might feel comfortable being around you and all the like minded people who had similar challenges. So how can they reach you?

>> Dedee: 27:41

Sure. So we can you can find us@sheis wise.com sheiswise.com you can find us there. You can reach out on LinkedIn. I'm Dee Boring on LinkedIn, on Facebook, Instagram, you can find me in all of those places. LinkedIn's a great place to message me and I'm really great about getting back with people and connecting that way. So if you want to join the Wise network go to sheiswise.com if you want to just reach out to me personally. I'd love to connect with you on LinkedIn, Facebook, or Instagram.

>> Vish: 28:15

All right, that, Dedee we are always looking for guests, who make a difference in investing. They're not just being an investor like you. You not only are an investor, you're making a difference by doing something different. And you also had your better share of failures and experiences. I wouldn't say failures. I would call them feedback and back and a learning experience. Because they. Those, those setbacks are making us stronger than making us all better investors. So with that, we need more people like you on the podcast. So feel free to refer anyone who's looking to share their experience. So, that being said, once again, thank you so much for all the difference you're making to the community and all the investors. And once again, it was great having you as a guest. Thank you.