Real estate is a family business for the McGehee clan. Molly McGehee Quinn’s father died in 1996, when she and her older brother Blake were still in their 20s. They inherited a slate of mostly older properties that were only just recovering from the 1980s real estate crunch.
“That’s when times were really tough and really scary, because we were so young and we didn’t want to lose what he had left us,” Quinn says. “There was a big learning curve that we were faced with.”
As she puts it, they had to sell themselves, convincing commercial lenders they could do a successful project without the benefit of their father’s coattails. Eventually, she and Blake acquired $25,000 each to buy 20 new mobile homes from a Georgia manufacturer, which they offered for lease-purchase in a trailer park they owned. Quinn says she probably lost five years off her life sweating over that $25,000.
“It ended up being a cash cow,” she says. They eventually parlayed that initial investment into two build-to-suit projects for Raising Cane’s, which they sold back to the chicken fingers chain last year at a tidy profit.
“That was a huge turning point and a confidence booster for me, and it told me that I was going to be OK and I was going to be able to do this,” she says. “The first deal was a big deal.”
Right now, Quinn says she’s in a “holding pattern,” and she’s drawing on lessons learned from that last real estate crunch to get through the current one.
“I was young, but I remember what my father went through in the late ’80s,” she says. “One of the things I learned from that experience is don’t put all your eggs in one basket. I’ve never gone and invested in only apartment buildings, or only mini-storage or only shopping centers. I’ve tried to diversify my investment portfolio, just as you would with stocks, so that you are somewhat protected whether the market’s good or bad.”
Age: 38
What is your best business advice?
“People get so wrapped up in greed. Don’t care what the Joneses are doing. Take your time and don’t get greedy.”
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