Our Story
Hi there, it’s Grace here. I am excited to tell the story of how WIIRE started. I always like to take the lead on this one, because as Amelia and I always joke, WIIRE started because I slid into Amelia’s Instagram DM’s 🙈.
When I first discovered the power of REI, I felt really lonely and had no one in my real life who understood me. Cue the eyes glazing over look whenever I would talk about it! So, in January of 2021 I decided I wanted to start an online meetup to create the community I couldn’t find. Inspiration, motivation and friendships with like-minded women were all things that I wanted to facilitate in this community.
After going under contract with my first property I was shocked to find another millennial from Iowa also on Instagram talking about real estate investing. So of course, I had to become her friend! I sent her a cold DM introducing myself and asked if she would be the first guest speaker at my not-yet-created WIIRE meetup.
Thirty-five women showed up to the virtual meetup from all over the U.S. I was SHOCKED! I remember telling myself that if 5 people showed up I would be happy. It went amazingly and I decided to ask Amelia, “Do you want to, like, make this a thing with me?!”
Since that first meetup Amelia and I have hosted a monthly WIIRE meetup every month. We have evolved and added in courses, a podcast, retreats all over the US, a blog, a Facebook group and much more. Today, WIIRE is a community for women pursuing financial and time freedom through real estate investing and entrepreneurship.
If there is anything I want you to know it’s that this community is about living your dream life and having fun. Amelia and I are as real, authentic and silly as it gets. This isn’t a stuffy board room. This is our LIVES after all and we are here to learn, laugh and create lifelong friendships.
We want you to be a part of this community too, to live your best life and chase your dreams with us. So come on, join the party!
Hi, I’m Amelia McGee!
Hey there! I’m Amelia, a 31 year old investor based out of Des Moines, Iowa. My investing journey started in 2019 when I partnered with my parents to flip a single-family house in my small hometown. The project took 9 months of working nights and weekends BUT we both walked away with around $20k in profit.
After that, I was hooked. I kept imagining what an additional $20k each year could do to accelerate my debt payoff and financial independence journey. I knew I wanted to quit my full-time job working for “the man” as soon as possible and realized that real estate investing was my ticket out.
Over the course of the next year, I used the profit I’d made in the initial flip to put down payments on a few small multifamily properties in my hometown. At this point I have 36 doors across the state of Iowa which are a mixture of LTR, MTR and one STR.
I am an Enneagram 7 and have lots of hobbies! In my spare time I enjoy hiking, biking, golfing, playing pickleball, reading and going on adventures! I also love a good craft beer.
Hi, I’m Grace Gudenkauf!
Hi! My name is Grace and I am the 25 year old cofounder of WIIRE.
As far as my investing business goes, my partner and I purchased our first property in February of 2021. It was a single-family BRRRR. We DIY’ed the entire gut rehab! 6 months later we walked away with a perfect BRRRR plus about $8k in our pockets.
This opened our eyes to the power of value-add real estate investing and I left my mechanical engineering job at a Fortune 500 company in July of 2021. This was a huge decision and it was definitely scary, but I believed in myself and knew that the upside was too great not to act on.
Since then we have scaled to 21 rental units using BRRRR, MTR, LTR, creative financing and private money. Basically, I’ve done a bit of everything! Moving forward we are looking to focus on small multifamily with value add potential.
In my personal life, I am an avid reader, and I enjoy doing anything outdoors. I have traveled to over 15 countries, and hope to have a home in South America someday.