67. Co-Founder of the DeRosa Group and The Real Estate InvestHER® Community - Liz Faircloth

Walking into the room, I realized that sometimes I'm like the only woman or one of very many few, right? That was my experience when I first started attending real estate-related networking events. And today's guest, Liz, felt the same thing, and that's why she started the InvestHer community of about 4,000 people on Facebook. They have 25 meetups all over, and I think some 6,000 in that meetup network. And on top of that, she does single and multifamily investments throughout Jersey and the Carolinas. Hi everyone, and welcome back to Crushing It in Real Estate. I'm your host Joanne Tan, and today I have with me Liz. Welcome to the podcast, Liz.

Thank you, Joanne. So, so much fun to be here. And, you know, excited to connect with you today and your listeners.

Yeah, we're gonna let the listeners know how you got started in real estate.

Sure, sure. So, you know, at the same time I was actually finishing up my graduate school degree, I I was 22 years old, 23 years old. I got introduced to like just the topic of real estate by literally reading Rich Dad Poor Dad. I didn't have any entrepreneurs or real estate investors in my family. But my brother-in-law had started a company and he was an entrepreneur. And, you know, he was— he'd stay with us a lot because my sister was at home and I'd visit and, you know, we'd just be chatting. He's like, you got to read this book. And I'm like, okay, and I liked personal development books. So if he said to read it, I read it. And reading that just opened my eyes to like, the concept of passive income. It just wasn't a concept I was familiar with. You know, my father was a teacher, or is a teacher, you know, was a teacher, now he's retired. My mom worked in insurance, just hardworking people, middle class family, and just didn't have that even concept that money could be working for me. So, so anyway, long story short, started, you know, just getting intrigued with it, didn't do anything. I then met my now husband, and we started dating. Gave him the book. I gave him Rich Dad Poor Dad to read. Like, you gotta read this. He was like, that's fascinating. And then we were just like, let's just start taking classes at the local REIA group. So, for about a year we took classes and courses and, you know, anything we could get our hands on. And we finally, you know, learned a few different tips. Actually, the tip we learned was to call for rent ads in the newspaper because at that time, you know, there was no internet really or online anything really. I'm totally dating myself here. But Regardless, you open a newspaper, called for an ad, and the whole idea was to find tired landlords. Because if they had like a duplex or a single-family home and there was a vacancy, well, that's either 50% or 100% vacant, which is not a good thing, right, for us landlords. So the whole idea is, how do you find tired landlords? So we just start calling and calling and call. I was cold calling, so was my husband, and people would hang up on us and all that good stuff. And then finally, we got somebody on the phone. He's like, I have a full-time job. I don't want to be a landlord anymore. I'd love to talk. And, you know, we struck up a deal with him, bought the— we bought a duplex, was our first investment property, and it was 2004. So that was about 16 years ago. And then we started slowly building our portfolio over the last 16 years. And we're, we're under contract with a property which will be close to— we'll have about 1,000 units under management and in ownership.

So. Wow, that's so exciting and good luck to you on that upcoming project. Thank you. So you were actually, you know, in grad school on your way to possibly a different career?

Yes, yes. I was in, I was actually getting my degree in social work. So I was getting my master's degree in social work. I wanted to open up my own practice. And funny enough, little tidbit story, which leads me to like my connection to connecting with women and supporting women in this business. One of the things I was there, I was like, you know, I'd love to take a business class. And that's very unheard of when you're in graduate school for one other— it's not like you're in college. You know, when you're in grad school, it's very focused, right? So I had to jump through hoops, but I was at University of Pennsylvania. And, you know, obviously the Wharton School is there, one of the best business schools in the world. So I'm like, I'd love to take a course there. And so I had to jump through hoops and this and that. You know, it was like an act of God to get that done. So I did. And one of the things was an entrepreneur class. One of the things was to create a business plan for a business you wanted to start. I was, like I said, 23, and I started a women-owned and also women-focused counseling service. We basically support women in their endeavors and living the life that they wanted to live. It wasn't necessarily the exact mission statement we have for Investor today, but it was all about serving women. I literally put that on the shelf, and now we're 20 years later, here we are. It's kind of neat. It was like interesting little pivots in your life. That happened. Started investing in real estate. And then, you know, things over the years and all that good stuff.

That's so interesting, because I actually went to grad school for psychology too. I thought I was going to be a mental health therapist.

Yeah.

And, you know, now I'm doing real estate full time, but still helping people in a different way. You know, different way, the core, always wanted to help people. And it's cool that you wrote down this business plan, you know, years ago, but now it's come into reality in a different format, in a different format. Yeah, it is to write down your goals. It is.

And it's funny because I— you forget these things. My sister reminded me, she's like, you've always been passionate about supporting women. And then I was in corporate, same thing. I was always working with women leaders and I was always very, you know, that excited with me a little more than work with the guys, you know.

So nice. How about when you started, you know, it was like 2004, was there any difficulty that you ran into?

You know, we didn't have a lot of money, you know, and so starting out with, you know, my husband was, had just, he's been working, he was working for a few years at the time. He quit his job the year we got married in 2005. I kept doing what I was doing. I got a job more in like corporate training. It actually wasn't even social work. It was more of like sales and consulting, team building. It was more like the soft skills of helping businesses. And I actually worked for a woman-owned business. And I worked with her, I worked for her and with her for over 10 years. So I said, I always wanted to, I always want to start my own business, why don't I work for, for women. And so the challenge was really just starting out not knowing anything, you know, being very green, you know, not having a lot of money. So, you know, people do different things in this business. Sometimes you'll hear someone's like, they were in corporate for many years, you know, business and finance background, and then they just literally are propelled into real estate investing quickly. That was not necessarily our path. I feel I feel like we kind of grew up in this business, so to speak. You know, we kind of learned along the way, made mistakes, you know, shifted, pivoted, got focused, wasn't focused. So, you know, I think that sometimes I think about our kind of path. You know, some people might have a shorter path. We had like a little longer path. But that's okay. It was our path. But I feel like had we had better mentors and a little more of a focus, I think we probably would have propelled us a little faster in the business early on. You know, is what it is. And, you know, the path is your path, and I'm grateful for it. But I always say to people, I, the community we're building with Real Estate InvestHer is a community I wish I had when I started, quite honestly. So when Andresa and I came together, that was the, the impetus for it, you know, we're creating and building a community that we want to be part of, not just for other people. I wish I had more of that support when I started, you know, but that's okay. You know, we're creating it for other women to you know, to hopefully cut down on the time it takes, you know, sometimes in this business.

Right. And I think real estate is such like a relationship business. So it's great that there is a place now for women to like network and learn and, you know, be with other like-minded individuals. So it's awesome that you've created this community. You know, something you mentioned in the beginning of your journey is maybe like, lacking funds or, you know, having trouble with that. And so many people do message me and they want to get into real estate investing, but they're still saving up. They don't feel like they're there yet. So how did you and your husband overcome that in the beginning?

I think we were really naive. I mean, I think that helped because knowing what I know now, you know, you— I wouldn't have probably made some of the earlier choices. We were in our 20s, we didn't have kids. Like there was— you think there's not as much to lose there. Like, what's the worst that can happen? You know, It's a little different, you know, 20 years later. You have a family and it's just a little different. Your decisions are more conservative. I've become more cautious over the years than I did, I think, when we started. But also, that propelled us in doing what we did, right, to build what we built. So, you know, when we started with that deal, that duplex, we didn't have the funds to put the down payment down, so we went to my father. And again, my dad was a teacher. It wasn't like my parents were rolling in millions of dollars. They were, both of our sets of parents, they were very smart with their money, both of our sets of parents, even though they're, you know, they didn't have millions to give away. They still were very smart. And they had my dad, we went to him and said, can you loan us $30,000? And he's like, yeah, you know, and so we drew up an agreement. And he loaned us the money for the both the down payment and about, it was about $10,000 to renovate the duplex at the time, from my memory. So $30,000 would cover both, it would cover the down payment and also cover kind of like rehab costs and what have you. And, you know, he loaned it to us, we, you know, drew it up, we had, gave him, he gave us a really great interest rate, which was wonderful. I don't remember it being high. I remember being like 6 or 7, something really fair and kind of him. And we paid him back, we gave him monthly payment, we ended up doing a 1031 into properties in New Jersey. But we, you know, that's all been paid off and all that good stuff that we'd hope 16 years later. But You know, I think you get creative and I think we've been able to raise money over the years from people we don't know, but it didn't start that way. We started with friends, family, and just, you know, quite honestly, our parents. They took a chance on us when we didn't know anything. Do you know what I mean? And that was very, that was a little bit because they're related to you, but it's also because they know, they believed in us. So I asked my father, my dad, you know, what you did for us, I don't know if my son came to me, you know, and said, I'm going to be more I don't want to say shrewd, but I probably would be very— I just know more. I think I know more about the business too. My father didn't know much about, as much about real estate investing. So I'm like, how did you do that? Like what? He's like, I knew you guys would figure it out. I know you didn't know much. That was not why I lent you money. I knew though, you both are very tenacious, and you'd figure it out. I know you wouldn't lose my money. That's what he said. So I'm like, wow, okay, well, we didn't, and I'm grateful for that. But So I always say to people when you're starting out, I always say like, what do you bring to the table? Because everyone brings something to the table. We brought a lot of hunger, a lot of like spontaneity, a lot of grit. You know, that's how we both have always been, persistence. We didn't have money. We had time. So if you have time, you know, who do you know who might have money but not time? I always say that could be a really good marriage between people. And just start networking and connecting with people and talk about what you do with your family. What you want to do. And, you know, usually that tends to help spur conversation between family members. And it could get dicey, right? Had I lost my dad's money— I'm not saying investing with family is easy. Because, you know, God forbid, right? It's the worst thing you want to do is lose anyone's money, let alone your family's, let alone your parents, right? But, you know, you know, if you have enough faith in yourself that you will figure it out, no matter what, and you don't give up, then You know, then you can hopefully make educated decisions on those investments.

That's so nice of your dad to like trust both of you with all that money. I'm sure it took him time to save up. And absolutely awesome though, you were able to pay him back. So, you know, if you are looking to get started, but you don't feel like you have the funds, friends and family is a great place to start. But make sure you also, you know, are cautious and know what you're doing because you would hate to lose your friends' or family's trust and money, right?

Absolutely.

So now that you've gone through all that, you've leveled up from single family to multifamily, from borrowing from your father to syndicating and, you know, using other people's money. What would you do differently? If you were to do it all over again?

I think we would have— so our first property was a duplex. And then it's funny, because I just literally recorded a webinar today, about learned lessons scaling a multifamily business. And when you do that, it's very like most therapeutic, right? Because you're actually going through each property saying, what are we doing here? I think the biggest thing we would have done was to focus on multifamily sooner. You know, we had done a handful of flips over the years, it was almost like a part-time, you know, you know, kind of gig, if you will, or business, if you will. You know, we did well with some, other ones we didn't. But flipping is a business, it's got to be treated as such. And we did, but you know, when you have different partners, you can't necessarily scale because you're always shifting to a different partner, right? You can't actually have some momentum. We had the best momentum when we got really focused on building a team and a process in the multifamily space. And once we did that, you know, the scalability just increased. You know, we got involved in an office building early on, we got involved with raw land, I mean, I can make a list of all the different, call it distractions, different lines of, you know, the shiny nickel. So, you know, had we gotten focused sooner, I think we would have probably propelled us a little faster, if you will. Yeah, so that's, I think, the biggest thing that I think, as I go through our kind of, you know, steps and pivots, you know, that would have been great. But you don't always know what you're going to get focused on when you start out. That's why it's really great if you can, you know, mentor under other people. Even if we said to someone, you know what, we're going to take a little piece of this deal, we found it, but because, you know, you know what you're doing, we'll take a step back and we just want to learn from you, less about the money. I think we took ownership of too many things. We tried to just figure it out ourselves a lot of the time. And I think I would have done that differently. I would have happily given up parts of our projects to accelerate us a little faster, which is just a smart, smart thing to do. And as you get more seasoned and you get a little more confident, well then that makes sense, right, to hold a little more of that majority. But not when you don't know anything and you're not bringing anything, you know, that doesn't make any sense. We weren't really presented with that opportunity, but I wish we knew enough to even look for it, right?

Right, you could have offered it.

Yeah, you could have offered it. But again, that's something I always say to people that helps propel you. What do you have to bring to the table? And how do you leverage with working with other people. And even if that means you give up part of the deal or most of the deal, that's not, it's not about the money at that point. It's about getting the knowledge and the confidence and building the relationships. So you're the kind of person people do want to, you know, lend money to or work with you on or help you find deals or just, you know, be in the business of growing.

I mean, it's just your journey, right? And that's right, has their own journey.

That's right.

Trust the process.

Yeah, that is the truth, you know, and not, not ever give up. I mean, that's the other thing is, we've had some tough things happen. We've had some amazing wins. And once we started getting focused, you know, you know, he had some really great projects and properties we're very proud of. But you have some twists and turns, and you just can't give up. You got to just kind of stay the course and keep figuring it out. That's really, really important. Cliché, but I don't think we would still be here. You know, it's just about giving up and staying the course and always putting your investors first. Is really critical. You know, we've gone to closings and had to bring a check, right? You know, that's not always fun to do. Hopefully it doesn't happen to anyone, or it happens very minimally, but it stings, right? You've worked hard on something, and you're like— but your investors are made whole. They're happy. That's the most important thing always. So when you raise money and you're working with other people's money, be prepared to put yourself last, because it's really critical that you're the steward of their money, and that's meant to be protected.

So yeah, I am a huge proponent for multifamily too. But you know, to everybody to their own, right? If you prefer flips, that's your thing. But for me, it's like, it takes a lot of time to manage and oversee. And it's like constant, right? So you have to always be looking for the next deal, working on this deal in order for the money to come in. Yeah. So it's great. I think, you know, you scaled to multifamily, but along the way, you mentioned that there were some twists and turns and some tough times. Do you mind sharing some of those with the audience?

Yeah, sure. So, you know, most people think those things happen early on in, you know, in the business. And that happened to us. I can give you a few examples. But even as of, as of late, so we were scaling, we had sold an 18-unit building in Philadelphia. And at the same time, we were buying a 198-unit building in, in North Carolina. At that point, our largest asset was a 49-unit, but we had a few hundred properties under our belt. So we felt confident, we felt like it was a good pivot, you know, and we felt we were ready for that. It didn't feel like it was a random move by any means. So we felt very confident, we were raising the money, I want to say it was about $2 million, we had to raise in equity for the, for the deal. And selling the 18-unit was about $500,000 of our investors' money, plus about $250,000 in profit, right? So the idea was that we're going to roll this money do a 1031 into the, into the 198. All of our investors were on board, they were happy, ended up being over like 20% return on their money. They were very pleased. We held the building for about 3 years, we turned it around, sold at the right time, everyone was happy. So we all know, I don't know if your listeners know about 1031 exchanges, but basically it's a way to defer tax by basically in the entity you buy the property, you're holding that money with like a custodian, they're called, when then with a certain timeframe, you're buying another property that's larger in size than the one you just bought. So long and short of it, about 2 weeks before this property is about to get closed, 198, we kept reaching out to our custodian, the— they're called intermediaries, 1031s. And the gentleman wasn't getting back to us. So we had our attorney reach out to him. And we're like, that's weird. We were just about ready to go. We had all of our other money But we needed that $750,000, which quite honestly was a big chunk of the raise, right? So we're getting closer. Now we're starting to get nervous because we literally reached out to him like 3 times, call, phone, nothing. So we had gone on to BiggerPockets, which is a great resource, on the forums. And we just kind of like put his company's name into BiggerPockets. Maybe, maybe someone else knew something about this company. It was our first deal with them. It's like we're always doing 1031s. So all of a sudden you open, you go on BiggerPockets, and this entire thread came up about how this guy stole people's money. And like, our heart just sunk. We're like, oh no, this isn't good. Like, we didn't know what was going on. But it just, the comments, right? Not good. So long and short of it, the guy ends up lighting his car on fire. I don't know if it was an accident or if it was meant, but the guy, I think, tried to kill himself. It was really crazy, crazy situation. The bottom line was that we were not at any time at that point getting our $750,000 in time for closing. So literally, we're 2 weeks away from closing, we're finding out this guy's like a mini Bernie Madoff, who pretty much like, I think he took $10 million of people's money. And we had to get to closing, right? So, so we have 2 issues, right? The one issue is we got to get to closing because the worst thing we could do is not get to closing. At least we have a property that we can own. And we can figure out so through relationships and just being in this business a long time, we worked it out, got some short-term loans, worked it out to get to closing. So that was a good thing. We can get— we got there right around Christmas. I'll never forget. And a few years ago. And second issue is that now we have, we have investors' money that is potentially taken and stolen. We could have went to our investors, said, you knew the risks, we didn't steal your money. It was stolen. And we don't know how it's going to get back. But we decided to take a different road and pretty much give up our equity in our, in the apartment building to make those investors whole. You know, which was a sting for us, right? But more importantly, the investors trusted us with their money. And that was the right thing to do. And we felt like that was the right thing to do. So at this point, I think we've gotten back about a third of our money, which is good. And every time we're getting money back, we're really buying, quite honestly, more equity into the building. That we pretty much control. And it's gonna be a great project. It was a big turnaround, that $198 million. But, you know, that's a long story. I don't think that's gonna happen to everyone listening. I hope it doesn't. But the learning there is that no matter how long you're in this business, you have to constantly be in problem-solving mode. And that's a big part of this business, especially as you get into larger stuff. The problems get a little more complex. And, you know, you have to build relationships. Had we not had the relationships, I don't think we would have been able to turn around a short-term loan that quickly. They can't study your financials in 2 days. They have to have a little bit of faith in who you are and the kind of projects you've done. And we paid them back, you know, all that stuff is done. So the other learning is, we had Googled a 1031 exchange custodian, like we had somebody we knew. And we read the reviews and everything looked really good. I mean, everything we did and all the research we did looked fine. In hindsight, we should have just went to one of our accountants, our attorney, and just said, hey, do you know some— we didn't know that 1031 exchange custodians were treated— they can pretty much do whatever they want. In essence, they're not really regulated like a bank would be regulated. I mean, they have certain criteria that they have to follow. But, but I was explained it's almost like the Wild Wild West. They're not all— they're not running all their businesses the same. So you have to be really careful on the type of 1031 exchange person you work with. And, you know, in hindsight, we should have just asked someone that we trusted for recommendation. But again, hindsight's 20/20. I don't blame ourselves, but it certainly would have, you know, you have to own something, right? We chose this guy, you know. So, you know, it's all learning. And we made our investors' call, which we're very, very happy with. And we're starting to get money back. This guy just pretty much bought a bunch of assets with all this money, which was I have no idea why, because you think, wouldn't he have gotten caught? But I guess people in that situation aren't thinking clearly. So yeah, it was a little bit of like a, you know, something you watch on TV and you're like, wow, is this happening to us? You know? But it did, and you move on and you figure it out.

So, I know, what a crazy story. I know. I'm so glad you were able to, you know, make your investors whole. And I think like you said, not everyone listening might have the exact same story, but I hope not.

It wasn't fun.

Be ready to be uncomfortable and be ready to problem solve. So I think that's what I'm learning so far is like, if you're not comfortable getting into situations where you need to get yourself, get the business out of it and still remain calm, cool, and collected, then you might have some problems. But if you can keep a level head and just expect that things will happen, I think you'll come out of it in a much better position.

Absolutely. We were, I mean, of course, you hear this and you're like, at first you go through the stages of being upset and like, how can you know, you felt very just like any amount of money. It doesn't have to be that kind of amount of money. Any amount of money you feel, you know, very raw. But you're like, we have a deadline to get to closing. We can't really even focus on this too much. We need to get into problem-solving mode as fast as we can. Literally, the days are counting down. So, yeah, as things happen now, even challenges in our business, I think about that. I'm like, it can't be worse than that. You know, like, really, it so far has still been pretty, pretty the toughest thing that's happened to us. So anything else, you'll figure it out.

Yeah, for sure. Anything else, you can do it. So what kind of a mindset do you take on that helps you get through these tough situations? Because like you said, even now things are still happening. You're still having to go into that problem-solving mode. But for a lot of people, they might get discouraged or they might let the feelings overwhelm them to a point where they're unable to take action, which is so needed, especially in your situation where you needed to close in like 2 days.

Yeah, I would say there's a couple of things. I mean, you know, my husband and I are actually very faithful and very spiritual. So we prayed a lot during that time. That was very helpful because you're like, okay, you know, there's something bigger here. You know, we know everything's going to happen for a reason. We're good people. We're going to take care of, you know, take care of the situation. The other part of the mindset was also we kept seeing getting to closing. We kept seeing what the result we wanted to see. And even today, when we're not sure how we're going to get somewhere, we see the event that we want to see happening. I mean, there's been flips that have taken longer than, than we've wanted to, to sell. We envision the perfect buyer coming along. There's, there's projects that, you know, construction that's taking a little longer, we see the finished property, and everyone walking through and the buyer being really happy, like, so whatever, whatever kind of project you're working on, see it complete, and you have to visualize it. You have to see it, you have to hear it, you have to kind of taste it, literally. And that's something we do often, getting to the closing table, shaking hands with someone. You're in a conflict with a contractor, see, you know, shaking hands and smiling with each other, or not maybe shaking hands with COVID but, you know, waving to each other over your mask, whatever, you know. But regardless, you see the finished kind of event happening, and I think that propels you. Into getting into action mode. Because if your mind sees the problem and your mind sees the what's wrong, then you're just going to get, you're going to feel worse. But if your mind sees the finished event, like literally going to closing, going to the apartment building, seeing all the money in the bank account, whatever it is you're doing and working on, your mind will subconsciously and unconsciously start moving you towards that. It can only do that. So I'm a big fan of visualization. I'm a big fan of affirmations and intentions. Even writing them down and then reading them and seeing them is like the best way to do it because it's both the written and the visualization. And that's not my opinion. I mean, you can go to athletes and they visualize themselves with the completion of a race or the completion of a game. That's just common. I don't know what the term is called, but I know that's a common strategy. I would say use it, you know, use it because it really brings you out of your own mind and gets you into that problem-solving mode versus like the problem in front of you.

Yeah, there is so much power in visualization and some people might think it's too like woo-woo or whatever, but I mean, like you said, athletes use it, executives use it. So if you haven't yet, I would highly suggest you try it out before you dock it.

Yeah, it's like you're creating your own movie, you know, and you're creating your own script, the actors, like literally you're just seeing this scene unfold the way you want to see it. That's as simple as visualization can be. It's literally making it up to serve you and your own thoughts so you can move positively towards something.

Yeah, I like the way you put that, like a movie.

Yeah.

I'm wondering, Liz, what are your goals now, you know, short-term, long-term? For a lot of people, I think they feel like COVID has put a damper on things. Is that the case for you? Are you guys still chugging along full steam ahead?

Yeah, no, we're, we're, we've never been so busy. So, which is a good thing. And I'm very grateful for it. But we have, you know, right as we're recording this, we have under contract our largest, our largest project to date, which is, which is a 336 value-add property in North Carolina that we're raising for, and we're going to be, you know, getting to closing soon. And on the investor side, you know, we have so many neat projects happening where we're rolling out a membership that are gonna support women with mentorship, which is, you know, a monthly kind of like support system for them to help them in growing their businesses. And we're publishing our first book on the investor side. It's called The Only Women in the Room. And it's compiled by Ashley Wilson. And we're starting like a publishing arm so we can publish women voices to support women in this side of, you know, in the business, not with— not just like real estate investing, which is critical, but other things that support us in creating like a financially free and balanced life. So, yeah, there's a lot of exciting stuff happening on both ends. I have two little ones. So the balancing act is forever, you know, and that's just the nature. But we have a lot of exciting projects working on that we're, we're really passionate about. So we're busy, you know, and we've We haven't— as we've always, you know, we've always been busy. But as we grow our teams, we're just trying to get better at leading the business and putting the right people together and, you know, all that sort of things. But yeah, there's a lot of, a lot of exciting stuff happening and trying to help more people. You know, ultimately, everything we're doing is either helping investors or helping, you know, people in the business looking to also invest.

So yeah, that's awesome. So many exciting things happening for you. Yeah. And I love that you're putting, you know, this mentorship program together because because so many people I talk to, they feel like they need help. They could use advice, but they're scared to reach out. Right. But like you even mentioned earlier on the podcast, like if you could do it again, you would have reached out to people sooner and maybe even offer part of the deal because while you know it will accelerate your growth. So it's so important.

It's critical. And I, and I, we wanted to create something. I mean, we've been, we've been in, been building this Community for 2 years and we literally just had a virtual summit like 2 months ago and it was the first paid anything that we have done. We have just really been committed to growing the Community and as we have added things, it has to make sense and has to be something that we think is needed. It is not just going to be part of the noise. There are a lot of great Coaches out there. There are a lot of great programs out there. You probably know a lot of the same ones and they are great. But we wanted to create something different. We wanted to create more of like a mentorship circle environment where it's like a monthly support system. And it's like more of like a monthly invoice. So they're not, you know, women aren't feeling like they're spending $85,000 on something. That's ridiculous. That is just a lot of money. So we wanted to make it reasonable, but also give them access to people that are in the business doing it, not people who are like wannabes, literally people who are closing on, you know, whether it's apartment buildings, or they're new to investing, because these are both women who are seasoned growing. And also newbies. So I'm really excited about it. We've been, we've been building this for a long time, but it's, you know, we finally have something that I think is unique and that's not being offered, but kind of just takes it to a different level because everything we've been doing is free, which is great. But at some point, right, you got to start putting resources together and those things cost money. So we just got to charge for stuff because it's just the nature of business unless we're doing a nonprofit. But even that takes money as well. So we're excited. It's going to be really a neat offering. We're going to have like a basic membership and also like a mentorship arm, or kind of like phase where, you know, women get the monthly support on calls with, with active investors, women investors.

It's so great that you're putting that together. Do you have any advice for people who, you know, they might want to start their own little group? Or, you know, because you have so much success building a community. And real estate, like I said, is such a relationship based business, if you have any tips there.

Yeah, you know, it's funny, I, well, if you're, I'm gonna shameless plug, if you're a woman investor, you know, and we don't have a meetup by you, check us out. We'd love to, you know, work with you and, you know, be part of our kind of our global community. But if you're passionate about, you know, serving a certain type of person or group, that's the biggest thing is who do you wanna serve? Who do you wanna help? And I think if you can get that question answered, then you can think about, launching something, whatever that something is. Maybe you're passionate about mobile homes. And that's your thing, right? Well, then, then who do you want to serve in mobile homes? You want to start— you want to serve investors in mobile home parks? Do you want to serve the owners of these parks? I don't know. Who do you want to serve? And I think that was something Andresa Guidelli and I, like, started early on. We didn't actually start a business until a year in. We really just said, who do we want to serve? What are we passionate about? And what do we want to learn more about? And we really wanted to talk to more women investors. We wanted, we wanted to inspire other women and we wanted to be inspired. That's why we started the podcast. We started the podcast and we said, if no one listens to this, we're going to interview some amazing women and we're going to learn a ton and we're going to build relationships. Literally, if nothing else comes of this venture. And so much more has come, but that was the original intent. So we were very clear. Who do we want to serve? We want to serve completely new investors that are women. As well as women who are looking to scale and grow their, their portfolios. And they might have like 10 units and they're looking to get to that next level, or 20 units or whatever. They're there in flips and they're pivoting into multifamily or whatever it is for them. We were very clear on who we were looking to serve. And I think so many people just put stuff out there, YouTube, Facebook, and you could just tell who's clear on who they're serving and who's not, in my opinion, because it comes across. I mean, I— men are amazing. I love my husband. My dad is phenomenal. Like, I have some— my brother, I can name amazing men in my life. That's not who we're serving. You know, I love them. They're— I work with them. But we're serving women in this space to help them propel their financial independence for lots of reasons why. But I'm very clear, and we don't want to discount anyone else, but you want to get clear and laser-focused on who you're looking to help and serve. And Think about them when you, whatever you're doing. Like when I have our podcast, I think of them. What would they ask this woman? What would be the next question they'd ask? So I'm speaking for them. That's, I'm always in that way of thinking. So I think that's the biggest thing is that people want to start a community or get into a niche of something or grow their kind of social media presence, just stand for something. Be who you are and get focused on who you want to serve and serve them.

That's some awesome advice and I love that. I think at the core, if you want to do anything and you want to be successful, you got to think back to like why you want to do it. And if it's like not to serve people but to serve yourself, it might not be as successful. If you really want to help people, right? Because people are looking for value. They're looking for answers to their questions. And if you can provide that, well, you know, you're already ahead of the game. Absolutely. You do so much, Liz. You have your podcast, you have meetups, and this is like meetups across the nation. And on top of that, you're still investing in real estate. What keeps you motivated throughout all of it?

Hmm, you know, I'm very, you know, sometimes you get so busy in your own head with something and, you know, you get kind of like, I feel overwhelmed, or I'm, you know, you're working late one night or, you know, getting up early. And I'm— I have a couple days with my daughter. So she's and she's home with me a couple of days. You know, COVID's been a little crazy, all over the place, but normally that would be the case. So I ask myself that some days, 'cause I'm doing stuff like 5:00 AM to get something done before, you know, the kids get up, or, and I'm like, you know, you sometimes forget your why. So having that why, and also being, taking a step back and being like, what am I grateful for? You know, and I think that's also really important. Like, I'm grateful. That I own my time. You know, I have partners that I feel very beholden to. I don't want to be like, yeah, I'm out for 2 months, go run the business. That's not how it works. But I'm very grateful that I don't— I can own my time. And, you know, we can own our destiny. The right, the good decisions, and also the ones that, you know, we could have done differently. I'm just grateful for that. I'm grateful that I kind of— whatever we decide, you know, we're kind of controlling our destiny. And I'm very grateful to be able to be in a position to do that and to keep making things better and being like, okay, I'm not a victim. I got to take accountability here. What could we have done differently? Let's move on. And that's usually how we approach things. So I'm grateful for that. I'm grateful for having that time freedom. You know, on a, on a, you know, Wednesday afternoon, I'm like, all right, kids, we're going to the pool. Like, just, we're done. You know? And that happens, you know, those, the days that you can be flexible and what have you. So So yeah, I think that's the— I stay in gratitude when I get a little overwhelmed or I feel a little busy or I'm like, you know, you start to put it all in perspective, right? You know, they say first world problems. I have a lot to be grateful for. You know, we have food, I have a roof over my head, I have an amazing family and just, I try to be in service a lot. So as long as I stay there and I kind of connect to why I'm doing all this, then I usually get into a better mental place and then I'm able to like tackle the next thing.

100%. I'm with you there. I feel like whenever I find that I am feeling stressed or unmotivated and I dig down deep, I realize I'm not being grateful. And that's why I feel X, Y, and Z. Because if I really think about it, there's so much to be grateful for. And then all the other issues and worries I had kind of just disappear.

Just disappear.

Is there any advice you would give for someone maybe starting out?

Yeah, I would say, you know, just take one step at a time. And I think it's good advice for anyone doing anything, right? So if I said, okay, listen, we're literally publishing, we started a new business, we're publishing a book. It's not like we're just these enormous publishers. I hope to be like Random House for like women. You know, that's the goal. But, you know, I'd be lying to myself saying I am Random House, we're Random House right you know, today. So it felt overwhelming, just like it did when we bought that duplex. Anything in your world is going to feel a little overwhelming when you haven't done it before, whatever that is. Buying property doesn't feel that way to us anymore. But certainly, you know, raising, say, 10 to 5 times the amount your normal raise is, that feels like, okay. So whatever you're going through, whether it's that first deal, that second deal, or whatever that you're feeling a little overwhelmed with, like, "Wow, I don't see where the steps lead me to," just take one step at a time. Mel Robbins is an amazing resource. What was her book? Take Control of Your Life. And she gives this great analogy about just literally taking one step at a time. And we all kind of know that, journey of a thousand steps. We all know the clichés, but when you actually put it into practice and you literally feel good about that one thing you did, towards that bigger goal, your mind and your body then propel you into the next thing. Because now you feel confident. Now you feel excited. I don't know about you, but when I have a big goal and I don't do anything towards it or I don't feel good about what I'm doing, then you don't want to do anything else. And it's just, you stay in this negativity. So I think the best way to like propel you into something, you've never done anything, you're starting out, what's one thing you can do today? What's one thing, like almost like underachieve, because, you know, women are overachievers. You know, we have a list of like 25 things to do. Just do one thing, you know, even if that means like, look for one realtor today to help me in that market that I want to invest in. One thing versus find a realtor today. Well, you know, that's a good goal, but maybe you're not going to find one. But can you call one realtor? Like, what do you have in your control? Some things are out of our control. So that's my biggest recommendation is take baby steps, feel good about those baby steps, then you'll do the next thing. Do what's in front of you to do. Just keep doing that and you'll get there.

Yeah, I love that. And I always encourage people to break down their big goals into smaller actionable steps so it doesn't seem so overwhelming because you can definitely achieve it if you take it one step at a time, like you said. And something you said earlier too was like, you know, getting into that duplex, having— being more naive might have helped you because you kind of figured it out. And knowing all the risks now, you might have not even taken the plunge then. So a lot of people come to me and they feel like they don't know enough yet, even though they've been studying for a year. I feel like they're just more stuck on they need to take action at some point, right? I'm not saying like go in blind without all the information, not properly informed. But if you've been working on something or learning about it for a long time and you have taken action, sometimes you just need to take that first step.

Absolutely. And I would say overall, like, if you're gonna do that on a flip, you know, versus a rental, a rental is more forgiving. Rentals are just more forgiving, because you can hold them, you can just— there's so many advantages. Not that I'm not a fan of flips, we've done them. Like I said, they're not as forgiving, you know, you make a couple mistakes, you could be losing $50,000. I mean, if you're not set up properly. So yeah, I mean, I would say just getting something done is better than not, you know, getting something done and breaking even or losing money is, in my opinion, better than not doing anything. Because now you're going to learn, you're going to learn from that deal. I paid too much for that property. Okay, what are you going to do differently next time? Again, as long as it doesn't make you bankrupt, and you, and you consider the worst case scenario, then you have, you know, you have some money in reserves, and you're not over leveraging yourself, then take, maybe take, you know, get a small deal under your belt. People get too wound up about the profit and how much they're going to make. And this is going to be out of the, you know, I need this to be a perfect deal. It's not, it's not gonna be a perfect deal. Unless you're, you know, some of the people on podcasts, and that's awesome. But not everyone has perfect deals as their firsts. You know, I think it's more important to take action, learn from it and make the next one better. So I agree with you.

Is there anything we didn't cover today that you would like to cover, Liz?

No, no, I would just say, you know, it's been a pleasure. I always say, I even say it on my podcast, like, you know, something that you heard today, you know, do something with it. You know, start visualizing tomorrow, you know, or, you know, pick up Mel Robbins' book on Take Control of Your Life, or, you know, start talking to your friends and family about what you do. Or if you want to build a community, get focused on who you want to serve. Just do something with what you heard today. I'm sure they get that from you, Joanne. But, and for the women listening, join our community. We'd love to have you part of it. We're on a big mission to support women, you know, so I'd love for you to, you know, join what we're up to and be part of it.

Yeah, I love all the little nuggets of information and tips and tricks that you shared today, Liz. How can people find you if they want to join the community or just to reach out to you?

Absolutely. So there's a couple places like from an Active Deal perspective and, you know, the business I built with my husband, It's derosagroup.com. And you can see some of our projects and, you know, learn more about, you know, investing with us or whatever, you know, whatever works for you or how to learn from us. We have a YouTube channel. And then on the learning side and the community side, go to therealestateinvesther.com. And you can kind of check out our Facebook community there and our meetups. See if there's a meetup by you. And if there's not, we'd love to hear from you if you want to launch one by you. But But yeah, we're all about kind of building this pretty large community and network of women doing business together and investing together so we can all build wealth together. So yeah, those are the two places that you can find me.

And all of that information will be linked below in the show notes. So please go ahead and check there if you want to reach out. Thank you so much for being on the show, Liz.

Absolutely. Thank you for having me, Joanna. It was a pleasure.

This is great.