In this 10‑minute minisode of The Real Estate Investor Show, co‑hosts Liz and Andresa Guidelli share the three most important lessons they wish they’d known when they began investing, drawing on their combined 27 years of real‑estate experience. First, they stress the need to keep a "finger on the pulse" of the market—monitoring local, national, and global economic trends, stress‑testing neighborhoods against past recessions, and framing every investment as a solution to a real‑world problem. Second, they discuss leverage, not just of money but of other people’s time, skills, and resources, warning against over‑leveraging oneself and encouraging strategic delegation and partnership. Third, they advocate building standard operating procedures (SOPs) and systems to enable scaling, recommending templates, automation, and hiring specialists when SOP creation isn’t a personal strength. Throughout, the hosts speak in a conversational, supportive tone aimed at empowering women investors, and they invite listeners to share their takeaways in the show’s community. Sponsor messages for Rent to Retirement and First American Exchange are interspersed but are not central to the educational content.
Chapters
Welcome ladies to the Real Estate Investor Show, providing inspiration, strategies, and insight to empower women investors to live balanced and financially free lives. Now here are your co-hosts, Liz and Andresa Guidelli. Welcome back ladies.
This is Liz and this is Andresa.
Welcome back to The Real Estate Investor Show, minisode edition, where we're all about sharing some tip or strategy or just awareness that's coming up for us. And you can bring in quickly, literally within 10 minutes, you can apply what we're talking about because so much is information that you just can't use. And we are all about no nonsense, getting to the point and doing it in a short time for all you amazing women that are on this journey with us, right, Andresa?
Yeah. And so you're taking the kids to school or you're listening to us while you're at the gym. And if that's the only thing that you can do today to move the needle forward, this is it. You're going to accomplish in 10 minutes.
I wish I had this episode when I started and when Andresa started, because what we're going to do today is talk to you about the most important, literally the 3 most important lessons that we wish we knew when we started. And we have a combined experience of 27 years. We're very young, but 27 years of investing experience. So we're gonna share those 3 things and give you ideas on how you can apply them today.
Interest rates are sky high in 2023, and buying a rental property means you could get stuck with an 8, 9, or 10% mortgage rate. But what about a 2.99% rate with Rent to Retirement? Rent to Retirement has 2.99% seller financing available on turnkey properties. You heard that right, that's a seller-financed 2.99% interest rate with an average cash flow of over $900 per month. Plus, they've got options where you can put as little as 5% down with no PMI. As the nation's leading turnkey investment company, Rent to Retirement helps investors build headache-free, high cash flow rental portfolios. And since their properties are fully turnkey, newly built or renovated, leased and managed, anyone can invest, even those who aren't into landlording. So what are you waiting for? This 2.99% rate deal won't last long. To learn more, visit renttoretirement.com. That's renttoretirement.com. Or text REI to 33777. Again, text REI to 33777.
Top real estate investors love to talk about how they save so much on taxes, but how are they able to build rental property empires while skirting Uncle Sam? 1031 exchanges. 1031 exchanges allow you to defer capital gains taxes while you sell an investment property, exchanging your old property for a bigger, better one and avoiding the tax man while you do it. And that's where First American Exchange Company comes in. They're the leaders in 1031 exchanges. Whether you're a seasoned investor or just starting, First American Exchange can help you with simple rental property exchanges, complex commercial real estate investments, reverse exchanges, and more. Don't let your taxes eat into your profits. Visit First American Exchange Company at firstexchange.com or call them at 800-556-2520. That's firstexchange.com or 800-556-2520. Keep your money in your pocket and propel your portfolio further at firstexchange.com. First American Exchange Company does not provide tax or legal advice. Consult your financial, real estate, tax, or legal advisor about your circumstances. First American Exchange Company. Safe, smart, secure.
Okie dokie. So Andresa, so we're talking about critical lessons, right? 27 years combined experience, and we're always growing, we're always learning. You know, we are active investors as well. We have a lot of experience in XYZ areas, from multifamily, short-term rentals, all construction projects Andresa and I have done together, separately, and everything in between. And we're still learning, and we're still growing, and we're still active in the market. So So these lessons come in a very sincere way because we wish we would've known them. So the first one, I'll start it out and we're gonna kind of both share our thoughts on this. So, you know, I don't know about you Andresa, but Matt and I got started very, I don't know, I don't wanna say haphazardly, but we just got started and said, you know, we took some courses and said we wanna buy a duplex, you know, and the amount of market research that we did was fairly minimal, you know, and even just, you know, having a pulse as we like to say. Now that's the first lesson is having a pulse. With what's happening globally, what's happening nationally, what's happening locally, because we all know real estate's hyperlocal, but you can't dismiss what's happening in the world as well. And I'm not saying to be an economist, 'cause I don't think I am, nor do I wanna be, but you need to have a finger on the pulse. You need to know what's going on. You know why you need to know what's going on? Because you wanna figure out how do you thrive in what's going on. And that's really, really important. And I wish I thought about or knew when we got started and we were growing our portfolio. So here's what I mean specifically is that what's going on now, right? In terms of recession, market slowing down or market, you know, depending on what niche you're in, it may not be slowing down. Days on market and maybe increasing in certain niches, right? We can make the long list of actually how it's translating in real estate. Money might be tightening up in a, in a traditional sense, right? They're being a little more scrutinous of loaning money out for some banks and some institutions. Again, not gonna list all those things, but what's happening in your local economy and what you wanna do is say, okay, how can I thrive in today's economy? What is a problem that I can solve? Because that will never go out of style. I should say, if you're solving problems regardless of the economy, you are going to do very well in this business. But if you're always like, I wanna buy a duplex and then it's, it's like in a vacuum. Yeah, that's a great idea, but How does that solve a problem in where you are? Is that even going to be something that's necessary or is it not? So that's what I have for that piece. And Andresa, what's your perspective on that?
You know, although we don't have a crystal ball about what's going to happen and we have different theories and we're guessing basically, of course we're looking at numbers and tendencies, but we're also looking in the past and seeing past political changes and what the Fed did, what it didn't do. One thing that I can give it to you that we always look at, and even it's not the same and we understand, okay, we're not comparing apples to apples, but we do like a stress test. Okay. How this area performed, reacted during the last recession. And then you can see what happened there. Certain areas, it barely changed. The curve barely had any, any type of move. And that you can look at past, past, past, past recessions. And that's the same thing. I'm not saying that that's what's going to happen. I'm going to say that you should consider that pattern as part of your evaluation. And I think that's always valuable to see what's happening in the local market.
Yeah, absolutely. So second one, the second one is all about leverage. We all talk about other people's time, other people's money, you know, for so long. And, and when we were growing our investing portfolio, we were doing so much ourselves. And it's a tendency. Some people may not do that. I, I can just speak personally. So often we don't, we think about money, we leveraged money. We were very good at that, me and my husband, but we weren't as good at, at the beginning leveraging other people's time, other people's resources, cutting the learning curve down. And again, depends on when you're in this business, right? What stage of life you're coming into this business. Are you in your 20s, 30s, 40s, 50s, 60s, 70s? That answer might be different. You know, we were in our 20s. So I just say leverage from a time perspective, resources perspective, skills, experience. And at the same time, you wanna leverage some areas. You don't wanna over-leverage yourself because if you over-leverage yourself, you're gonna burn out. So both have to happen where you're leveraging other people, other resources, other team members, other fill in the blank. And at the same time, being really, really protective and mindful of your own leveraging because you can get burnout and that's what you want to avoid. So what are your thoughts there?
You know, everybody starts as a solopreneur, right? Unless you met somebody at a conference, you likely have both, both like yellow and at the end of the conference, you already picked the name of your LLC and then, oh, this is amazing.
Right? And if you went through— don't use my term amazing. You know, I love that word.
Right? It's always like, but what I'm saying is that I'm not saying like, oh, how can I leverage if I am the only one doing this? What we are asking you is that, that you put in your plan, that's your goal to do not be the only one doing it. To do not get addicted to being the only one doing it and thinking about it. And if you're like, but how?
Who?
Not how. Read the book. Starts there. I don't want you to let the I don't know how hold you back. When you say I don't know how, I want you to encourage you to be curious. So who does? Who does know how to do this? And then you just copy. You don't need to reinvent the wheel. I wish I had done this a long time ago. Instead, what I did is that I needed to master, to understand every single thing, to own it. Listen, I use this term very often. Who owns this? Right? You have two separate buckets and then who owns this? I had the desire to own it, to understand it. No longer have that. I think that came with age and, and, and became more, you know, became wiser in that sense. But I encourage everybody that is, is getting started. It says, okay, you really need to understand what are your core journeys. And that's what you're going to work on. Everything else you're going to leverage, automate. Somebody else is going to do it, but not you. If you have your procrastination list and that is in your list for more than 6 months, it's likely that you're never going to do that. So stop torturing yourself and start figuring it out. Okay. How can I have somebody to do this for me and just let go? You do not need, you do not need to have years of years of experience in order to gain the right to do it. You're not defined by the amount of hours that you work in your business. You're not defined by the number of properties that you own. Okay. Women talk less, women talk a lot about generational wealth, right? And I want you guys to understand that you're building a business. And in order for that to happen, in order for that generational wealth to happen, A lot of foundation needs to be there, which comes to our third and last tip, which is putting in place systems and processes, which is one of my love languages too.
It's not my love language, but that's okay.
Right? So, but it's critical.
It's critical and it's important.
Right? And some people are like, oh, I can't even thinking about it. So I'm just going to put under the rug. It's just going to accumulate. And let me share with you what happened with me. I remember very vividly going to Home Depot and trying— I'm 5'4", right? 135 pounds, more or less, depending on the season. And imagine me trying to pick up a toilet at Home Depot. Literally, I was trying to—
You're a strong lady, so I— Put it inside the cart.
Right? And I was picking up finishes for the contractors because I was pissed off that they got the wrong finishes. So I was going there by myself and then I paid for everything and waited for them outside. And I thought, this is amazing. It's going to save me a lot of time. Thinking about that, I was like, what's going on here? Right? And then you start scaling and it's like, I actually shouldn't be doing this at all. This is a freaking waste of my freaking time here. I should be doing something else. And then I got very, very anal, per se, to create systems and process. So here's the rule. If you have to do something twice the same way, you should have a standard operating procedure for that. You are not able to scale if you don't have systems and processes in place. But here's the biggest mistake that many entrepreneurs make. They think that they are the ones that need to create it. So if you haven't done it yet, if you know that that's not your thing, hire someone that comes to you and can shadow and then can create and can even take it to the next level. And you don't need to organize your business. You don't need to clean your business before you hire that person. I cannot emphasize enough how much time is wasted in the business, how much it's costing you for not having standard operating procedures and processing in place. I have allergy to manual things that could have been automated. I am not saying, and Liz will agree with me on this, I am not saying that human interactions can be automated at all levels. Absolutely not. But you really need to understand where you can, you must have people in charge of it, and where are the places where it can be automated and you're not in it whatsoever. Get that out of the way as soon as possible, and I don't really care if you have one property 2 properties or hundreds or thousands, get it in as soon as possible.
Yes. And I would say for the people who are not naturally SOP process-oriented, it's really helpful to A, find the who to what Andresa said, but B, look for templates. Look for other things that you can just use, like plug and play. I think it overwhelms people who are not that way to create it because it takes so much mental energy. I know personally, but But it's not that you have to create it, but could you find a template? There's so many templates for systematizing your rentals. I mean, we could give you a list of companies and processes to tap into. So don't do it alone. There's templates for you. And we hope you took something from these 3 things. Again, key is have a finger on the pulse, not just locally, but nationally. And then ask the question, how can I solve a problem in my community? And then insert a, maybe a real estate investing niche from there. Two is leverage and don't leverage other everything. And then at the same time, don't ever over-leverage yourself. And the third is the power of processes, but you don't have to do it all yourself. So share with us what's coming up for you, what you got from today's mini. So we are so, we love hearing from you. Honestly, we mean that sincerely. So tag us in the Facebook community. What'd you learn? What are you doing? One thing. And that would make our day completely right, Andresa.
There we go. All right, ladies, talk to you soon. Ciao. If you enjoyed this podcast and want to receive updates on our next interviews, go to our website, therealestateinvestor.com. There you can subscribe to our show, become part of our investor community, and get updates on upcoming episodes.
If you like our show, please share it with other women who would benefit, and don't forget to leave us a rating on iTunes. We'd really appreciate it. And as always, we encourage you to take one action as a result of today's show and put it into motion so you can live both a financially free and balanced life. Thanks for spending time with us.
