Liz Faircloth, CEO & Co-Founder Of The Real Estate InvestHER Community | Transforming Lives Through Real Estate

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Hi, this is Alex Kantrowitz. I'm the host of Big Technology Podcast, a longtime reporter and an on-air contributor to CNBC. And if you're like me, you're trying to figure out how artificial intelligence is changing the business world and our lives. So each week on Big Technology, I bring on key actors from companies building AI tech and outsiders trying to influence it, asking where this is all going. They come from places like NVIDIA, Microsoft, Amazon, and plenty more. So if you want to be smart with your wallet, your career choices, in meetings with your colleagues, and at dinner parties, listen to Big Technology Podcast wherever you get your podcasts. Welcome to Success Story, the most useful podcast in the world. I'm your host, Scott D. Clary. The Success Story Podcast is part of the HubSpot Podcast Network. The HubSpot Podcast Network has incredible podcasts like The Salesman Podcast hosted by Will Baron. Now, if you work in sales, you wanna learn how to sell, or you wanna peek at some of the latest sales news and insights, you need to listen to The Salesman Podcast. The host, Will Baron, helps sales professionals learn how to find buyers and win big business in effective, and ethical ways. If you think any of the following topics resonate with you, you're gonna love the show. How to find and close your dream job in sales, 12 essential principles of selling, digital body language, how to have better Zoom sales meetings, or how to tell a remarkable sales story. If these are topics that would interest you, go check out The Salesman Podcast wherever you get your podcast or at hubspot.com/sales.

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Today my guest is Liz Faircloth. She is the co-founder of the DeRosa Group. She is the co-founder and CEO of the Real Estate InvestHer community, co-host of the Real Estate InvestHer podcast, and author of the recently published book, Only Woman in the Room: Knowledge and Inspiration from 20 Successful Real Estate Women Investors. Just to give you an idea of what she's built, The DeRosa Group controls $60 million worth of residential and commercial assets up and down the East Coast. The Real Estate InvestHer community is an enormous community. Her show is one of the top 25 investing shows globally. It's one of the top 50 business podcasts and shows globally. It's part of the BiggerPockets Podcast Network, which is one of the largest podcast networks with over 110 million Collective Downloads. So she's built an incredible real estate company, an incredible community, an incredible podcast. We spoke about her origin story, founding the DeRosa Group with her husband Matt in 2005, scaling it to a rental portfolio of over $60 million, some of the lessons that she's learned. So if you have invested in real estate or if you ever want to invest in real estate, which anybody listening to this show, even if you don't want to be a real estate investor, you should learn how to invest in real estate from the best. So if you have gone in or you're looking to go in at some point in your life, she teaches you some of the lessons that she's learned, how to find the best deals, commercial versus residential, how to raise money so that you aren't putting your own money into real estate deals. And then of course, how to scale your portfolio and also why sometimes realtors can make the best investors. So if you are a realtor, if you have your real estate license, That's also an interesting point to just listen to. We also spoke about the InvestHer community. So she has a mission to transform lives through real estate. She's stood behind that mission and used that mission to drive everything she does. This is why she built the community. This is why she built her podcast, which is a highly successful podcast, as well as why she wrote her book. So we spoke about community building, how to build a proper community, how to build a mission-driven community, how to set up the community so that they all support each other so that they learn from each other and that it fosters growth for community members, which ultimately will build the community and help your business, help your brand, help your name, but most importantly, help the people that you're trying to serve. So a lot of great investing and real estate investing tips, a lot of great community building tips. She also spoke about her podcast, her book, and what she's done to launch these assets against her community And if you do have a personal brand or a business, you can learn some lessons there. So let's jump right into it. This is Liz Faircloth. She is the co-founder of the DeRosa Group. She is the co-founder CEO of the Real Estate InvestHer community. She's a published author and she's the co-host of the Real Estate InvestHer podcast and show.

So, hey Scott, so a little bit about myself, you know, in In terms of like where I grew up, I grew up in New Jersey, you know, I was a Jersey girl. I live in Pennsylvania now, so I'm not a Jersey girl anymore, but I think I just have it in my blood. And actually, I got my school, I got my training in psychology. I wanted to be, I was a psych major in college and then I wanted to be a social worker. So I wanted to get my, I was very focused on getting my license, master's degree in social work and opening a practice and counseling people. It's funny because during that time, I was at the University of Pennsylvania and there's two interesting pivots that happened during that time because I was really focused on opening a practice. My brother-in-law, who was literally the only entrepreneur I knew ever, gave me Rich Dad Poor Dad. And I was 21 and he said, "You have to read this book." And I'm like, "Okay, if you say so." And I like personal development books, so it wasn't that weird. But That really opened my eyes to so many things I wasn't familiar with, passive income and entrepreneurship and having money work for you and just things I wasn't even raised to even have any realm of possibility. Simultaneously, while I was at the school, University of Pennsylvania, so I was literally at the best business school, Wharton. Now, I wasn't going to get my MBA, but I was literally like, it was the School of Social Work and then right next to it was the Wharton School, which was like an enormous, beautiful building. And the poor School of Social Work building was like this older, like one of the oldest buildings on campus. So, we don't have to get into that dichotomy. But anyway, while I was there, I met my advisor and I said, "Hey, I wanna take an entrepreneur class because I read this book and I'm like, I don't know anything about this." And she's like, "Why? You're in the School of Social Work." And I'm like, "I just really am moved to take a class. I'm here at University of Penn for only 2 years." So, I did. And I took a class on starting a business. And the business I started 20 years ago was a business about helping women and empower women. And at the time, it was focused on their mental health because that's the work I was involved in. But I wanted to create an organization to support women and empower them. So literally 20 years later, right, I've actually started an organization and a company for women. But I think that's interesting. And then that whole experience experience, um, I ended up getting a sales job, consulting sales job after grad school, to learn the ropes. Like Rich Dad Poor Dad talks about, if you, if you want to be an entrepreneur, you need to learn how to sell. And so I didn't end up opening a practice or actually even using my master's degree in social work. Um, technically, I think I am— I think on my schooling and my way of being as a social worker, it always, it always permeates somehow. Everything does. And I feel like I am, you know, but I— in terms of like what most of my, all of my classmates are doing, yeah, I'm not the traditional, but But anyway, that's kind of what prompted me to do the work I was doing. And at the same time, my husband and I started investing and we bought our first property and, and we're focused on multifamily syndications now. But yeah, so that's just a little bit about how I started and some of the seeds that were born there.

I see it. So you see, it's so funny, like when you, when you walk back through someone's life, like you see all these different seeds that have now led to like who they are today. But every, everything, like every single thing that you've done in your life has found a way to manifest in like, in quite literally your current you know, your current initiative, your current vision, your mission, whatever you want to call it. So walk me through even like the start of your real estate career, because I would say like that real estate is obviously a core component of your persona, like who you are. And that started probably with Rich Dad Poor Dad. You said you bought your first duplex. So what was that process like getting into the financial independence game?

Yeah, we knew nothing about it. We had no one that owned any property. We were in our 20s, me and my husband— boyfriend, at that time. And, you know, we'd get together and start dating. And I'm like, "You got to read Rich Dad Poor Dad." And it's funny because people are like, "Oh, did Matt get you in real estate?" I'm like, "No, I got him involved in real estate." But I gave him the Rich Dad Poor Dad and he was like, his mind was blown too. And just, you know, very open to that. We ended up taking about a year of courses. We went to the local REIA meetings. That's really, it was DIG. There's still an organization, really good organization. And every guru in town came, you know, Carlton Sheets, like old school, right? Nothing was online. They gave you these binders, right? So I'm dating myself. But anyway, you know, we learned a lot. And then a year in, one of the strategies was to call for rent ads. And they said, go around, call for rent ads. And if it's a duplex, literally half their property is vacant and they might be motivated to sell. So that was the strategy. We did a lot of cold calling. We walked around neighborhoods, knocked on doors. I mean, we literally did everything that they said to do, right? Got doors slammed in our face. And that's what we did every weekend together while we were dating. So we found our first duplex. Because of a for rent ad. And we didn't have the money to buy it. So, my father loaned us about $30,000 and that kind of took care of the down payment. Property was about $150,000, little row home in Roxborough, right outside of Philadelphia. And $15,000 was about rehab and $15,000 was the down payment. And so, wrote up an agreement, paid him, I think, 6%, which was really amazing interest and started our journey. And that just kind of got us in the game. We learned learned a lot and then really focused on growing our business in New Jersey and really got our focus on Trenton, New Jersey in particular. That's where we bought all of our initial properties and then kind of grew from there for other markets, other regions. But we were always about like, how do we make a difference and also, you know, make money? And so, our motto is always transforming lives through real estate. We did it in Trenton initially, and then we kind of expanded that in working with our investors and just trying to do good things and also make money. So, that was kind of always what we wanted and have done in 15, what, 16 years of investing and building a business. But it wasn't a direct path, if you will. There was a lot of ups and downs, a lot of learned lessons, a lot of tough things that happened over the years.

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What was that? That was one of the big things that we did early on, Scott, was at the time that we bought, we started buying property and we did whatever we could to figure out how to finance properties, right? It wasn't like we were just sitting on all this cash. We were in our 20s. We didn't have much money, quite honestly, and just kind of figured it out. So, we were doing a lot of different things, active projects, everything literally under the sun, doing some flips. And so, In hindsight, right, had we just focused on multifamily, because that was our first deal and we did well with that first duplex, had we just focused on that niche and just did that, I think our trajectory would have been different. I don't want to say better because I think we are who we are and I think our path is our path and I think it adds a lot of color to our story. But we got involved in flips, we got involved in buying a commercial building, we got involved in raw land. Um, we were all over the place, quite honestly. So, um, I don't, I don't know if most people would do that. I would hope they don't do that. But we were also pretty young, and I think some being a little naive and being a little bit of a risk-taker and saying, what's the worst that can happen, not having much to lose, you do things like that, quite honestly. I mean, you know, and, um, would I do that now in my 40s? No, obviously. I've become more— in a lot of ways, my husband and I have grown significantly, but we actually become more conservative We're a little smarter, a little less naive. So, a couple of learned lessons too is market. You can only participate in a market. You can't change a market. And that was a learned lesson for us because markets are everything. And so many times people get involved in investing and they get so fixated on the property. They get so fixated on knowing everything about that one property. Yet when you ask them questions about the market, are the area. They just can't answer them. And I think if you're going to know a lot about something, know a lot about the market versus the deal or the property itself. You want to know a lot about both, to be honest, of course. But so many times this pendulum is so much on the deal versus the market. So didn't know that at the beginning. We were so focused on the property. Oh, we can renovate this. This is really cheap. We can really make this amazing. And we really wanted to make a big difference in Trenton. And we were so optimistic and we are still. I mean, we're still actually building a 40-unit building there. So, we're still active investors there, but you can't change a whole market. And I think that was one of the biggest learned lessons is that when we go into new markets, we're like, where can we participate? Where is this like an up-and-coming market? Where is this— is there affordable housing here? Not affordable housing in a technical sense, but are people able to afford where they live? Is there movement coming here? Supply, demand, jobs, growth, all the things that are so important, none of which we were even considering, quite honestly, when we started. We were just like, can we make a difference? And is there a lot of properties to buy that we can renovate? Well, check those two boxes. But in hindsight, we were a little more optimistic because we thought we could make a bigger difference than we actually could. You just can't change a whole city. You can't just change a whole area unless, you know, you have billions of dollars, which is awesome. We don't and we didn't. So, um, so anyway, that's a big learned lesson and, and is something we take into all of our investments now.

And when you say— and I'm just curious because you mentioned something before about you sort of like your, your mission as you go, as you grew your real estate portfolio. You did say you want to transform lives through real estate, and you mentioned that a few times. So what does transforming lives through real estate actually mean? Because people just think, oh, I want to get into real estate. I don't want to, I want to transform my life. I just like, that's, that's the first life I want to transform. But how do you actually, how do you actually action that? And maybe people that are going into investing maybe can think of more than just a selfish reason day one. Because that's an interesting, I've never spoken to a lot of real estate people and I've never heard them say that. They're very tactical. They're very tangible. I want, you know, if you have this, you can make this, you know, monthly recurring revenue on this property or whatever. You can go into short-term rentals and, and that's like a financial incentive or financial gain. But what does transforming lives mean to you?

Yeah, and, and, you know, it's a good question. I mean, I, again, my background's social work, right? Um, so, so the idea of making a difference and making money was really important to both me and my husband. I think tangibly what it means, and there's so much research that shows this too, is that this whole idea of like businesses being socially responsible And it's a catchphrase now. And quite honestly, people are just like, "Ah, we do good work. We give back," because they just want to look good. We started when we had nothing with that vision, quite honestly. It wasn't to look good. It was really because it was part of our values. So, what does that look like? You have to really look at who your customers are. And so many people don't know who they're serving. And so, if you're in service to other people and you're growing an investment portfolio, I don't see how you can't do that. I don't see how you can have a strong investment in real estate. A property that's thriving and not being service to those people. Like, I don't, I don't know many investors, um, and maybe they just don't think in that term that way, um, when they just look at the, the income and expenses and the NOI and all the good stuff we have to look at as investors. But if you're actually not treating those customers, tenants, residents, whatever they're, you know, whomever you— and I like residents because it feels, it feels a little more like they're your customer, um, you know, you have to play that that are in the arena of, you know, how do we serve them? Of course, having rules and policies and procedures. We used to give welcome baskets. I mean, my husband and I went above and beyond, you know, early on. We were like, we're not making any money here. We got to scale back a little with our welcome baskets because they're a little above and beyond. But it was always those ideas of serving our tenants. We've been building, buying more property with investors, right? With passive investors. We started in 2000, Well, my parents and close family were our first, but in terms of non-family, it was really 2010. We have over 200 investors now, right? That's a huge customer of ours. We're serving them. So, how do we do that? That's how we're transforming their lives. We had an investor tell us the other day, we're selling a building and they're doubling their money. And with that money, his wife is going to be able to retire. Like, that's transformation. Like, that's neat.

That's true transformation, life-changing.

Yeah. It's true transformation. I think when we, when we get out of ourselves and go into other people and who you're serving— investors, tenants. We have a lot of commercial tenants. Businesses have started and thrived in our buildings. That's transformation. You know, we've cleaned up blocks, especially in Trenton, where, you know, we have buildings on one, one street where there's a pharmacy on the— it was a dilapidated building that, you know, just had trash in front of it. Now it has a pharmacy and has 3 tenants. That's transformation in my opinion. So, yeah, it's really like those very specific ways that you're using real estate in its highest and best use for whom you're serving, and you'll be able to make the profits accordingly. I don't know how to do one or the other. Now, I'm not saying all of our properties have always done both because you can do one or the other. You can transform people's lives and not make any money. And you can make money and eventually you're going to— it's going to catch up where you're just not serving who you're serving. So I, you know, I think when you can put those two together, everyone will.

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Oh, benefit.

You know, I love that. And what I'm trying to do is I'm trying to pull out things that I've, I noticed that are very, not entirely unique to you and what you do, but I think that they're unique enough in the real estate game or they're unique that many people don't talk about them. So I love that. And by the way, I think I'm in agreement with that and I think that's actually very important because I think that actually drives you to do better work, to operate at a more ethical high level, which I think is good for any industry. But I think that that's probably why you've been so successful because you do have that vision from day one. So that's sort of like the lesson that I'm trying to impart on people is to don't go into things for the wrong reasons. Like maybe if you are going to be going into the business of, you know, owning things that people live in, it shouldn't just be to fund your own retirement. I think there's probably a better reason to go into it. One thing that you speak about a lot as well, which again, I don't speak, I don't hear people in real estate speak about this that often, is teams. I think that's an interesting component. And I've heard you on other shows saying that it's virtually impossible to scale without the right team in place. So first of all, how do you find the right team? What's, what's your formula for that? And also, why is it more difficult to scale without a team if I, just in myself, if I have investors, if, if I have like a mortgage broker, if I have a real estate agent, or I guess I could be the real estate agent myself. Why can't I just have like a, a small few people that I can rely on?

Yeah, so for, for us, so a couple things. When I— my husband and I decided to— he, he quit his job. I'm just going to bring you back to just why I know a lot about this topic. Um, he, he quit his job at the same time we got married, literally the same month. 2005. We're like, get married. And he quit his job. He's like, I'm doing this full-time. We're like, yeah, you do it full-time. We're like making no money anywhere. It's just funny what, you know, you think about in hindsight. But anyway, at the same time, I got a job in consulting. And the work I did was I was a— and I stayed there for a decade as we grew our business and we grew our portfolio. I was, you know, paying our bills and allowing us to keep investing in our business. So, anyway, long story short, I did consulting in— I was an expert in a personality assessment called the Predictive Index. So, it's basically a measurement of people's kind of natural tendencies, their natural behaviors. So, what I did across the country, and I had a lot of clients, small and large, was basically I did consulting around putting the right teams together and counseling the CEOs and the leaders how they can manage people, how they can put the right people in the right seat based on personality and everything. So, that was just the context I came from for over a decade. So, as I talk about this, that's where that kind of comes from. Now, then to combine that with what I know in real estate and how important it is to have teams, what really got us moving in that direction was we had a team locally and we were managing everything ourselves, over 100 units. In the New Jersey area. And we bought our first kind of like out-of-state, hour-and-a-half-away property, which was in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. So, we started to learn the power of scaling but not being able to do everything ourselves. And so, at the time, that's what really caused us as we started to move out of state, we needed to build virtual teams where we're not going to see them all the time or not be with them all the time. But you can apply this when you have teams in place. I would say there's 3 pieces of like, you know, Who Not How is a great book right now where, you know, I know a lot of people have been reading it by Dan Sullivan about I want to accomplish this and we think how versus who. So, the first question is who, but to get even more refined there, what skills do they need? What experience do they need? And what type of personality do they need? And most people think about skills and experience. Even if you wanted to hire a VA, or just even a mortgage broker, right? Think about that. Or a commercial broker. We often think, do they have the experience to be someone I can use on my team? And often, people forget how important it is to have diversity of personality. I did an exercise when I did team buildings and stuff. I did an exercise and I put all the same personality style together. And then, I would put different types of teams together because this is a statistically -driven graph. So I can see if I have 10 people, I know who the extroverts are, I know who the, you know, the dominant people are. I know, you know, I know that. So, um, I always was very mindful of that, and I put these teams together. Well, you know who usually got the activity done the fastest? It was never diverse.

It was a diverse group of multiple personalities, I'm assuming?

Yes and no. So the worst performing group and the best performing group was the diverse groups.

Okay.

The ones that were The ones that were similar kind of always just, you know, the dominant people, no one listened. The really quiet people were all just looking at each other and no one was really jumping in. That was a disaster. But the best performing team was diverse. So they had different styles. There's like a task person and an extrovert. But the worst performing team, when you don't value diversity, you can kind of go like this. You think about people that are very different from you, you don't naturally attract to them. A networking event. So, if you don't know that and don't appreciate it and leverage the difference, that's the rub in a sense, and that's what will prevent you from really optimizing. So, it's one thing to have different personalities on a team, but it doesn't necessarily mean it's going to guarantee you success. So, that's the kind of work that I did, and that's the kind of work that we're very mindful of, especially as we've grown our multifamily team. And also, I apply this with building our investor team because we have started with me and my partner. So the biggest thing though is we do like people like ourselves. We're just naturally inclined. If you're an extroverted, outgoing person and you go to an event, especially now as people are doing more and more and like we finally can interact, you're going to like people like yourself. And those are never the right partners for you, quite honestly. They're usually the ones that you like, but then you're like, you know, too much the same. So again, I can't value that. I can't stress that enough is that most people devalue personality. They think it's just something nice to have, something nice to know. And then they look at skills and experience. And the reason why people don't work is usually because of personality. It's usually because of behavior. So we don't value it. We don't even look at it. But yet it's the reason that people usually don't work together very well or stay together very well or thrive together because we don't want to tolerate people. I mean, who wants to tolerate people? You want to thrive with people, right? I mean, and that's what I'm very mindful of, and I'm not perfect at it. I have my own personality traits that I have to work on. And I've learned a lot. Like, me and my husband are very similar. So, when we work together, I can't just work side by side with my husband because we're so similar. It's like redundancy, quite honestly. So, I'm like— So, when I found Andresa and we started building out our InvestHer group and our community, it was refreshing because she's a very different personality than me. So, it didn't feel redundant. It didn't feel like so. And I think about that. I didn't realize this for many years, and I'm married to my husband. I mean, I know him very well. So anyway, that, that's a few thoughts there. Skills, experience, and personality.

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I, you know, let's, let's go with partners, right? Because partners are like, it's a business marriage, right? It's a little deeper than, say, someone who's going to be a mortgage broker. Yeah. I don't know if I would put those on the same level of intensity. So let's go down the partner path. When you have somebody that's very different, I'm, I'm, I'm much more— I'll just give you some examples because I think we know, we know this, we learn best by like stories. So I'm much more extroverted. I like people. I trust people naturally. Again, that's gotten me into trouble, right? Every strength overused becomes a weakness. But anyway, I have tons of ideas. I love building relationships. That's something, a strength of mine, right? That's who I wanna be, who I am. My partner, Andresa, especially, is much more task-oriented. She's much more strategic, much more analytical. She's much more logical. I'm much more subjective. While that's a great complementary match, we have different ways of approaching things. Well, her and I will interact. And when we've had breakdowns, if you will, she'll give me some information and I'm thinking in between the lines and I'm reading in between the lines. And she's literally just telling me something, right? So, we've had to work through that. So, the way you go from the best performing team or the worst performing team with different— because you can have two people like us, who over time just say, "We can't work together anymore." So, her and I though, when we started, we value the same things. We also are very into growth and we're able to come together. And every time we have a breakdown, we have a breakthrough as a partner— partnership, because we really want to create a culture of everything's not going to be perfect. We're growing. We have a lot of things going on. We started this as a passion. Now, it's a business. All of our roles are shifting. Like, it's a lot happening, right? In a few years that we've been in existence. So we have very open and honest conversations, and we're able to both take responsibility for where we can get better. So, um, every time we have a breakdown, we have like a— we put a new something in place, a term or a boundary, or, hey, this is what I really need from you. If you don't have that with a partner, it's just not gonna— it's just not gonna work, or you're not gonna have a like high-performance team. That's my opinion. You'll have an okay partnership, and maybe you'll make a lot of money together or not, I don't know. But I think that's the difference is open communication, being willing to grow and learn together. And it's hard, right? I mean, think about it. It's like, who wants to like look at themselves in the mirror all the time, right? Everyone, we all think we're all great all the time, you know? But that's where growth happens, you know? And that's where you're able to like, you know what, I could be doing this better. You know, what do you need from me? What do I need from you?

No, good advice. Okay, let's move on to investor because that's the, that's where you're at right now with the podcast. Obviously it's a, I think it's a culmination of, it seems like women empowerment, real estate investing, like everything you've done over your life, you decided to do a show, build a brand around it. So walk me through the process, the thought process. Why did you want to do InvestHer? Why did you want to focus on women empowerment and investing? What was your process for that?

Yeah, sure. So about 6 years ago I met, my partner now, Andresa, and became really good friends with her and her husband. And we then partnered on some deals. So, we started as friends, as they say, started to get to know each other. We actually started a women's mastermind long before InvestHer. So, we both were always very pulled to bringing women together to support each other and have each other's backs. So, that was always something that we both valued. And then we started partnering together on some flips. In some new construction projects in Philadelphia. They were local to Philadelphia and we were in New Jersey at the time. So, we really got a chance to partner on a number of projects together. And we'd get together talking about these projects, me and Andresa, and it almost, we'd have our own little mastermind. And we would just always say over, we'd be talking about kids or, you know, just had a lot on our plates or just the things that, you know, we were experiencing. And we'd almost like, where are there other women like us? You know, and, and, and I, I, there are women, but we'd love to like create something where, where we can really bounce things off of each other and, um, bring other women together. And, you know, especially women that are, that are new or experienced, everyone can give something, everyone can get something, as that's my philosophy. So we Googled it and we really couldn't find much. We couldn't find many groups, we couldn't find many resources. At the time. And we were both very, like, from different reasons, very passionate about seeing women become financially independent. And now that I'm in this space of thought leadership in women and investing, the statistics and the information out there is crazy. Like, number one, women outlive men 6 to 7 years, right? So, if you're in a traditional relationship, not saying everyone is, if you're in a traditional relationship, you're going to outlive your spouse. In a sense. So, the need for financial resources becomes even more important. And that's number one. Number two, statistically, and this is, I think, Wealthsimple, I forget the source, but they said that women outperform men as investors by 40%. So, when women invest, they actually do very well. They tend to be a little more conservative. They may not jump in as fast. But there's a conservativeness. But once they do it, they pick the right investments. So, then the next part, though, is women invest less than men by 40%. So, for every man that's investing, women are doing a lot less. So, for those reasons, just the, okay, women are going to outlive men. When they invest, they do it so well, yet we're just not doing it enough. So, why is that? I mean, and again, I'm not here to solve the whole problem. There's a lot smarter people than me. To do all that. But what I can say now that we have a community and we have a membership and we have a podcast highlighting women's stories and their journeys and having a community that they feel safe to ask questions and get support in the way they need to get support. I didn't know if it was going to be important. You know, Scott, I didn't know if a lot of women needed this. I know I wanted it. I know Andresa did, and we both were experienced investors. But the amount of women who just feel so comfortable, we have 9,000 women in our Facebook community, you know, and our podcast has over 200 episodes and we have meetups and we have 52 meetups across the country where women are coming together to support each other. So, there is a need and there is an important kind of niche that we've filled and that we're filling. And I think it's not everyone can understand it. I have women especially women, don't see the need for our community. You know, actually men are more supportive sometimes. And most women are very supportive. I don't mean to say, but there are certain women, and I've gotten the feedback, they don't see the need. And I always say back to that is that there is a need because we want to see women keynoting more. We want to see women not just on panels. And we don't want to just be asked about how is it to be a woman in investing? You know, like, It's, it's— that's not the right conversation. Not that it's a bad one, but it's all about like seeing yourself and other people, um, getting the confidence, getting the, the clarity, getting the support, and then going and making it happen with men, women, anywhere. It's not like we just have to create this little secret society and we huddle up and never talk to men, you know. That's just weird, right? That doesn't happen. So anyway, that's, that's the reasoning. That's the, the, the really—

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The, the kind of the motivation for us.

And no, I was just gonna say, well, I think that It— if you look at just the data points, obviously required, it's obviously needed. If you're saying that women are investing at 40% less than men, it just seems like— it's like education, making somebody feel like psychologically safe to do something, to feel okay doing something. I think that it's important. And I think that, you know, any initiative that builds a community around it that supports that, like, we're not we're not there where it's an irrelevant community. Like we're not at the point where, you know, we have, data points obviously are, are quite obvious. We haven't reached parity in everything that we do. So until that's, until we're at that point, we still have to build communities to support this. And I think that's probably an, an incredible initiative that you're doing right now. And even like the book that you wrote, it also focuses on that. I think a lot of it is just normalizing. It's just all about normalizing. So if somebody hasn't invested or doesn't know somebody that invests, like, they're less likely to invest, right?

Exactly.

So if they see people that are out there that are successful, women that are investing, groups of women that are incredibly successful investing, that's just going to like enable that, enable that behavior, enable that mindset, and then everybody wins at the end of the day. And that's actually incredible. I didn't know the stat that they do 40%, they do 40% better, which I'm assuming could be tied to some sort of like less emotional investing? Because I could see— I could totally see that.

Yeah, I think it's more conservative too, where, where some people who are, you know, if you think about it, like, and again, this— not all women are conservative, but they conservatively invest. There is a piece to that.

Yeah.

So they're slower, but yet when they do it, it's the right— because they've thought about it. They've, you know, you know that. Another interesting statistic, but short-term rentals and Airbnb 55% are female. So, you see the pendulum different in that niche. And then you think about why that is. And it's just, that's neat because so many, it's concierge, it's service. It's, you know, and just interesting. It's an interesting statistic. And they're, I mean, you think about that niche right now, right? I mean, everyone, especially since COVID everyone in the real estate investing world, especially if you're multifamily or anything, you're like, I got to buy a short-term rental. I got to get a vacation rental. I feel that too, you know, in some ways of being in the market. So, but yeah, I was talking with a few people. I think it was Avery Carl who just wrote a book for BiggerPockets. Yeah. And she said, you know, it's 55%. I said, that's, that's pretty cool.

That is very cool. Can I, can I ask just advice for people that want to build a community? Because you've also done a great job at that.

Mm-hmm.

So you started this podcast after very successful real estate career. And now it's part of BiggerPockets, and now you have a book, and now you have a community of 9,000 people on Facebook. So how did you do that? I'm going to take notes for me. So how did you do that?

You know, I think, you know, there's, there's people who jump into things and then there's people who are really intentional, right? And there's no right and wrong because I think you can add that. I think you can be successful either way. But I know for me and Andresa, we did the amount of exercises and intention we thought about, and the intentions we kind of like, the brainstorms. I mean, we talked about this and brainstormed it in a way that I don't know if most people would, to be honest. So, we were really like mindful. When we came together and we said we both were very passionate about empowering women and serving women in this niche, we then got more refined. Who are these women? What's their age? What are their pains? What are their challenges? What keeps them up at night? You know, because you can't serve everyone. So, getting really clear on who you want to serve is the most important thing, I believe. So, we were really clear. We wanted women who were either experienced, had some deals under their belt, and if they were new to investing, they were professional women. They were businesswomen. They were entrepreneurs. They had experience. They literally weren't just waking up thinking this is a good idea. That's not our avatar necessarily. And so, we got really clear. And then we also said, do we start a community? Do we start meetups? Do we start a conference? Do we start a podcast? And so, we did this exercise and we talked about, it's called, totally made it up and you could totally, anyone can take this and please steal it, but it's called analyzing your top moments in life. So, if you think back on your life and you say, what were those moments that were like top, you know, like they're just the best moments of my life, you know, birth of children and all those things are amazing. And I don't mean to dismiss those, but we were trying like, okay, besides the family events, which was, which are amazing for me, just personally, what, like, what comes up for you in, in what were those moments that you just felt most joy, most happiness? Um, there's no sense of time. It came easy to you. Like, what were those times? And so, her and I both, interestingly, did this exercise and then came back together and talked about it. And I remember doing this. And my answers were like, "I love inspiring people and I love to be inspired. I love both. I love personal growth. I love learning about myself and growing and figuring myself out. And I love helping other people. I love inspiring people." It's like, what gives me life in anything I've ever done, in any walk I've ever taken. She said she was very similar in that. So, we were like, we got to start a podcast because a podcast literally does that, right? You're interviewing people, you're talking to people, and you're helping other people along the way. So, that's how we chose to figure out to focus on our podcast initially. Then we said simultaneously, let's start a Facebook community because the last thing you want is to be like talking to people. And, you know, for me, I'm an extrovert. I got to talk to— I got to be engaged with people. I can't just like, you know, talk to a camera. Um, so then we started a Facebook group simultaneously, and then we started as a passion. We didn't even start a company, we didn't start an LLC, we didn't start anything. It was just like, let's do this and see. And if 6 months— we give this a 6-month go, and it— and if literally, um, it's just not going anywhere, then, then we've given this our, our all. And we said that at the beginning, we're like, we're giving this 6 months, we're not gonna even— we're not even gonna do anything, like, we're not even gonna think about stopping. And, you know, and we edited all of our own podcasts and wrote all of our show notes for 100 episodes. So we did that way too long. But that's another story.

I feel your pain.

That's another story. You know, you got two very hardworking women who think they can do everything, which we were learning not to do, right? Trying to delegate and automate all that good stuff. So long story short, building the community then is more than a Facebook group, right? It's about listening to people. It's about asking questions. It's Women would post in there, you know, "Hey, is anyone in this area? Do you want to get together?" And we're like, I'm like, Andresa, we were both talking, we're like, "Let's start a meetup in Philly." So, her and I led the meetup. We were the leaders. And then, we'd have other women saying in other parts of the country, "Hey, we want to do a meetup." And we're like, "Oh, this is interesting." And so, then we were like, "Okay, let's go all in." And that was 2.5 years ago, you know, and we have 53 meetups, which has built community. We never asked anyone for a dime, you know. And then so, and that was, you know, people are like, oh, you waited a long time, when are you gonna monetize, when are you gonna monetize? I'm like, I just want to help people. We just, hey, I want to help people and serve them. And then until there's a reason to charge someone for something, then, then we'll make that, make that call. Like, so many people think about making money and not really providing a value. I don't know how to do that. If you don't do the value part. So, we'd hear a lot of women saying, "God, there's so many gurus out there. There's so many people that they're charging all this crazy money for coaching and this." And not that there's a lot of good ones out there, but they're like, Andresa and I came together, "What could we build that's different and is needed? And that's something that aligns with what we're trying to build here." So, we created more of a membership mentorship kind of program which is like more of like a monthly membership where women come in and they get mentorship. They get a chance to be part of like a 6-month pod on syndication or multifamily. We're on a mastermind with them once a month. They write out their goals and we hold them accountable to their goals. And then they help each other. It's like a community, right? It's a mini community that women to take things deeper. We have about 70 members right now and we're growing that. That came out of being asked to do it. That didn't come out of like me just sitting in my office thinking about things I can offer. We did a summit. We've done 2 summits and we have sponsors and we're going to be doing our first in-person next June. But we've done 2 virtual ones. So I think that's important though, Scott. I think people want to build communities, but they don't know why they want to build communities. They don't know for who. I think the more laser-focused you are I'm the avatar. So is Andresa. Like, I— not that I— I'm experienced in investing. We're growing our— we're still active investors though, me and my husband. You know, we have a portfolio. We're still in the business. It's not like we're done with that. Um, and I think that's, you know, we attract more people like that who are like serious women who want to get things done and want to do it in a way that's balanced and has self-care at the prominence. It's not just this like doing it to do it, because that's the other part of our mission. It's not just real estate investing education. You can get that anywhere. But how do you do it in the realm of everything else in your life and doing it in a way that there's a lot of self-care?

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I think too, Scott, for any community, I think there's a distinction 'cause I see a lot of people on Facebook of course. It's never been about me and Andresa. Like, we're not the gurus. It's not like you join this membership and you have daily coaching calls with us. There's pod mentors. We have 7 other women who know more about short-term rentals, about creative financing. It's a community we always wanted to build. Like, it's not the Liz and Andresa Show. And I think there's a distinction there. I think there's certain educational frameworks out there that are very person-centric. Now, we're the leaders and we have a presence in what we're doing. I don't mean to say it like that, but we always had a vision of a circle and we want the circle to be really big. But if people know me or not, but they know our community, that's more important. And Andresa and I always said that from when we started. And I think that's very important if you're building a community. You cannot be egocentric, in my opinion. It's really hard to have both. So, if you want to build a coaching module and You're the, you're the guy, if you will, then, then build that, but don't build a community too, because it's, it's going to become less about you and people aren't going to know you. And that, and that's a good thing, you know, quite honestly.

Yeah.

I have a podcast, right? I don't mean to say it like I don't want anyone to know me, but that's not as important to me. You know, women get what they need at a meetup, whether they know I'm one of the founders or not. I mean, you know, nice for my ego, but I want her to become financially free. That's the more important part.

Very smart. Okay. Okay. I want to ask some rapid-fire questions to close this out, but most importantly, if people are wanting to check out the podcast, get the book, or contact you, reach on social, where should they go?

Sure. So our, our website has like a lot of different ways to kind of go to different places. So it's therealestateinvesther.com. We're really active on Facebook. As well, The Real Estate InvestHer. And that's where our free Facebook group is, but you can get that from our website and Instagram. We have a growing Instagram following. We're putting out good content. I do a Run with Liz every week, but it's @therealestateinvesther and it's H-E-R. And our podcast is on Spotify. It's all on the major networks and what have you. So, yeah.

Good. Awesome. Okay. People go check that out. We'll put some links in the show notes. People can go, uh, find it as well. Okay, so rapid-fire questions to close this off. And also, thank you. That was— we went through like a ton of stuff, so I was really happy. That was, that was great. Um, okay, so the biggest challenge you've had in your life, what was that challenge? How'd you overcome it?

We had close to a million dollars stolen from us, uh, of, of our money. And I know this is not going to be a very quick answer, but I'm going to be as succinct as I can. Um, And it was our money and our investors' money. Don't ever give up. And every tough experience leads you to a better outcome. And we learned a lot through that experience. And it didn't— it only made us stronger. So, remember that. You can get literally kicked in the face. And if you use it as a learning lesson, it'll make you stronger.

Good. That's another podcast.

That's another one.

I'm sure that's a story.

Have me and Matt on for that. That's a good—

I would totally. That's a hell of a story. Okay. Um, if you had to choose one person— there's obviously been many— but one person who's been an incredible impact, influence, impact on your life, a mentor, who was that person? What did they teach you?

Hmm, I think that, you know, there's a lot of people, and, and I'd say a lot of, um, you know, people along my way of, of, of high school and college and grad school. But I'd say the first person that just popped in my head was my professor for my entrepreneurial class. And he was like this, um, serial entrepreneur. I mean, you know, and again, it's like I didn't know any of these people. And then I see this, and he's an older gentleman. He kind of took me under his wing, um, and, and we had a lot of conversations during that class, like just one-on-one, um. And it's just really cool because I got a chance to get to know someone, and he was so giving. So that's my first, like, you know, serial entrepreneur that I ever met, and he was the most giving person. So that was very helpful for me. That really imprinted on me of like, oh, these aren't just like sharks and people who want to make a lot of money. You know, I mean, that's okay too, but these are giving people too.

Very good. A book or podcast outside of your own, obviously, that you'd recommend people go check out?

I've really been enjoying Brené Brown's podcast.

She's been on here. She's been recommended a few times. So, I think that's a good one for sure.

Yeah, I do. I adore her. Her stuff is great, you know, and it resonates a lot of just doing the work on yourself so you can be a better leader, a better entrepreneur, a better mom, a better fill in the blank. Not better, a higher version of yourself, if you will. Because, you know, you are who you are and there's greatness. But so I've really enjoyed her stuff. I've enjoyed all her books, podcasts, and she's just like, you know, the kind of podcast host, she's just like chatting with people. You feel like you were there with her. That's why I think I like her as much. I feel like I know her, but I don't, obviously. Not yet. Not yet.

One day.

Oh, that's one of my goals, to have her, have her on our podcast.

Um, if I get her on here, I'll, I'll send you, I'll send you her info.

Appreciate it.

Trying to get her on too. She's, she's busy. I'm sure she has enough invites. I think I just saw her on Tim Ferriss, so maybe one day when I'm at that level. Um, if you could, uh, tell your 20-year-old self one thing, what would that be?

Oh, I tell, I tell her a lot of things. I, I would probably tell her You know, be kind to yourself.

Be kind to yourself. That's good. That's— I've never heard someone say that before, but that's a good one. And lastly, what does success mean to you?

Ooh, success means to me being a better version of myself than I was yesterday.

Reggie, I just sold my car online.

Let's go, Grandpa! Wait, you did?

Yep, on Carvana. Just put in the license plate, answered a few questions, got an offer in minutes. Easier than setting up that new digital picture frame.

You don't say.

Yeah, they're even picking it up tomorrow. Talk about fast.

Wow. Way to go! So about that picture frame—

Ah, forget about it. Until Carvana makes one, I'm not interested.

Car selling made easy on Carvana. Pickup fees may apply.

This is Mike Volo of Lexicon Valley, and I'm Bob Garfield. Are you one of those people who sometimes uses words? Do you communicate or acquire information with, you know, language?

Hey, Us too.

So join us on Lexicon Valley to chew over the history, culture, and many mysteries of English, plus some wisecracks. Find us on one of those apps where people listen to podcasts.

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