Women & Real Estate: Lessons from Andresa Guidelli

If you are in markets where it makes sense, that you know very well, like the palm of your hand, something is always going to be happening. So you're going to be doing all 3 things: holding some, buying some, selling some, always.

I learned math. I learned finance. I did not learn how to run a business. I did not learn how to invest. I did learn different things that propelled me to go and find a door-to-door sales job, for example, to gain sales skills that I didn't learn there. My first credit card, it was at 26 years old. Over here in the US. I didn't understand the value of credit.

Get ready for the next iteration of you on your path to becoming wealthy. On this show, you'll get the insider's view on wealth creation, the class none of us got taught in school, with my co-host, daughter, and beginning investor Sophia Bosch. And now let's get started.

Welcome to the Becoming Wealthy Podcast.

I'm your host, Sophia Bosch, and I'm here with my co-host, Mama Bosch, Michelle Bosch. How are you, Sophia?

I'm doing well.

Wonderful. Well, I am very excited today for the episode, Sophia. We have a very good longtime friend of mine that I was able to, you know, get her to come here and basically pour into you, pour into our audience. And she is the co-founder, Sophia, and CEO of InvestHer. Remember InvestHerCon, an event that I brought to you? Yes, yes.

Sophia's like, let me clarify.

Yes, InvestHer. It's the largest female platform, you know, in real estate for real estate investors, female real estate investors. And without any further ado, I want to introduce you to Andresa Guidelli. How are you, Andresa? Welcome.

I am wonderful and I'm so thankful to be here with both of you. I feel I've seen Sophia grow up. I don't, I haven't, but that's how I feel because I'm very proud of seeing how much you are growing and being the the quote-unquote, should I say adult, Michelle?

Yes, as of like a couple, yeah, a week and a half ago she turned 18, so this is always that as an adult. Oh, there we go.

So we have all adults here, all adults here. Thank you again.

She feels like, okay, I'm a kid at heart always. Oh yeah, shouldn't we all, right? Yes, absolutely. So, so yeah, I, I'm just so thrilled that you're here. You know, I, I met her with her partner in crime, Liz Faircloth. They both co-host a podcast called the InvestHer podcast, and they interviewed me way back in the day when, you know, that podcast was just beginning. I mean, you guys were already a few, 20, 30 episodes in. It wasn't like You know, episode 1 or 2, but it was the start of something amazing. And, and, and I, I'm excited for you to hear about Andresa because Andresa, like myself and like Papa, you know, she's also an immigrant into the US. She's originally from Brazil.

Yeah.

And, uh, came here to study. So very similar, you know, uh, origin stories to, to us. And so, yeah, I, I know you have a few questions for her. Planned, but yeah, you can get started.

Okay, so I want to like chronologically, so, um, the money value, like the value of money, how were you taught that at home with your family in Brazil? And like, what do you still apply to your life today?

I wasn't, and I think that a lot of our backstory, right, when I look back now, I see gaps not just in my family, but I did go through a master's degree in Brazil. I learned economics, but I did not learn, I learned math, I learned finance. I did not run, I did not learn how to run a business. I did not learn how to invest. My first credit card, it was at 26 years old. Over here in the US. I didn't understand the value of credit. So in Brazil, when we saw somebody using a credit card, this is what the story that I was told. Oh, that person doesn't have cash to pay, so they need to use credit card because they don't have cash. So when I go back on vacation now and I see people paying cash and not using their credit to gain points and to leverage. I'm like, what are you doing? It's like, no, but I have money. Exactly. It's because we do have the money. We leverage credit in a way that it's— we are borrowing and leveraging to invest in other things. So that is one lesson, the difference between using the credit to leverage versus just paying cash for everything. The other thing that I saw, I saw my father was such a good-hearted individual, horrible business owner, horrible, would allow people to pay later and to, oh, no worry, did not value his worth, did not value his work. And that didn't work. So I saw a lot of like going back to having a job and not being an entrepreneur that he could have been. So there were a lack of skills in terms of running the business as a business. Those are the things that I didn't learn that I had to force myself to gain those skills in order to be able to run a real estate business as a business.

Yeah, absolutely. Um, Sophia, I, I love that Andresa started with the credit card example and leveraging credit. What was the very first, uh, few things that were presented to her on the day of her 18th birthday?

Uh, yeah, so I come up, come home from school and they're both like, come sit on the table. Let's sit and present me with my tax return, my bank statement, and a credit card application.

Because it's important for her. I, you know, it was important for us to convey to her that now that she's 18, you know, she's not on mom and dad's credit card anymore. And that we actually need to build her own credit in order for her to be able to leverage, you know, a good credit history to make, you know, asset purchases in the future, not to buy stupid stuff, but to actually buy assets, you know? Absolutely.

I pay my, so I came to the U.S. and I, I, I went through my second master's degree. I know how much it costs. Every single penny was $75,000. And guess how I paid? Cash. Cash. I work.

Well, you were at least free, but you could have used that money to fast paying, you know, loans or grants.

I didn't know what I didn't know. I got a partial scholarship and I worked very hard, so I was paying, I didn't pay all at once, of course, that would be even worse. But I did not know that I could start building this thing called credit, that the length of my history would also count and everything else will contribute. So no, pay cash.

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Now, you, so, so you went to university here. What did you major again?

It was in business communication.

Oh, business communication.

Yeah. Where did it go?

LaSalle, LaSalle University.

Okay.

Yeah.

Well, Sophia's right now in the college application process.

Oh, there you go.

Yeah.

It's, uh, killing her softly.

Yeah.

Yes, about 12 schools that she's applying to.

And 12 is like, compared to my friends who are doing like 20, 25, 12 is like bare minimum at this point.

You know, I'm sure the right fit, because it needs to be a fit, right? For both sides, that's going to happen. But it is what it is, right? The application, I remember I applied in spring. Spain and in the US. And it was not easy because it, there wasn't this thing like, oh, we're gonna give you more time or you're not. No, the process was, the process was exactly the same as anybody else. So in my head, I needed to translate things much faster. I needed to understand acronyms that I didn't know at all, I had to say, hey, you forgot to write down here, what is this acronym? I have no idea what this is, you know, and little things, but I made it work. And I think that that's the beauty of everything. I was on the right, I applied for the right, at the right time, the right place, met great people. And although I don't want to bash and say I didn't learn anything from it, I did learn different things that propelled me to go and find a door-to-door sales job, for example, to gain sales skills that I didn't learn there. But during a class, they were talking about sales experience, and I'm like, I don't have any, and I don't want to have it to be a salesperson, but I need to have sales experience. So one thing kind of like led to the other.

To another, yeah. Now, and what prompted you, Andresa? So you come out of school, how did you get started in real estate and what asset class did you start with?

Well, I would say, I don't know if it's by accident or not, but I was speaking with my ex-husband about investing and, you know, the algorithm always chases you, right? So then I saw a 3-day event at that time was with Rich Dad for that. They had the 3-day event, then it led to a more of a bigger investment to truly learn. So I paid $30,000 for my education and I recouped that on my first deal. So my first, yep. And thank goodness. Thank goodness, because I didn't know what I didn't know. So I pay for my educations versus paying for my mistakes, one or another. So I'd rather pay for the education. So my first house was a primary house actually, and purchase it, rehab it, over rehabbed, let me clarify, over rehabbed the hell out of it. But one thing I had on my sleeves that made the difference, and I'll give you the first one that made the difference my entire career, I really learned the market as the palm of my hand. Was very confident about the as-is value and the ARV. Totally. And then there was a situation that happened. This house came on the market, it was Memorial Day weekend. So I called my realtor, of course, right? I'm telling him which houses I want to see. Hey, this house came on the market and I would like to see it this morning. He's like, well, I'm going to the beach. It's Memorial Day weekend. So I said, listen, Jack, I really love working with you and I'm telling you right now, I'm going to see this house today with or without you. So what time do I meet you there? And thank goodness I did that because we put the offer in. The offer got accepted that day. And then on Monday, the seller wanted to back out of the deal because they got more offers from people that came from the weekend. But that was the first deal. We rehabbed, pulled a HELOC, home equity, out, and that allowed us to continue investing in other rehab projects. So I started flipping houses. One by one.

One by one, yeah. Now what are you investing on? Like, are you still doing houses? What are you doing right now? Like, you know, interest rates are low. You know, people are saying, okay, with interest rates, you know, having dropped, you know, a quarter of a percent, we, you know, people are gonna start buying, house prices are gonna continue to go up. But then if you also do a little bit of research and realize that on Google, the most popular or the highest searched term right now, lately in the last, I would say, few weeks, has been help with my mortgage. Meaning people are, you know, having difficulty making their payments. Does that mean that prices are gonna come down? Like, what are you seeing? What are you hearing? What are you investing in right now?

It's a very different market than what I saw before. And I'm very conscious and realistic If the numbers don't make sense, I just don't have that anxiety to have a deal. I can be okay. No, a bad deal is worse than no deal. Yeah, I'm actually currently trying to buy my neighbor's house. So, fingers crossed here. But throughout the years, I diversify from being active. I, at some point, I was building and rehabbing about 15 projects at the same time. So it's really another level. I had a lot of time and then had a child and it changed as you grow. Start investing more into syndications and apartment complexes and different types of investments. Where I look at right now is like, okay, how much I will profit but I also have another line item that is super important to me is time. Yeah. How much time will this project take from me?

Or how much brain damage will it, will it cause? You know, some of them are like, oh my gosh, I don't want to, I, I don't want to.

It's like, oh, you have this, this ROI, potential ROI here, but this will take your entire life basically. Demand so much of it. I rather not at this stage of my life. I rather go on projects that require less and less of my time. And I have people that have a background that can manage the asset or manage the Airbnb or whatever, but I'm not the one really putting the time there. So in a nutshell, it evolved. And I think it's continuing evolving. I'm just observing. What's happening because we have a lot of people with crystal balls saying, oh, this is going to happen, that's going to happen. And who knows, right? But I'm always more on the conscious side of if I know the market, I'm confident on a very realistic number, that's what I'm going to go for. I do not count appreciation. I don't make, Some people are like, if all the ducks are in a row and all the stars are in alignment, then they make a profit. I'm like, I'd rather not.

That's not the way to go. Yeah. And, and you're right, you know, in, in all, I think in all market cycles, we have been holding to some, buying some, selling some. And I think if you just, you know, um, like you said, if you are in markets where it makes sense that you know very well, like the palm of your hand, there's no anxiety over whether, oh my gosh, should I sell, you know, all my houses, my, you know, my portfolio in this market or not? Am I timing this right? It, you know, there's, it's gonna be always, something is always gonna be happening. So you, you're going to be doing all 3 things, you know, holding some, buying some, selling some, always. I think this is, at least in my experience, what, you know, what we've done and we've been now, doing this since 2001, um, and going through, you know, a, a crash there in 2008, uh, recovery, uh, COVID. I mean, it's— you see, little historical events.

Yeah, yeah.

Oh yeah, going through all kinds of historical events. Yes. Now, now when you decide now to invest in a new asset class, like Sophia, for example, she's going to go to college. She's going to get, you know, some solid, you know, skills. She's looking to major in finance.

Nice.

Uh, probably a minor in either real estate or even arts management. Like she doesn't know yet, but like at least we'll have, you know, solid, um, analytical skills when it comes to financial statements and just—

I can look at the numbers, interpret them. Tell the story.

Tell the story. Absolutely.

Tell the story. Exactly. It, it's just a skill set of like how to interpret the numbers. Then you can look at P&L, you can look at projections and pro formas and really understand.

But still, Andresa, for example, you know this like the back of your hand, but when you decide to invest into something new, um, like for her, it might be new to invest. I, I don't know what you're gonna invest. As when you come out, maybe it's gonna be your first home that you wanna, you know, purchase either for yourself to rehab, maybe a similar story to Andresa. What would you recommend to Sophia that she do as far as if she's going into a new market, new asset class, who should she surround herself with or what should—

Or where do I start?

Yeah, what—

Where do you start?

Start in evaluating an opportunity.

Here's my number one recommendation from, for every single woman. And Sophia, here's, I don't know you personally, but I know your mother. So if I know your mother, you're very probably very similar to your mother and your father. So you are very eager. You're very independent, right? And for all the independent, high achiever, intelligent women out there, our Achilles heel is to say, oh, I totally can handle that by myself. I'll figure it out by myself. I will research everything. I will implement this. I will, and you name it, right? And, and what I really stand is for you to be aware, number one, of that behavior, behavior, because I learned later on, right? And really rely on a support system around you. There is a book called Who Knows How. Who, who do you know? It can go beyond your mom because we have a community here that can support you. Your mom might not know that specific market or might not know that asset. So you can say, okay, who do I have within investor community that I can call, I can trust, and really bypass the time that will take me to find a property manager that is reliable versus like researching on Google and find— having a conversation with 10 property management companies. How about calling a local person who has properties being managed around then you knock so much time off. And I think this is a way of thinking that I recommend across the board, really not relying on yourself and instead looking around and building that muscle of like, okay, I, I, I know I can do it. I know you can do it, Sophia, on your own, but you shouldn't. There's no reason for you to do it because there are people around you that are willing to support you in any way, shape, or form. There is, there's somebody out there that has done what you're looking to do and willing to sit down and hold your hand because somebody in the past hold her hand. So that's the, the chain that we want to continue.

Yeah. And hopefully you pay it forward in the future when somebody else comes to you.

Absolutely.

Talking about paying it forward, So tell us how The Investor Podcast, how did you and Liz, I don't know, maybe meet and decide, okay, we're going to start a podcast for female, you know, real estate investors? Like, what was the motivation?

Yeah, so we wanted to connect with other women, and instead of saying, hey, let's connect on Zoom or let's have a call, we're like, oh, there is this thing called podcast and we can have a microphone, I guess, and we can interview people. How do we do that? And then we're like, well, let's see what's going on and what other people think. And I remember we went to our current mentor and he said, you're going to run out of women to interview. I'm like, what are you talking about? Right. So he was actually the motivation. I really wanted to prove him wrong. No, the goal was just, I did prove him wrong. 500 episodes later and over a million downloads, I did prove him wrong. And we're still going super strong. But the goal for us, we always said, listen, we want to give the voice to women that weren't given a platform before to share their experience so other women can see that that is possible. And if nobody listens, Nobody likes it. You and I, Liz and I, are enjoying that. So that's how it all started.

Kind of like you and I, we were like, you know, uh, for us, it was like, you know, a few years back, I was not doing very well health-wise. And I'm like, Sophia, um, you know, this has really, this illness has really like shifted priorities for me. I would love to spend, you know, some structured time with you.

Um, how can we do that?

How can we do that? Do you want to just have conversations? And it just happens to be that we're going to be behind cameras with a microphone. And even if nobody's listening, you know, we, you know, we're just going to have fun together and we're going to have this structured time together that otherwise, if we didn't have Tuesdays after school, this would probably not happen. And the result has been, yeah, and then the result has been meeting amazing women. Learning so much from them. Now, you know, the podcast is actually helping her in her college applications.

Absolutely.

She's like, she's like in class, I'm able to speak much more confidently, you know?

Yeah, for sure. I see it when talking to teachers. I can definitely articulate my point. Um, when it comes to just conversation or even in my writing pieces, that I submit to them. Um, I feel like just any conversation it's gotten.

Yeah.

Yesterday, communication skills have definitely—

yesterday she had like an impromptu, um, interview pretty much because her, you know, her school has universities coming to visit the school. And she thought—

I, I thought there were other people signed up for that visit. Apparently there were, but like they didn't— either they didn't show up or they unregistered. So it was just a one-on-one conversation. The wrap for, and I showed up 5 minutes early and we went over 5 minutes. So instead of a 35-minute conversation, it would turn into a 45-minute interview.

And this is a school that she's considering early decision.

I mean, considering going there, like, listen, I'm getting goosebumps over here.

And that means that that was not by mistake. Yeah.

Yeah, absolutely. And she's like, mom. I'm like, I was selling myself. I'm trying my best.

That's all you can do, right? That's all you can do. Every single episode.

You know, so that when her application comes, the rep is like, oh, I know Sophia. I remember her.

Yeah.

It's communication skills. I think a lot of people underestimate that. Being able to really go for it on a podcast and any type of presentation, right? Uh, I, I have an accent as you can tell, but I don't let that hold me back from going forward. And I think the reason why I'm saying this is because I hear a lot of immigrants say, oh, but I have an accent. They won't understand me. They will. They will understand you. And we'll continue making grammar mistakes so people will understand us. You know, the women in the community say, oh, we know what you're trying to say, Andres. I'm like, great. Because I don't remember the word. So let's get going.

For me, it was always, um, in the land business, like cold calling people. I feel like I sound very young, so getting over that was, um, something that I had to go through. But I figured out like a little spiel that if they bring that up, I quickly address it and move on.

Yeah, and I think you need to be proud of it, Sophia, because it's intentional. I would, I will embrace that, say, yes, I am young and I am already doing cold calling or doing sales and learning that because I want to gain the skills much earlier on. If the other person on the other side cannot see and appreciate the effort, You know, I don't know who they are, but who wouldn't, right? I'm saying, oh my gosh, girl, yes, go forward.

100%. Um, Andresa, now I know you went through a, you know, uh, separation.

Yes.

Um, you know, and through a divorce.

Yes.

And from a financial standpoint, um, you know, for women that might be going through that, you know, Um, any advice that you would have for a woman going through that situation?

Yes, 100%. Listen, the best decision that I ever done for myself, for my child, and I do believe for my ex-husband as well. Not an easy one. It took me 2 years to make that decision. So I did everything that I could, but it was the best decision for us. There is a financial impact, no doubt about it. I had to dissect and divide and sell a lot of our portfolio that we worked very hard to build. There was no way I would continue doing business with him and there was no agreement. So, I had to really grieve that part of what it could have been, right? But one thing, if I were to do it again, I would invest in myself on my mental health day one. Day one, for all the women that are listening, you are the most important person. It's not your child. It's you, because if you are not full and complete, you won't be able to take care of your child. And you deserve it. You deserve it to go through it and go from survival mode, readjusting and pivoting. You're not failing, you're pivoting. You're pivoting and build something even better after.

Yeah, thank you so much for that. Of course. Now, if anyone that has been, you know, listening to this would like to connect with you, I mean, we've mentioned your podcast, Investor Podcast. Any other way that people can basically stay in contact with you and learn more about investor?

Yes, absolutely.

Investor community.

Yeah.

InvestorCon, which is coming up. Right now I know that you guys already have a venue, a set date. Yes.

Yes. So you You guys can find all our information on our Instagram @therealestateinvesther. And as you mentioned, InvestHerCon is our annual conference and we are going back to Scottsdale. So very close to you guys on June 14th to 16th. Here, here's what we are gonna be tackling. A lot of women feel that they're behind. They're not behind. The system that they have been playing is outdated and we wanna make sure that women and the strategies are in alignment and not something forced. So everything that we're going to be doing at InvestorCon is to support women to do the work there. And every single session is going to be a work session so they can— Yes. So they can really gain the strategic knowledge, process it, and we're gonna be able to make decisions versus leaving the conference with a bunch of notes and forgetting what was that about. So that is the most important thing in a HighLevel network. We want to attract the players, the women that are in the arena really doing the work to grow their portfolio, their business, and themselves. That's very important.

That's, that's amazing. Now, one last question and then we let you go. What does wealth mean to you?

Freedom. Freedom of time. That's what it's all about. I invest in real estate. To buy my time back. If I don't have the freedom of time, I'm not wealthy.

Absolutely. So that's yet another definition of becoming wealthy, you know, as you go on in, you know, your career and in your path, um, you know, money is important, but money is important to buy back your time. But, you know, what Andres just said and, uh, really be able to enjoy, you know, the life that you're, you know, creating by design.

Absolutely. And we're all here to support you, Sophia. Don't forget.

Thank you. I appreciate that. Awesome.

Thank you so much, Andrea.

Of course, my pleasure.

Amazing time. For all of you listening at home, we hope that, you know, this episode was inspiring to you, that you check, you know, out the InvestHer community, the podcast. And InvestorCon that is coming up. Um, Sophia, any other parting words for our audience?

Maybe leave a 5-star review.

Um, and yeah, we'll see you at the next one. Thank you so much for being here.

Thank you.