You Have Money to Invest—Here’s Exactly What to Do First (Ep. 554)

You have saved money, you inherited a property, you sold an investment property, and you have money to invest. Now what? You are unsure about the next steps to take, and until that happens, you're leaving the money in your bank account earning close to nothing depending on inflation. So during this episode, we're going to share with you the 3-step investor formula. You don't need to know all the steps in order to take the next one. And in today's episode, we're going to break down what are the 3 steps you can take to start investing with confidence and feel good about it.

Welcome to the InvestHer Podcast.

I'm Liz Faircloth, and I am your co-host Andresa Guidelli. So Liz, let's get started. What is the step number one people need to think about?

Yes, so step one, number one, is really deciding if you want to be active or passive. I'm gonna explain on just, we use those words all the time, active and passive. We assume everyone knows what that means. I'm gonna be very clear on what active is. Active means you take the path of being the operator of a property, meaning you buy the property, you renovate the property, you pull the team together, you get all the financing, you're in the driver's seat of that investment vehicle. Passive is another option that a lot of people don't realize that is an option, where you're actually partnering or lending your money to or working with an operator themselves. So you're not the operator, you are investing with an operator. Just very simply put, that's really the difference. So Andresa, so many people when they start investing in real estate just think about the return, right? The money that they're going to make with this investment, which is obviously a very fair question. But as you and I have seen, especially within the investor community, is that there's two things that they often don't realize they need to also assess in order to make that decision, active or passive. So the two things is really assessing their experience and their time, right? We always say on Jessa, time is the one limited factor we all have. So what does that look like if your time is very sparse, if you will, you don't, you don't have a ton of it, but you have the money, then passive might be an option for you. Okay, because you don't have the time to go find that contractor, to go find that property, to go find the lender, etc. But if you do have the time on your hands and the interest on your hands, and you love the smell of lumber like Andresa does, then, then the active side might be also very appropriate for you because you have the time on your side. Now, experience Experience is also important before we get to money and, and actually your financial goals, which we'll get to. But experience is also really helpful to think about. Meaning, do you have experience in, in investing? Are you potentially an, an agent that actually wants to use their skills this way? What does your experience look like? Is that something you can lean into? Again, if you have experience, the active route might be appropriate for you, but if no experience and you don't have any interest in learning it, The passive, right, might be a better approach for you. The last thing I want to share a little is really about the financial part. So many people, Andresa, get into this business and the goal that they have, their financial goal of whether or not to be active or passive, is not aligned with the choice that they make. Meaning, if you're passively investing with an operator, there's usually a fixed return. Sometimes it's 8%, 10%, just depends on the project, depends on the actual operator. But if you have $50,000 to invest and you wanna use that $50,000 to become financially free at an 8% return, I'm not a mathematician, but that's not gonna get you to your goal. So the strategy, active or passive, also has to align with the financial goals you, you have. And the other thing I'd say on that note is that, do you need cash flow now? Are you looking to build wealth long-term? Are you looking for both of those things? Because sometimes you passively invest and it's a long-term investment, right? I'm just, you may not get paid for 5 years. Well, If you wanna quit your job, again, those two things don't align. So it all matters. And really looking inside saying, okay, what does my time look like? What does my experience look like? And what am I really interested in, in, in achieving financially will help steer the, the ship active or passive. And quite honestly, Andresa, as we know, so many women are both. Sometimes they're passive and active.

Absolutely. I think what the number one mistake I think people make is to do not change their plans. And let me share what I mean by it. I see a lot of, a lot of investors are stuck into their initial plan, meaning years and years ago, 10 years ago, it made sense to be active, to be doing things. And throughout the years, you got a lot of experience. And you continue doing it. The market shifts, your life shifts. Now you have other things going on. You're older, you have other interests, you want more freedom of time. And I feel sometimes people get so stuck holding that rope and trying to make that work the same way that it did years ago.

Yeah.

And they suffer. They suffer because they're still trying to be attached to an identity that no longer fits. It's like trying to— my son trying to wear last year's summer clothes. It doesn't fit him anymore. And I think many women make the mistake of trying to keep fitting the same strategy within their lives that are evolving. So, I encourage you to think about what is actually in place. Is it a necessity to control? It is a lack of trust in people. It is in my identity that I need to be doing things because my parents said that I need to be doing things in order to earn a seat on the table, or my worth is related to what do I do, not who I am. And most important, like really truly owning who you are and not attaching your value to the things that you do. Because it might be, I am right now much more interested in having more freedom of time. I will exchange freedom of time for a lower interest, right? My investment. So I think I encourage people to really reassess where they're at in their lives. What is at stake? If that's their identity, that they are well known as the queen of rehabs, whatever that is, right? Well, who cares? And I think that you deserve to earn what you want. If it is time, is return on your money, and not necessarily —based on you being active. There is this stigma that passive investors, you need to have this amount of experience under your belt, and you need to be super, super like sitting on a pile of money in order to be passive investor and get the return on your money. And I encourage women to get more information about it because you might actually get the return that you are getting. With being active, being, being passive. And I think that's worth, uh, researching more about all of the, the topics that we are— we're talking here. So important, so important.

Which, which leads us to our step number 2. Step 2 is all about leverage. And we hear so much in real estate that you're leveraging your money, right? Because obviously the real estate vehicle, investing vehicle, is Great leverage. But here's what we're gonna teach you on this step is that it's not just about cash, it's not just about your money that you're leveraging. And I think that's probably one of the hardest things, Andresa, that I see so many women that are newer to investing, maybe they have a property under their belt, they're looking for that second property that they don't realize they have so much that they bring to the table. And I feel like we say that a lot, but I think we need to keep saying it because it's so, so important. Skills, your network, uh, are just as valuable. Uh, and, and so I always like to say, I always like to shift the question. I want everyone to think about this. How much money do I have is one question, but shift it to what do I bring to the table? Because it isn't just the money, isn't just the, the financial piece of, of a, of a, of a project. I, I'll give a very clear example of my skills that I utilized when we, when I started to invest in real estate. Part of the time of me, you know, part-time I was building the business with my husband and part-time I was a consultant. And what I was doing as a consultant was building relationships. I was selling. And so many women, I don't know what you think of this too, Andresa, but so many women can build relationships. They're able to really honor the, you know, approach of, okay, this is what I bring to the table. This is what you bring to the table. How do we collaborate? How do we really form something useful together. And that's part of, that's a skill that is probably one of the most important skills in this business. And so, that was a skill I had in my job, so to speak, that I utilized as I was finding deals. Because think about it, finding deals, you could do it a lot online. There's a lot of creative ways to do it now with AI. At the time, back in the day, we had to build a lot of relationships. There's a lot of that kind of sweat equity of getting out there. So, What skills do you have right now, who you are, that you could potentially utilize in this, in this business of investing? And, uh, and that's something to really leverage.

For all the women that are listening, I'm like, I don't have any, or I don't know, my, my current job or my career or where I went to school to have nothing to do with real estate. So I want you to take a minute. Okay. To take a minute and don't worry about the titles of your career, of your current job, or what you— your graduation. Forget about the title— titles. Erase the titles and just look at the skill set. I'm talking about organization. Oh, I love to put spreadsheets together. Oh, I love to talk to customers, or I hate to talk to customers. Oh, I like to dissect. Things, right? Or I love to be creative, or I love to dot, dot, dot. That is what you're going to bring to the table. I was a journalist. And when I started investing, I looked back and I thought, what a waste of time. What a waste, right? 4 years learning journalism and doing documentaries, working behind the scenes on TV. And I'm like, what a waste. Was all wasted. No, actually, right? Because you can see me here, you can, you're hearing me if you're listening to the podcast. I'm looking at communication skills. I'm looking at marketing in a different way. I'm looking at how to put a conference together, all the pieces around it. A lot of the skills that I've learned in journalism, I am applying here in real estate. And for all of you that are listening, accountants, nurses, teachers, please, it's all about people and communication. Real estate only have houses attached to it, but this is a people business. So I really want you to honor the skills that you do have and you do bring to the table. So important.

And then relationships is the last part, Andresa, and the piece of meaning your network. Uh, you already have people in your network. Everyone knows people in their community. And we often say, oh, well, I need to have all these contacts in the real estate investing world. You probably do already, and you don't even realize that you know the local agent, the local banker, et cetera. And so, just look, I always say like there's acres of diamonds, right? They're right in our neighborhood and start looking at what you already have in your network. You might have people that actually can help you and support you. And that is why we built InvestHer as well, right? There's a community around you. So, that's number 2 is leverage what you have beyond just the cash. So, that takes us to step number 3 is all about taking one step forward, one calculated action. Because Andresa and I have learned very, very, very, very clearly over time that— Well, we like to complicate things. We do like to complicate things, but we used to. No, no, no. We used to complicate things. But when you take one small action towards a goal, one small step, it creates momentum and it creates confidence. Your confidence internally, which then makes you wanna do what? More, another step, another step. So step number 3 is probably the most important, is about taking one action. And here's what you're gonna do. You're gonna research an asset class that you've always been intrigued by. Maybe it's a short-term rental, maybe it's that multifamily. You know, you see other folks having small multis and you're like, I've always wanted a multifamily property. Doesn't matter what it is. But pick one and start doing some of your own research. Okay, you don't have to research for a month or a year. That's the worst thing you could do. Literally set a week goal to research 1 hour if you have no— if you don't have an hour, research for a half hour. I don't really care. Just have a time goal and have a time commitment. And then the biggest thing of this action step is to find 3 people. That are investing in that asset class in today's market and connect with them, ask them some questions. That is why we have built InvestHer to do this with, right, Andresa? And that is why we've built InvestHer Plus in particular, so that you can have very efficient, very focused networking within the network of InvestHer, not just with Mary in your community, but with all the different women across the country. So we'll put more information in the, in the show notes about, you know, the 30-day you get and you get 30 days for free if you click on the link below in our, in our show notes.

The most important thing here is for you to take one step further, right? The worst thing that you can do is to listen to this entire podcast and say, oh, those are great ideas, or yeah, and you do nothing. About it. And then 3 months from now, you already forgot and you're on the same spot that you are right now. So if you are listening to this podcast is because you have a question mark inside your own head, right? And the worst thing that you can do is to wait until all the moons, the stars are aligned and you need to know all the steps in order for you to move forward. InvestHer has a ton of experienced women that have done what you're looking to do, so you can connect with them, bypass a ton of experiences that you don't need to go through. You don't need to make those mistakes and really leverage their experience and resources. The women in our community are generous with their time, and they are always looking to extend a hand. Why? Because somebody else extended a hand to them. So, you're not bothering people when you are connecting with them, sharing what you're looking to do. What we recommend you to do not do is to say to somebody that you want to pick their brain and you have done no research, you listen to no podcast, no book, no nothing, and you want them to explain an entire strategy in a matter of half an hour and tell them all your, their secrets and all the hoops. That doesn't work. So, meet them in the middle, show them you have done the work, you are committed to take the next step further, and you are going to see a ton of hands extended to you because there's nothing more than women want is to support one another in this community. So do the work, meet them in the middle, and they're just here waiting to support you.

And once you've done that action, we'd love to have you post it so we can support you on your journey. Absolutely.

Go ahead, post on our Facebook community. If you're looking for other women, go to Investor Plus, research by state or by asset class and find the woman that you're looking for. Thanks so much for listening. Bye. Thank you.