89: Ambition With Beth Azor

Foreign this is Real Estate Investing Live from New York with James Nelson, the principal and head of Avis and Young's Tri State Investment Sales Group. In this program, you'll learn about the world of commercial real estate and find out why it's one of the largest investment opportunities in New York and around the world. Now here is your host, James Nelson.

Welcome to episode number 89 of Real Estate Investing Live from New York. This is your host, James Nelson. I am principal and head of Tri State Investment Sales at Avis and Young. Thank you as always for joining. It means so much to me. I appreciate your sharing this. And when you subscribe to the show and you put your ratings, that helps get the word out. Especially for those of you listening on Apple Spotify, that helps us go up in the rankings we have. We're well over 175,000 downloads. So this show is really doing what it's meant to do, which is to inspire thousands of people to get out there and start investing. Maybe you're a seasoned vet and you've been doing this for a long time and you're looking for new tips, strategies from some of the best in the business. Maybe you're new and just trying to figure out where to start off in the real estate business. I know we've got a lot of college students as well, so I love your feedback and just want to share with you. This week Cedric from Memphis reached out and said that he was interested in starting his own podcast and he wanted to interview developers down in his market. And I thought that was so fantastic to hear. And so I gave him some advice on how to actually produce the podcast and get it out there and ways that he could actually collaborate with his school. And for you college students who are listening out there, why not start your own podcast? I think it's a great idea. I'd reach out to the school. I used to do my recordings actually at cuny, the City University of New York. Unfortunately, in this post Covid world, their studio is still shut down. So I've been recording these mostly on Zoom, but I would love to get back into the studio. So again, for you college students out there, you might want to go and see if your college would help you produce these podcasts and maybe also they could be a good source for candidates for you to interview, maybe for some alums. So definitely some food for thought out there because real estate investment is such an underserviced part of the market. There's hundreds if not thousands of shows out there that teach you how to invest in the stock market. But when it comes to real estate, there's just really no good source and very few shows out there. And podcasts, I've recommended them in the past and a couple books out there, but it's still just so underserved. So that's why we're doing this again. And today's show is no exception. We have with us Beth Azor. Beth is unbelievable. I connected with her through Clubhouse and that's actually where we recorded this interview. So we are doing many of these interviews now on Clubhouse so you would have a chance to actually attend and ask your questions. And so you'll hear at the end of this interview a question from the audience. But Beth has her own advisory service. She is called the Canvassing Queen. She's built up this incredible retail portfolio throughout Florida. She's also one of the top retail leasing brokers. Again, she's known as the Canvassing Queen. She's written two books. She's got an incredible story. So I know you're going to get a ton out of this episode. We're going to have a quick word from our sponsor and we'll get right into that interview.

Thank you again.

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To our show with that Beth. I'd love to go ahead and introduce you. Beth is a 34 year veteran of the commercial real estate industry, owns Azure Academy, which specializes in consulting services, training, sales, leadership coaching, acquisition due diligence and market analysis. Beth owns and manages an $80 million portfolio of commercial real estate properties in Southeast Florida and wrote and published don't say no for the Prospect, a guide to help propel the career of both novice and experienced leasing agents. And more recently, the Retail Leasing Playbook, a detailed how to book on leasing commercial space. Best client list is. And these are the biggest names out there doing retail. Brixmore, Urbanedge, Phillips Edison, Kimco, just to name a few. She's also incredibly generous with her time giving back. A graduate of fsu, she's a past chairman of the board and founder of the FSU Real Estate Foundation. Beth, thank you again for joining us today.

Thank you, James. Thanks for having me. Hopefully we can drop some nuggets to either add to the people's investment philosophies today or get them started. I love helping people get started in investing, especially women, James. Especially women. But I will help all genders.

Good. Yes. No. And I love having your perspective on the show. And we absolutely need more female investors in the world. So that's what we're here to do is to share what it takes. So bet, maybe take us back to a little bit of your story where you grew up. Maybe your first job was real estate, something that you always knew that you wanted to get into. But maybe you can tell us a little bit about your journey.

No. I wanted to run the Olympics one day. I loved doing special events. I would do a lot of special events in college. And then when, when I left fsu I was a not for profit special events coordinator. I loved the job, but it made a whopping 11 grand. I think my starting salary was 11 grand a year, which is today about 30. So I had to work weekends, nights and weekends on a second job which was real estate because my parents were in residential. I had had my license when I was 18 so that was a great second job because I could make commissions. I started making more commissions and money from the part time gig than the not for profit special events gig. And my executive director from it was the Heart Association. You should go do the, do the real estate thing full time and just volunteer for us. So that's what I did. I did a little flip flop and I started doing, I was working at a residential developer project and then I hated it because I sat in a trailer waiting for people to come in. Like if you build it, they will come. So with my marketing background I went to the developer and I said we need to do marketing, we need to bring people in. And he said no, no, no, just sit in the trailer reading People magazines and when people walk in the trailer you sell them. So I went from working seven days a week to sitting in a trailer reading People magazines and I was pulling my hair Out. And someone said, a woman that I know was in commercial and she said, you should get into commercial. And I said, oh, that's. Isn't that selling land? That's more boring than this? And she said, no, there's this thing called leasing where developers build shopping centers and then you help put in the bagel shop, the dry cleaner, the boutique. And when you help them open their stores, you help them fulfill their American dream and you're part of their family forever. And I said, oh, sold. I love that. Where do I start? And she sent me to a company in Miami that had a training program which was very rare. It's very hard, as you know, to get into commercial real estate. And. But this company had a training program. They had 11 people. And I joined the company to do office leasing and within three months they had flipped me over to a shopping center. And I was there 18 years. And I started in the rookie program and then I eventually became the president of the company. So that's how I got started in my leasing career. I really, even though I own shopping centers today, I'm just a glorified leasing agent. I love filling vacancies with. I do national deals like Starbucks and Home Depot, but my heart is with the local mom and pops.

Wow, what a story. I love that. And that line of your ambition exceeding that organization and that desire to break out of that mobile trailer park and get out there and start making deals happen. So what was that like? I mean, I have a lot of friends who are residential brokers and typically it's a much shorter cycle where you're going in and certainly if you're doing rental, commercial can certainly be a lot more complex, take a lot more time. Maybe you could share with the audience, especially for those residential brokers out there. What was that transition like from residential to commercial? Was it a pretty steep learning curve?

Yeah, I was in. Luckily I was part of this training program. So I would tell you it probably was a six month training program, three months where we shadowed the head of leasing and then three months more of an on the job training. So six. And I would tell everyone that gets into commercial, at least in retail leasing, what I'm an expert in is you're not going to get your first dollar for at least six months. Now maybe you get lucky and you do a deal earlier than that. But I always say, and I use myself as an example, you know, when I was at the Heart Association, I worked real estate. But then when I went over to the company in Miami called Terranova, I was making at the real, the residential real estate company, I think 26,000. When I went to Terra Nova, I got dropped down to 18. So there I was back getting that second job. And because my license was hung with Terra Nova, I couldn't do real estate on the weekends anymore. So I went to work at Macy's and I did two nights a week and one weekend day. So I tell folks starting in commercial to get a side hustle, right? Get a side job, whether it's bartending or waitressing or driving Uber, but do something for six months to a year so that you're not desperate. Because when you're desperate for money, you make bad decisions. You know, you try to force sales. James, I know you've seen this for sure, people for sales. And when you try to force sales, you.

That's great advice and could not agree with you, unfortunately, more that it does take time in commercial. Our sales cycle from start to finish is six months. I mean, that's assuming you get business day one and you know, going out and landing that first exclusive, it's a lot harder than it might seem. And obviously you need the knowledge and the experience. So I guess that the fact that you were shadowing a senior vet in the business, I'm sure that was very helpful. So were you able to learn all the skills on the job? I mean, were you able to learn how underwriting and how these leases are structured? Because again, your typical retail lease is so much more complex than a residential lease. There's all these provisions. Maybe you could talk a little bit about, you know, how you were able to get up to speed on those terms.

Yeah. So the first three months we learned a lot about markets because if you know how much deals are going in your marketplace and you are assigned a listing to fill vacancies in, then understanding who's getting what in your neighborhood, you know, in your, in your. The municipality you're working in, that really is probably 60% of it. And then you learn with each deal, with each lease, different terminology. But in my part one was, it was more of a classroom. And then part two was more on the job training. And that part two, I had an opportunity where every night, I think three or four nights a week, my boss, we would get on the phone like from 5:30 to 6, and we would go through one page of the lease word for word. And I think we did that for probably three months where, because the leases are 30 pages. So every day, you know, again, 5:30 or 6:00 clock at night for 30 minutes. He would, we'd go, okay, okay. We ended on page 17. So, you know, we'd start at the top, co tenancy, kick out all of these terminologies. And he would explain it to me. And it was, the lease was like the bible and that fundamental education about lease terms. And for every term that he explained to me, he had a story that went along with it. So I could visualize the situation. And that was unbelievable training. And I recommend that to all of my leasing directors that I do, you know, consulting with or rookies that call me and say, how can I improve? And I just say, read the leases. Because the leases are huge, as you know, right. And they're intimidating. When you pull a lease out of a file or you go to Dropbox and you start scrolling and it's a 60 page document sometimes with exhibits. And when you're new in the business, you're like, oh, I don't want to, you know, you get intimidated by it and it's, it's, you just, it's, you know, how do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time. So he did a great job teaching me the lease, which to this day, obviously, you know, that, that education has, you know, just compounded on itself, right? It was, it was compounding every situation now that I've been in and every story and experience that I've had with regards to leases and. But the lease, in my business, the lease is the bible. And I needed to know what the form, what the writers and the landlords wanted from the deal with the tenants. And that was a great exercise that he put me through.

It's so wonderful to hear that you had someone who took you under their wing and explained. And I really believe this is a job that you learn by doing. And I never ended up getting a real estate master's, although I've guest lectured at Columbia, Wharton and all those places. And I know they do an incredible job teaching the theory and how to underwrite. But I really believe there was no better training for me than sitting out on an open floor plan and just being a sponge and just listening. And I would encourage all the listeners here, you know, if you haven't already, find a mentor, find someone who has found success in a certain line, specialty of business, something that you aspire to do and just, you know, really be a sponge and take in that information, but also be a resource. And I'm sure, Beth, as much as you were getting the training, I'm sure you were doing, you know, a lot of the legwork. So what Kind of activities were you doing early on to get these spaces lazy?

So knocking on doors, knocking on doors, knocking on doors. Which is why my nickname is the canvassing queen. I found that just by going to other shopping centers, talking to tenants, are you happy? Are you doing well? You know, if I found out that someone was doing well and let's say it was a sub shop, then I knew that if my property across the street didn't have a substance shop, there's demand in the area for subs. I should go find a sub shop that's outside of my market and bring them in. I remember once canvassing and going into three different art and frame stores where they used to frame pictures like they don't even exist anymore. And each one was closing. And I thought, okay, well, I'm not going to do an art and frame store because three of them are going out. So just, you know, wearing down the shoe leather and going and talking to tenants. And then I learned once I started being successful at filling vacancies, then my boss said, okay, now why don't you go get some listings? You know, find us some shopping centers that they'll hire us to list so we can make more money. And when I would be out canvassing, the tenants would say, oh, our landlord's awful. Or, you know, I'd see examples or evidence of roof leaks or, you know, potholes in parking lots. And I thought, this is a terrible manager. So I started growing and expanding in my career. By now, you know, my dad was in residential and he would, he always would say, listings, listings, listings. If you get the listings, then people will bring you deals. So I knew how important that was. So, so just understanding the market, meeting with neighboring leasing agents and property owners and talking to tenants and, you know, really has. I still do it to this day. I now own shopping centers and I go canvas for my vacancies with interns or junior associates because it keeps my pulse on what's going on. And now instead of going and finding third party listings, when I'm out prospecting, I find properties to buy.

That's. It's great experience and great advice to be able to go out and pound the pavement. I mean, that might seem daunting for a lot of people out there. I mean, you literally just walk into these stores and you're looking to speak to the owner. I mean, I'm sure that takes a little bit of courage when you say, do you have to be kind of an extrovert to be successful doing this?

So you definitely can't Be an introvert and be super nervous. I walk in and I just say, hi, I've got a shopping center in the area and I'm looking to fill vacancies. I'm very upfront. A lot of people kind of go, go in and like compliment the compliment whoever's in the store, oh, you have such a nice store. Or, you know, kind of him and haw. Or they do walk in and say, is the owner here? And if it's the owner they're speaking to, that person doesn't admit they're the owner. They go, no, they're not here. And if it's the gatekeeper that they say, is the owner here? The gatekeeper is mad. They're saying, well, why? Why don't they think I'm the gatekeeper? I mean, why don't they think I'm the owner? So I always teach, don't ask for that because you're losing. You know, you lose both ways. You lose if it's the owner and you lose if it's the gatekeeper. So I say, just walk in and tell them why you're there. I own shopping centers in the area. I have vacancy. Have you ever thought of expanding? And most tenants, most store owners, when they opened their first location, they had the American dream, which James, what was the American dream for an entrepreneur to open multiple locations. So I have found through 34 years of doing this that people love to talk about real estate. Even if they've opened, you know, the bagel store and realized, oh my gosh, this is a lot more work, I don't want to open three more locations. They always want to know what market rents are. So if everyone is just honest and up front and they walk in and say, hi, I have vacancies to fill in a shopping center down the street or in the next market or, you know, whatever, you know, have you thought about expanding? 98% of the time people will say, oh, even if it's the gatekeeper, they'll go, oh, I don't know. But I'm sure my boss would like to talk to you. Here's his cell phone number. So I think you definitely can't be afraid of going and starting the conversation. And I know a lot of people that would rather slit their wrists than go up to someone they don't know and start a conversation. So you definitely have to be have an outgoing personality and not be afraid or self concerned about what will they say or what will they think of me. I have two sons. One is very outgoing and would go Talk to, you know, he would talk to a wall. The other one is, doesn't like to order in a drive through. So one is a great, will be a great salesman for the rest of his life. He'll sell his children on doing their chores and the other one will be great at whatever he does. He's a golfer, he has a very, very low handicap, he's probably going to get a scholarship to college. But he does not want to talk to new people. So you definitely shouldn't be in sales, which is what this is. If you would prefer to not talk to strangers.

That definitely makes sense. Especially because I couldn't agree more that real estate is really, it's an in person profession. When you invest there's no substitute for walking the block and seeing what the comps look like. And there's so much technology. I mean I've been doing this for 20 plus years and when I got into the business, the first thing that we did, we're assigned territories and we take a picture of every single building in our neighborhood and then we have a three ring binder and we take notes on each building. Well, today you can get that all at a click of a button. Right. And so, but I find a lot of the juniors out there today, they think they can do this business from the office off of a desktop. And to your point, you get so much out of actually going and seeing the real estate because I would imagine if you're just looking at Google Earth and zooming in, you're not going to get even a fraction of what you see when you're on location. Is that true?

Yeah, I'm not, I am anti technology when it comes to market information. So you know, the two big boys, you know, my properties are on those sites. I've never given them one piece of information. So, and I'm the owner, so and that, so if that happens with me, then I know that and I ask people, I go, how accurate is the information you're pulling off of these sites? And everyone says the same thing. It's not, it's, you know, but it's a starting point. So when, when I teach and do my workshops and my boot camps and I coach people I like do not use those sites. Go and talk to the tenants, go and talk to the leasing agents, go and talk to the property managers and then, and then share information, you know, if you give, you'll get so share information about our properties and you'll get information on their properties. We just had a lunch, a networking lunch and the five Neighboring leasing agents from the five neighboring properties all around. I own three shopping centers on this specific street in South Florida. And my five what people would say, competitors. We were all at a lunch and we were all sharing information because guess what? If their occupancy goes up, my rents go up. You know, if the occupancy in the market goes up for leasing agents, all of our rents go up. So I'm a big believer in getting the information from the horse's mouth and getting the accurate information versus relying on some, you know, some site where, like. Like I said, my three centers are or five centers I own are on these sites. I've never talked to the people. So where are they getting their information from? I don't know. So don't rely on the information on my properties, because they didn't get it from me.

I hope you all are taking notes because what Beth has just said is such a huge key to success in this business. You know, the real estate business, it deals with imperfect information. It can be a little bit. It can be opaque. Right. And to best point, the public information services out there don't have all the data, whereas if you're investing in the stock market, I always feel like I'm the last person to know because everyone has all the information 24 7. So this is really a business about how you can get the inside edge, how you can get in there and find out what is not public knowledge. And so, Beth, there's just no surprise in my mind on why you've achieved such incredible success throughout your business. And for those of you just joining, and I know we've got some questions that are stacking up, and we are recording this right now for my podcast, Real Estate Investing live from New York. We're here with Beth Azure, who is telling us her story and keys to success here. And we are going to be opening it up for questions probably in about 15 minutes or so. So please bear with us because, Beth, I really want to hear now more about your story of converting or transitioning rather, from a broker to an investor, because I think the first thing we should talk about is that sometimes that's viewed as a conflict. So maybe you could talk about kind of what caused you to decide to get onto the principal side. Maybe even want to talk about your first investment.

Okay, so my first investment, I was 32, and I was working for that company that I mentioned that I was in the junior training program in and came to me, and this was the third or fourth time he had come to me asking Me to invest in a property that he was buying. And the prior three times I told him I didn't have any money and I was making, I think the first time he asked me of six figures and then the second and third time north of six figures. And he was very angry with me and he's like, what are you doing with your money? I said, you see that Jaguar out in the parking lot and that Hawaii trip I took? And he was so mad at me. And, and so the fourth time he came around and asked and all of the prior properties that he had invested in were huge scores. Like I could have made a lot of money, but I was young and stupid. And so the fourth time he came, he literally dragged me by the neck and took me to the local bank and co signed a $50,000 note for me and my husband. I was married at the time and we invested 50,000 in a deal that I ended up, I was the leasing, I became the leasing agent for. We refied out in six months. So I was able to pay the bank back the 50 grand within six months. We sold the asset about four years ago, I think to Kimco and it was over seven figure return on that $50,000. So that was my first deal I did. Now we owned it for, you know, like I said, from 1992 until 2016. But it was phenomenal real estate. And when we bought it, people said that we overpaid for it, which, you know, always buy in really, you know, location, location, location. I mean, people call me all the time and say, I have this deal you could buy for 50 bucks a square foot. I'm like, well, and I look, I do go to Google Earth before, before I drive to go see the deal and I see that there's 40 other shopping centers around this, the asset, the particular asset. And I make a few phone calls or I drive up and see it and the vacancy is, you know, 60% versus paying $500 a square foot because there's three shopping centers, you know, where the. In the other location there were 40. And all of the centers are 100% leased and the rents are too low. So it's really, really important. But, so that was my first deal. I invested with him. I ended up buying six deals with him as a limited partner. And then after I was there 18 years, I was the president of that firm. The last six years I was there, I left to go out on my own because I was a single mom of a 4 year old and I couldn't work the 80 hours a week anymore that I was working and I knew I was going to start buying and syndicating deals on my own account without him with me being the lead, which was very highly unusual for a woman to do that. And I was scared but I just, and I figured I'd always have the backup. Like he said, you can come back anytime you want. Which you know, what a great guy. So. But I was able to do it and I have upped I think at the maximum I had owned 10. We've sold some. I gave one back during the recession. My parents partner was BlackRock. Currently I own six and as of my bio is old because instead of 80 million they're worth about 97 today. So I'm very proud of that because there's very few women in the country that are syndicating and investing and buying deals as the lead. There's women investing but there's not many people doing it as the lead or as the sponsor as they call it. So, so that was my transition was he, you know, he dragged me into it thankfully and once I got in it and he made me, this was, this is the good lesson. He said I'm only going to do this if you agree that from every commission check you get from now on, 25% goes into an investment account. And if you agree to do that, I'll co sign this loan. And I said I committed to doing that and then that was, that's what allowed me to invest with him five more and then now invest on my own account because I got into a very good habit of living on less and putting money away for a rainy day to, you know, for an opportunity to invest.

Wow. That I am just utterly amazed. I mean that, that I love everything you had to say about, you know, taking that leap and putting money aside and getting involved and being disciplined about it. I mean it can be really tough to start especially when you know, you're just trying to get off the ground. What I also like that you shared and I think oftentimes when people think about investing in real estate they think that they have to be the ones doing everything, that they're the general partner, they find the opportunity, they find all the money. I love that you started as a limited partner so you came in and I'm sure you got a lot of experience being a part of those deals before you ultimately went out and did it on your own. So for those who are considering investing with someone else, maybe share a little bit about what to look for in a partner. It sounds like you had positive business dealings with before. But how did you know that this partner was trustworthy and that you would make a good partnership?

Sure. So. Well, he was my boss and then when I became the president of the company, I had part ownership of the company and became his partner. But obviously I trusted him because like I think when he first started asking me, hey, do you want to invest? And I was 28, 29, a, I didn't have the money and B, I thought this is risky. But obviously when he said I'm going to take you to a bank and co sign a loan for you so you can invest. And then when we refied out and we got all of our money back, the trust factor went up significantly. But it is important to vet people. You know, I have had bad partners. When I left Terra Nova and went out on my own, I have picked bad partners and I didn't vet them enough. Meaning had I this, this one particular partner that didn't end well on a deal, had I just reached out to their other part partners and said, hey, how is this group, you know, how is this person being a partner in a real estate deal? I would have heard a lot of bad things. I didn't do my due diligence. So like in any big purchase you need to do your due diligence. So I invest now. I invest with other people. And even though I'm out being a general, a general partner and a sponsor in finding deals and raising money, I also put money into other people's deals. But before I do that, I ask around. I say, give me a list of your current partners. Give me a list of people that were your partner and are not your partner anymore. And if anyone asked me to do that, I could give them 50 names. I could give them people who are my partners now. I can give them names of people that are in all of my six deals that have ridden the ride with me. I have bought people out where there were deals that didn't go as great as we wanted them to do and there were numerous capital calls which when you go into a deal you hope there aren't going to be a lot of capital calls, but should happen. So there's people that are not my partner anymore. I have no hesitation giving people their names and numbers. Go call them. So if a person is not going to give you that information, I would be very leery of investing any money with them. So do your due diligence. This is not a $5 item you're buying from Dollar Tree. You're going to put in at a minimum of $25,000. And I think transparent transparency is important. I invest as a limited in a multi family with a multifamily syndicator. My friend, I see my friend Rod Santomssimo, one of the best real estate coaches in the United States. If you guys are looking for real estate coaches, check out the Massimo Group. He and I are investors with multifamily Syndicator and they have a portal which I'd never seen before. You know, I told you I'm anti technology really, which you know, you know, I'm 61, so I can say that if I was 30, you guys have to be, you know, pro technology when you're young. But I remember investing my first investment with this group and I've made, I think I've made four, four or five cents. And I was blown away by the fact that you could just go into this portal at any time and see the deals they're investing in, how much money they've given you, your tax. I mean it was awesome, this automated portal to see what's going on up to the minute on your investment. And I was like, my investors don't get any of this. They're lucky if they get a quarterly update letter. So I think, think that your partners need to be as transparent as possible. Any of my partners can call me anytime and I can fill them in on the deal. I give them a quarterly report, hopefully a quarterly distribution. But doing your due diligence is the most important before you sign on the dotted line. And then also having an attorney looking, looking at your operating statements, you know, and that's not cheap to pay an attorney. But again if you have to pay an attorney $500 to look at an operating statement or $1,000 and you're making a $20,000 investment, that's a, you know, that's a good investment from a respective the perspective of protecting yourself.

I really, really hope that everyone takes this advice to heart because this is so critical. I mean this is a people business and it's who you work with. And yes, there's obviously the physical real estate, but you have to choose your partners wisely. And as a broker, you know, we as big of a new of a market that New York is, you'd figure that no one knows each other. But it's a small world. And when we're selling to a buyer for the first time who we've not transacted, we're looking to see where else they've transacted. And we're actually Calling the sellers. We're not even in some cases asking for their references because if you ask someone for reference, they're probably going to tell you someone who has something good to say about them. So, you know, we're calling saying, hey.

How is this person?

Did they perform? Did they, you know, say what they do? Did they do what they say? And that's such a key piece to success in this business because your reputation is huge. So I'm going to open it up for questions in a minute or two. And Rod, great to see you as well. And I know you'll have some thoughts on this topic, this general discussion. But Beth, before we open it up, I would say that raising capital, speaking to a lot of our listeners out there, that is one of their greatest concerns, is how do you find money for the first deal Today you've got some of the biggest investors out there, BlackRock. If they are not the largest asset manager in the world, I don't know who is. So clearly you've gone from a small LP to bringing in some of the largest institutional capital sources out there.

So.

But how did you start with this? When you first did your own deal, did you, you know, you hear about passing the hat and you know, they call it country club capital. Friends and family, how did you raise money for your first deal?

So I love this story. So I found a deal that I knew was going to be a home run. It was 1.77 acres. So you guys don't be worrying about 20 million dollar deals. So this deal was 1.2 million in my neighborhood, knew it was going to be a home run. So what did I do? I took my three best girlfriends to dinner where the window of the restaurant overlooked this piece of property. And they're like, and it was a Cuban restaurant, like a hole in the wall. Like, why are we eating here? I said, I'll tell you why in a second order. You know, order your wine. So we get our wine glasses. And I said, look, I said, you see out that window? Yes. I go, we're gonna buy that piece of property.

No, we're not.

I go, yes, we are. No, we're not. And they all three my best friends and they're all in the real estate business. One of them repped Costco and Home Depot. Another one did Walgreens Developments, and the other one, like Rep. T.J. max and, you know, Jared Jewelers. I mean, they're all intimately familiar with the retail industry and the South Florida market. And they're, they turned me down. I'm like, well, screw y', all, because I'm going to go get 10 friends at 100 grand each or 20 friends at 50 grand each, and we're going to go buy this deal. And of course, what happened? And so what. And as people. So I just sent it out. I sent it out to my attorney and I sent it out to other people in the industry and people that I knew that owned properties. And sure enough, after I got like three or four people that committed, those three girls jumped in. And I think I ended up with 15 partners. We ended up getting a loan, and it was a home run. It was a home run deal. So I went to friends and family, and then I. And then I had some unaccredited investors that wanted in. And I did like, a little friends of Beth that I think they put in 10 grand each. So they put in their 50, that little group of friends of Beth, and they had to sign, you know, paperwork that I was. I would never take advantage of them. But it was a huge score we made. I think we made 500% on our money in two years. So in it, you know, we got lucky. But I knew the market. It all came back to, why was it a success? Because I knew the market, like, cold. I knew the market, and that is what. Why it made it a success. And since then, most of those people that were. Were in that first deal have come on to doing new deals with me. And, and then I've collected more people. Like, then they've said, well, I have a friend who wants in. Or, you know, and, and, and so. And some drop off because they go do their own deals. Like, I have people that came and did deals with me, and now they're out being their own sponsor and I'm putting money in their deals. So it is for me, friends and family. I did the black. We did give it back to the bank during the recession. And I have not done another BlackRock deal. Just kind of like my love for the mom and pops versus the Nationals, my love for family and friends versus the institutions is the same thing. I like doing things with friends and family. So, you know, Rod is going to be one of my next investors. So now that we've become friends and family, we weren't friends and family. We just have started to get to know each other. But yeah, so now people say, oh, I want to invest with you. I go, yeah, great. I have a little. This is how tech. Tech. Technologically savvy I am. There's a list in my Evernote on my phone. So Anytime someone says, I want to be in on your next deal, I put their name on the Evernote. And then when I find a deal, I send it out and go, who wants in? And I'm usually over, over subscribed.

Wow. Wow.

I love that story at the restaurant.

Where your friends, your best friends note and you were not deterred. I'm sure that's another huge part of your success, is having that tenacity to stay focused and have conviction in your knowledge and your ability to succeed. So I've got two more questions and then we will open it up. So everyone in the audience, please think of your questions. Beth, we're a year and a half into the show. I've spoken to a lot of other successful investors, developers like you. If you had to distill your success into a couple words, what would those be?

Work ethic.

There's certainly no substitute for that.

Why did blackrock give me money? Because I was a top leasing agent. How was I a top leasing agent? Because I outworked people. In anything I've ever done. If I do something, I pretty much do it 120% because I, you know, whether it's because I went to Florida State and worked for people that were from Ivy Leagues and I felt insecure about my degree or whether it's because I was a woman and I felt insecure, I don't know. But I also am from the Midwest. And when you're from the Midwest, that's work ethic is kind of our motto and brand. So. And my parents, my mom was a workaholic, so I don't like to let people down. But I also, at the end of the, when I stop working, I want to know that I look back and said I did the best I could do. And there's no one questioning. I never want the question, did she do enough? I always want there to be no question about that. So that, you know, I'm definitely not the smartest person in the room because I'm a woman. We've had limitations and obstacles. I didn't let that get in my way ever. But they were there. I just ignored them and kept pushing through. I was trying to be always prepared, and that came from work ethic. So I never went to a meeting I wasn't prepared for. Over prepared probably, maybe sometimes at the detriment, but there's no magic bullet. I probably speak to five college students a week. I have three shadowing me tomorrow. All the young kids, you know, we live in a society of instant gratification and whether it's these online sites that get you all your information, instead of the shoe leather walking the markets everyone wants. What's the secret? And there's absolutely no secret. It's just doing the work.

Work.

So that. That's. And, you know, and that's always been. My secret is I went in on Saturdays. Well, what. Why did you go in on Saturdays? The boss was in on Saturdays. I got exposure to the boss. Who do you think got the best listings? And of course, because I was in on Saturdays and working for four hours, I got to catch up and do paperwork. So during the week, I didn't do that paperwork. I could go out and, you know, knock on doors. So. So it just. I was. I was. The work ethic is in my mind. The number one answer for me, that's. That's what helped me get my wins, was that I outworked everybody.

Amazing. Wonderful to hear. And just such incredible advice. And we will now. I'm happy to open it up for questions. And while, Raul, I saw you raise your hand. I don't know if we dropped you, but yes, feeling.

Feel free.

I mean, Beth is such a wealth of knowledge. We so appreciate you sharing your story with us. You know, one of my last questions would be, what advice would you give to the aspiring investor? Maybe there's someone out in the crowd right now listening, and they're not even from the real estate business. I mean, where would you tell them to start?

Well, I would say to find people in your, you know, whether it's there. In commercial real estate, there's a lot of different facets, a lot of different asset classes. You could represent a retail tenant like a Starbucks, or you could represent a shopping center owner that has vacancy. You could represent an office building vacancy, or you could represent tenants looking for office space. The same thing with industrial. You could work in self storage. You could work for hospitality, which are hotels. You could work for student housing. You could work for senior living. So there's many, many, many different asset classes. So if you're just starting out, like, wow, commercial. Sounds interesting. Where do I start? I tell this to college students. I say go shadow one or two people in each of the different asset classes. Go shadow a guy that has an office building and he leases vacancy. Go shadow someone who's. Oh, I didn't even mention capital markets, right? Then there's people who sell shopping centers and who finance. So there's all of these different facets. And then. No. Are you an extrovert or an introvert? Do you Want to do sales or do you want to do something in house, like being an analyst, where you could do appraisal or underwriting? So figure out, do you want to be in sales? And then if you do, shadow a bunch of people in sale, in different selling positions in different asset classes of our industry, and pretty soon you'll say, I don't like this at all. I really like this. Then shadow a few more people in the area that you like, try to narrow it down, and then nine times out of 10, what happens with my college students that actually take my advice and do it, Someone that they shadowed offers them an internship, and then an internship leads to a job. So I say shadowing leads to internships and, and internships leads to jobs. It's hard to get into commercial real estate. So for those people that are 30, 40 years old that are making, you know, 60, $70,000, it's really, really hard to say, I want to drop what I'm doing in pharmaceutical sales and go into commercial real estate. You better have, you know, 50,000 in the bank to be able to do that, because you're going to have to pay your bills for six months while you're making the transition and waiting for that first check. And maybe you get a first check in six months, you might not get a second check for nine months, James, as we all know. So it's really hard to transition mid career into commercial. It's not to be. I'm not saying it can't be done, but you really need to have a second job or a nice savings account to be able to do that.

Incredible advice. Thank you so much. Okay, I'm going to welcome JK up to the stage. Jk, I do have to remind you this is being recorded as this will be rebroadcast on my podcast, Real Estate Investing Live from New York. So hopefully you don't mind, but we love your questions. So, yes, please let Beth know what she can answer for. You know, Beth, you just spoke about finding the right asset class. I was hoping maybe you could also touch on finding the right geography. And then I see Brandon has a question up next. Because, Beth, maybe that's because that's where you live and that's where you focus. Is that why you've stayed in Florida to date, or what should people be thinking about when picking an area?

Yeah, so I think it's important if you like where you live, you have a lot of history where you live. Like, you know, when I talk to college students, you know, my, my, I'm an Alumni of Florida State. So I'm in Tallahassee, and I say to them, they go. They ask me, you know, about how do I get into the business? And I said, well, where do you want to live? And they say, well, I grew up in Orlando, but I think I want to go to Atlanta. So I think I'll start in Atlanta and then I'll eventually move to Orlando or, you know. And I say, don't do that. Start where you. And, you know, James, we meet people, we network with people. We meet people in a geography, and those relationships compound on each other. So wherever you want to work, eventually is where you need to start, because you don't want to go. Start and learn in Atlanta. And then in three years say, okay, I want to go home now and go back to Orlando. You literally will start almost all over, especially maybe not in capital markets. If you want to be an underwriter in capital markets, meaning you want to sell shopping centers and you want. And you're really good with numbers, and you're good with sitting in a cubicle for three years running numbers, and you're selling shopping centers or office buildings or properties all around the United States or in the Southeast or in your geographic area, that's a different story. But if you want to do office leasing or retail leasing, then you should start. You should. You should go where you want to end up and start building your network and your market knowledge and not move around a lot, because every time you move around again, it's. Real estate is a local business. So why do I own six properties within 10 minutes of my house? I know I beat. Every time I buy a property, I beat people out. Why do I beat people out? Because I know the market better than anyone now. If I went to Dallas and tried to buy a property, I wouldn't know the market as well. I wouldn't have the contacts like I do in South Florida. So I. If there's going to be a property sold in my neck of the woods, I always get the call from the brokers because they know I'm going to be the buyer or be one of the buyers. So there's just so much to be said for leverage with market knowledge, with relationships with understanding the school systems, the departments of transportation. What's going on? The city commission, One of my best deals ever, my most profitable deal came from a city commission meeting I was at where I was pitching money for my charity that I work on the side, and they announced they were going to outlaw strip clubs in this town. And there was a strip club on Main and Main that I had the, you know, I had the advanced intel on and started talking to the owner of the real estate and I won and got the deal. And it's my most. I knocked down the strip club and built a Starbucks strip center. Knocked on the strip club to build a strip center. Get it? But it was because I was at the city commission meeting in the town that I live in that I got the advanced intel two years in advance so that I could start laying the groundwork for them to sell to me.

Amazing. It makes so much sense, everything you're saying, Beth. This has been such incredibly helpful information and I just, I know that everyone has gotten so much out of this. And Brandon, thank you for your question. And unfortunately, this is all the time we have for today, but I'm hoping that you will all will go listen to this. We're going to post this on Tuesday and you can find it at Spotify or itunes or wherever you get your podcast. And if you haven't checked out my Real Estate Investing Live from New York podcast yet, please do so. Send your questions, your comments. You can connect with me at James Nelson NYC on Instagram or on Twitter or LinkedIn. We love answering questions and being helpful so you all can be the, the most successful investors possible. So with that, we're going to close this out. Beth, thank you so much for joining. Just tell us where we can find you. I know you've got a great website. You do so much to teach and inspire people. So where can they find that?

Bethasore.com and then LinkedIn and Instagram also. But I'm pretty active on LinkedIn.

Wonderful. Well, thank you all for joining us. Really appreciate the support and your questions. And until next week, this is James Nelson again.

Thank you for tuning in this week to Real Estate Investing live from New York. Please join your host, James Nelson for another program next Tuesday at 7pm in New York, 4pm Pacific Time on the Voice America Business Channel. All shows are rebroadcast on Wednesday mornings at 7:00am Eastern Time and 4:00am Pacific Time, as well as always on demand. We'll talk again next week.