Conquering the Glass Ceiling: Liz Faircloth's Strategies for Women in Real Estate

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This is the no Closer show where you get the latest developments in distressed note investing and learn the secrets of how you can control millions of dollars worth of property for panties on the dollar. Get educated and entertained by someone who has closed thousands of deals and lives to support you in achieving the same. Now here's your host CEO of We Close Nodes, Scott Carson.

Good morning, good afternoon and good evening everybody. Hey, welcome to this episode of the Note Closure show. As always, Scott Carson. Excited to be here with the day and I'm really excited to have our special guest on here. She's been a friend I've known I think about five or six years now going back. She has a huge, huge, huge heart for helping people succeed, especially women. And you may have heard her organization, you know she is the head honcho of the real estate invest, her network across the country. She's been a very, very active real estate investor. Rentals multifamily. She's building some big multi million property on a tear down area right now. She's rock and rolling next door to Bradley Cooper or something like that.

Yeah, right, we wish.

But she's also an author of the Only Woman in the Room which is a bestseller that talks about stories of 20 inspirational women out there overcoming knobs out there because let's face it, there is still a glass ceiling out there. There is a lot of the good old boy network out there. And you guys know that I'm very passionate about bringing successful women on here to help inspire our female audience to go out there and take advantage of things. And I don't think we have enough female speakers or educators out there banging the drum. Talk about that. It can get done. Things can do, you can all do amazing things. Doesn't matter whether you're here or her if you will take the action. So we are honored to have our friend Elizabeth Fairclough join us here on the podcast. Hey, what's going on Liz? How you doing today?

Doing great, Scott. Appreciate having me back on. I feel like was a couple years ago I was probably on this and I know you and I recently connected. So thank you so much for having me. Just want to add value as much as I can here.

Yeah, no problem, no problem. Yeah, it was great to catch up with you at fincon. You had a great presentation, you know.

Thank you.

I'm like, oh, we gotta get you back on. It's been too long for you.

But you appreciate it.

Can you share folks a little bit of your journey, A little bit how you kind of got where you're at and, and then we'll talk about kind of your. The fire that drives you with investor.

Yeah, absolutely. And, and you know there's different moments of our life, right. And it's like the one moment leads you to another opportunity which leads you to another opportunity. But I, I actually went to school for social work. I wanted to be a therapist and I think deep down I still am. I'm just not licensed to be honest with you. But during that time when I was really focused on getting my degree, my brother in law handed me rich dad, poor dad and he was the only entrepreneur I had ever known. I grew up in a great family, middle class family. My dad taught, my mom worked part time entrepreneurship and investing and all that good stuff really wasn't something I grew up with per se. So long story short, he handed me rich dad, poor dad and I read it. I was like, you know, and I know this is probably a lot of people say but you, you're like I'm, I'm reading about concepts I never heard of. And so that really started to get me intrigued with real estate investing and buying property to make money for me ver versus me trading my time right for money. And so at the time I had just began dating my husband, now husband and so we both started going to RIA conferences and learning as much as we can. This is 2004 Scott, so you can't see all my gray but I've been at this for 20 years. Long story short, after a year of education, bought our first property. My father loaned us the money that we needed which is 30,000 and that was part down payment, part and this is a different landscape but part down payment, part renovations. And that duplex got our start. We ended up ups, downs, you know, lots of curves but grew a portfolio of a couple thousand units. Now $150 million under, under management in four states. We take kind of dilapidated larger multis, turn it around and create, you know, income producing assets. Now we're involved actually in a bunch of new construction. We've kind of pivoted. I could talk about that why, but we pivoted. We have five different kind of 20 to 30 unit apartment complexes that we're building right now. So that's on the active side in terms of. As I met my now partner Andresa, we were both, we were partnering flips and new construction number of years ago and we'd always get together at different events and conferences. Quite honestly we felt like we were the only woman there and they were like oh, where Are your husbands and like, well, actually I do invest with my husband, but I do my thing, he does his thing. It's not like I run everything by him. And Andresa same. So we started to say, is there an opportunity here to really bring women together and create a safe space? And her and I have had different passions around supporting women in our lives. Different circumstances, different places. So we kind of joined together and said, what if we start a podcast and interview just women? We'd be inspired. We'd be inspiring other people. We were told we'd run out of women to. To interview because there's just not that many women investors. So that was what, seven years ago I've been at this. We launched Invest her and it was. We have a Facebook group of 17,000 women now. We did have chapters and meetups across the country. We do have a number of them still. We've converted that to our Invest her plus we have our mentorship program. But we do a lot of free teaching and coaching and support around empowering women to live financially free lives. So on their own terms, we're not promoting one thing or the other. It's all about what works for them. And so that's what gets me really excited. I'm also an active investor as well. I told you about a project we've kind of cooking right now, but I love we do at investher and that's really my start. And what really fuels me as well.

What do you think the top two or three things that holds back women from taking more action as real estate investors? I mean, you get a lot. Plenty of realtors and loan officers out there across the board or title. But pulling that trigger for their own investment deal.

Well, here's some statistics that's really interesting and I'm going to answer your question. But I want to give the landscape because again, like any community or business, I can have a hunch and say I really want to support women. But do women want to be supported? You know, like, it's got to be both. And so what has happened now is that women control $10 trillion of investable assets. In the next three to five years, that number is going to 30 trillion. So there's a huge wealth transfer that we're literally in the middle of. More and more women are coming into wealth for a variety of reasons. Inheritance, earning it, passing away of spouses. Right. Family, et cetera, et cetera. They're not feeling. But statistically, women aren't as confident in making investing decisions. I think the statistics show that women 79% of women across the households manage finances, so that's something they can handle, right? A lot of women, quite honestly, when it comes to investing that money, that percentage drops to 19%. So again, across the board, 19% of women have confidence in making the investing decisions honestly. That's why we exist, right? We're on a mission. Then here's another statistic, and it won't surprise you, Scott, is that women outperform men as investors. That's been proven time and time again. So women are just not doing it enough, but they're going to be forced to because they're coming into more wealth. So what we're on a mission to is to say, you know, you know, how do you get that confidence? Do you plug, plug into something? And we always believe that it's not just knowledge, because quite honestly, now more than ever, chat gdp, fill in the blanks. We get the knowledge on how to flip a property or buy a rental property. It's actually not rocket science. Not as easy, but it's not rocket science. But it's the community aspect that we're also committed to. So it's the knowledge plus the community. It gives you that confidence to say, I can do it because I got other people around me doing it, too. My neighbors don't think I'm crazy. My parents think I'm nuts for investing right now. Like, if you talk to most people, right, Scott, they're gonna think you're like, what I tell people what I'm doing on, on the. And they're like, well, that's so nice, Liz. And then they change the subject if they're not in my business, right? So the reason why the confidence piece is, is lacking, I believe, is that it does come back to societal norms, comes back to gender roles. Let's. Let's be honest. And it comes back to the way many women were raised, right? I mean, you know, from, from who we are naturally, who we are supposed to be. I mean, all of it fill in the blanks of just where gender leads people. And I don't know a lot of friends of mine who learned early on that you can, you can outperform as a man, as an investor, and you should be the one investing that narrative, right? Think of Wall street, right? Think of a white male. And it goes on and on. So there's a narrative societal piece to all this, right? And that aside, because I'm not going to change that. I'm not in the business of changing that. But what we can do is certainly support women on the journey, because when women really wanted men too, is to create lives that they love. To go pick up their kids from school, to travel, to live life on their own terms. Right. Financially free. Well, this is a means to get there.

Totally makes sense. 100 agree with everything you're saying there too. I also think it's also too. The fact that when women do go, they don't necessarily. They see the Bro Network, you know, the real estate bros, or as I sometimes. Well, I call a lot of them, douchepreneurs.

That's funny.

You know, the Lambo, the. The model stuff. I mean, it's like, come on, man. I mean, we. We identify with people that we see. We want to see somebody. Like, we identify with whether it's. It's sex or race or age, you know, experience. Oh, I want to learn from that person. Well, if you don't necessarily like the person that's teaching that or they don't identify with the same needs, causes, so. So, so societal norms. I guess you could say that, you know, like, well, I'm gonna go do something else. I'm gonna try to find something else out there. But you're 100% right when you said that women outperform guys and performance when it comes to ROI and things like that. I don't doubt that for a second because I think women are a lot more detailed than most men out there and are. It's that kind of. That nest. Creating a nest atmosphere. Hey, we want to make sure everything is good before we're going to leap.

In a lot of cases and that. And that is a good thing. And also sometimes gets in the way. Right? Because it's a mindset part. I'll meet people at a conference and they'll. And I'll say, hey, how are you doing? And like, what are you up to? And the person will. And it'll be a guy. And he's like, I'm killing it. I'm killing it. I got five properties. I'm, like, doing amazing. I'm going to be teaching everyone on the secrets of real estate investing after their five properties. So great. And then I meet a woman at the same conference, and this is a real story. And I said, how are you doing? What are you involved in? And she goes, I'm just getting started. I said, oh, what? You know, what does that look like to you? She goes, I have five properties. One's killing it, and they're going to become a real estate coach, and the other one is literally just starting. And that is what we're on a mission to also change, because it's not. And I, hey, I love the guy who says he's killing it. Awesome. God bless them. You know, I don't mean to diminish his light or diminish him. Go for it, dude. Love it. But the women, right, to say, I'm just starting. I don't know much. I just have five properties. That's how a lot of women come across. And they, they run a little more under the radar. And it's about being confident and assertive. It's not an arrogance. But that, that's an interesting dilemma. And so a lot of the work we do is not just core real estate investing strategies. It's also like, who am I being here? Who do I need to be to live the life I want? So it's mindset, it's business, it's real estate. It's a holistic. Right. It's not just how to generate more leads. Right. I mean, we all need that, right? There's a tactical piece to what we do, but it's more than that. And I. And that's what we really, really care about. You know, we even do a mastermind in our investor conversation conference once a year. We have that coming up in June, and we bring, we bring a woman on the stage. And we don't just talk about tactics or strategy. We talk about what's coming up for them. So it's a little therapeutic, right? It has that level of. Hold on. What do you. Hold on. This is a real estate conference. It is, but that's the work to be done to get you where you want to go. And that's really what we stand for. In addition to the tactical strategy, leads marketing, what do you do in today's market? Multifamily, new construction, all those sort of things.

Well, it's definitely that facet of rehabbing. Instead of rehabbing the property, rehabbing the investor. The mindset is. Is half of the journey in a lot of cases. The whether I think I can't do, I can do this and get rock and roll. And that's the great thing that I liked about your presentation there in fincon we're talking about was the, the roundtable discussions, you know, the really kind of bringing up the fears that people have or the, the facade of fear of things that can harm us in a lot of cases out there. And you've got this, you've been, you've put on the investor conference now how many years out? Four or five years or longer than.

This will Be our fourth in person, sixth one virtually. Because we started right in the midst of COVID Yeah. So it's a. It's in Orlando. It's an omni. We have it at a beautiful resort. And it's two and a half days of real estate investing, business strategies and self care. We bring speakers on and sessions on to touch those three pieces. But more importantly, the networking. Everyone's sitting in roundtables. It feels more like a retreat and an experience versus a conference. I come and go, no one knows who I am. Much more immersive, much more hands on. We actually analyze deals together during the conference. It's one of our favorite sessions called Deal or no Deal. And we actually analyze deals and we have women coming on the mic. Why would you invest in this deal? Why wouldn't you invest in this deal, this market? And it really gets to be real conversation versus just theory or whatever information happens at conferences. This is a really unique two and a half days we pour ourselves into. Yeah.

So I have to ask you this. You mentioned rich dad, poor dad in Kiyosaki, but I also know the co author of Sharon Lecter of that is.

A friend of mine. Yes, she's spoken.

That's great. Yeah, she's. She's just absolutely phenomenal and a passion for helping people. What are given other women that you look at as mentors who have been inspirational figures for you that you. You kind of maybe model yourself after or working to kind of get. Get that one.

Well, Kim Kiyosaki comes to my mind because of the relationship we built. Built with her. You know, we send her a video of us inviting her to be on our podcast. I think I recorded on a cd. You know, it was like ridiculous. But we always wanted to have her on our podcast. And we eventually got there. We got her on our podcast and then we invited her to speak and she's spoken at two of our events. And we even got together with her in doing some masterminding. Very successful woman, very humble, very real, very authentic. And she's very active, you know, in terms of growth. And I'm involved in this and I'm doing this and somebody that keeps reinventing herself. And she actually spoke last year on our stage, not about real estate investing, but it was a very honest, raw conversation around where she is and what she's doing and how she's reinventing herself even with the successes that she's had. And I love that because that's the kind of people that I think what we embody at our brand in our community is that no matter where you are in the journey, I don't care if you have 2,000 units, you're starting out. It's like where are you and what are you doing to reinvent yourself and be the best version of yourself no matter where you are on the stage. But yeah, I really adore her and really appreciate her and look up to her. But I love the women that come from all different aspects. The investors, the one that talks about just self care marketing. We have a woman doing a workshop on AI. It's changing by the day, right? She's like, I'm not even going to do my presentation until, I don't know, a couple days before the for. Because I, if I do it, it'll be, it'll be obsolete. But she's an expert in chat GDP and prompts and you know how to do all that. So that kind of thing is, is really important. I, I love all the women that we, we, we interview in our podcast or come to Investor Con. They all kind of bring a different element of expertise and that's what we want to build. I don't know everything about everything. A cat. I never will. Some days I scratch my head and I have those days of like, did I do anything useful today? I mean really. And, and I just, you know, and say I had a tough meeting earlier today and I was beating myself up not being prepared. I, I should have had this completed before the meeting. You know, those kinds of things. Self talk. And I got over it. I'm like, listen, moving forward, I'm going to do this. I made a mistake. Okay, let's move on. Versus beating myself up. So that way of being is really what I love to see in our speakers. And I'm that way. And you know, you just kind of keep on that authenticity path is really important.

What advice would you give to those that have failed at something in the past? Because I know that's one of the big things that holds a lot of people back. Oh, I failed at this. Or what if this thing could go wrong? And I, I think I know what you're going to say about it, but what kind of counsel would you give to folks out there where that was like one of the biggest fears we see? I'm afraid to fail. I'm afraid people are going to laugh at me. I'm not going to succeed or I come from a bad situation with a bad rental, a bad flip.

I think that, I think something I wish I had thought about when I had because I have failed A bunch of different times and different, different circumstances, right? Losing money, getting sued. I mean I can keep going on and on. All the craziness happens, being at this for, for many years.

But that's, that's kind of normal if you're investor, it is totally normal.

If you haven't been sued, I don't know if you're even, you know, at a point that in your career, right, it's like, okay, everyone's been sued. I think, you know, the first time I lost money just to give a fear. Losing money is a big fear in this business, right? You're not investing with $1,000. Especially if you're investing with other people's money, it's even a bigger fear, right? And I'm always a big fan of getting your house in order, you know, investing initially yourself, building a really good business and then getting other people involved. It's nervous to me when people have no experience and then they're using other people's money to do that unless they have some really big strategy in place to circumvent that. But regardless, for us, we had lost $50,000 in a deal and I said to my brother in law, I said I'm so upset, like we're, I, I, we shouldn't keep doing this. That's clear that I should stop and go back to corporate. I was very good at sales, I can do that well. He goes, congratulations. I said, I don't think you heard what I said. I don't know if you, the music's too loud here. But I lost, I didn't make 50,000 because. No, I heard you, I heard you loud and clear. But no, he didn't say but. And I'm glad you lost that money because now you're not going to lose that money again and you're going to learn much faster. Had you, had you took another six months to lose that money, you wouldn't have learned the lesson now and it wouldn't have accelerated you. So for me, I really believe that what we fear, we need to embrace the fear is natural, right? I mean I'm investing in a project, literally buying a $2 million property to tear it down, right? In a luxury market. It's a market that I know you know and there's a new team put in place. There's certain things I'm mitigating the risk, but certainly my awareness is up. But I know it's going to be a successful project. I don't, the fear didn't stop me by doing this deal because of all my experiences leading up to this. Meaning you have to let the fear guide you to mitigate your risk, not to stop you. Your fear is an emotion, right? And it's there to protect you. It's your ego to protect you. But it's usually bringing up good points, quite honestly, that you, you should look at versus like, no, I shouldn't fear this new project. Well, no, I sure as hell better because I want to keep my ducks in a row so I can do as well as I can with it. So use fear, I believe, as a, I use it as a tool. I use it as a guide. I don't try to avoid it because I know I'm going to feel it in different circumstances and it's normal. And it's continued to be normal as I up level myself. So I, I do believe it's more of a, a good thing in the bigger scheme of it versus avoiding it. It's just, I think the biggest challenge people have is they don't learn from it. So had I lost that 50,000 and I had I repeated that same way, I lost that money, then I'm full, then I'm clear, you know, not to beat myself up. But then you got to learn from what you're doing and put a system, a person in place so you can avoid that next time because you're going.

To make sure you're gonna make mistakes. No matter how experience are, you're gonna have fear that keeps you up. But the fear is understanding. Okay, it's there, but how am I mitigating that? How am I avoiding the risks or how am I overcoming that? And you know, it's good to hear from. Somebody's been around just about as long as I have. We're about the same amount, even in 2004, when I first got really kind of started, was that you still have fear. Like a deal is gonna keep me up at night sometimes as I'm thinking about things. But I know how to. We're going to go in this path or that path and overcome that fear and make it, make it a win.

I think what ends up happening too, Scott, especially for women, because we've interviewed women, right? We, we're, we're, we're obsessed with knowing what they, what they fear, right? And what their challenges are. And I don't know about men, and I'm sure there's a lot of similarities in this, but women like to do things themselves. They get done, excuse my French, you know, they're running a household, they're doing this, they got 85 different things. And they get it done because they've learned how to do things themselves. They've learned to rely on themselves. And so we really try to break that. To say, you don't need to rely on yourself. It's almost like having this advisory board to say, hey, I'm working through a challenge. How do you and I know a woman in our community that she pretty much like we jumped into the Facebook group every time she was dealing with a challenge to get to closing. So every time she had a new thing that popped up. Right. A new challenge. We're all like, well, we know somebody there. We can make an introduction. And when you have a community behind you, you feel like this support in a different way. Because I've been at this a long time, same with my husband. Our level of resourcefulness is high. I'm resourceful. We have built relationships. So there's no challenge that we can deal with. Even if I don't know what the challenge is, I don't think we can. I have no doubt we can get through it with a certain amount of money and with certain problem solving. I really am. That's what I'm confident on. Am I fearful on what's going to happen and how it's. Yeah, sure. But I'm not, not going to let that stop me.

What are some challenges that you're seeing right now in the different markets that you're in? I mean, we talked about a couple things beforehand, but things that you have to kind of embrace or figure out. Okay, we've got to tweak our business model in some sort of fashion and get things done.

Yeah, I think they're, you know, especially in like the multi family craze. Right. People bought stuff during. During COVID and some people did great because it was, you know, it was 30% lower than asking than they, than after. And they're thriving in that situation because the interest rate was locked in. I think people bought at a certain. And then other people bought properties over leveraged. And you're seeing a lot of like multifamily operators struggling right now, you know, across the board. Right. And seasoned ones. Not, not people that should have never got into the business. So there's a. Plenty of those too. But, but, but certain markets and certain ways that you're purchasing assets and knowing all the risks associated, especially with interest rates are all, they're all part of this business. So I think buying. Right. I think that the core fundamentals are always key. What's needed right now and where can you create opportunity for others. We shifted from kind of existing multifamily structures. Not that we'll never buy one again, but we haven't bought one in a while, to building new builds because we saw such an opportunity. Number one more, there was a need in the markets that we were looking in more up and coming markets, not markets that were saturated for new housing. The new construction was desirable from the town perspective. And the finances work. Right? What, what we can get investors in for, what we can refinance it for, what we can rent it for, all of those things. Right. And the numbers were not working out on existing 1975 vintage sort of multifamily assets. Not saying they can't work or people are not buying them now. I just know for our business model and what returns we were looking for, they were starting to not work and we were aggressively looking for them. Right. We had brokers bringing us deals. It wasn't like, so is this a time to buy, Is this a time to sell? We're selling a lot of our assets and doing a lot of new construction right now. That's the, that's what we're doing because it's, some of them are actually equipped to really exceed our investors expectations. So you're always constantly saying, okay, what's needed in the market? What do we, you know, what's our business model and how do we thrive? So there's always an opportunity to thrive, Scott. But I think it's a matter of shifting and not just like head in the sand. This is the way you do it. This is a different market than it was a few years ago. Certainly was different 20 years ago that I, you know, it changes, it evolves, it's like different, you know, every, every kind of stage of, and it's not like every month, right. But stages like every few years something shifted and you have to be mindful of that.

Totally, totally agree. Yeah, I was saying that when I saw people are paying for multifamily, I'm like, it's cheaper for you to buy or buy the land and then build it yourself to go out and make things happen aspect of things. Especially in markets that aren't saturated. There was a big need for that. So many markets did get oversaturated. We see that happening here in Central Texas, Austin, San Antonio.

Oh yeah.

You know, Dallas is almost that aspect as well. But there is a big need for affordable housing out there. So I know that you, when you launched Investor, you had different meetup groups across the country. How many groups did you have at the peak, I know that's changed because of COVID shutting a lot of those down.

But we, we had over 50, 50 meetups across the country. And, you know, we. We had a good problem on our hands. Scott. The need for local community. I mean, real estate is hyperlocal. Let's be honest. What I'm dealing with in my. And the lender I'm working with is in California. I. I'm in Pennsylvania. So they're like, how old is this property? And it's on the, like, you're. You're kind of getting people up to speed because it's a different market.

Yeah.

What you can do here versus what you can do in other locations. Right. Real estate will always be hyperlocal. So, yeah, we wanted to create, and we did create local groups of women coming together. And some of these locations were thriving. Some of them had two women, three women. So we said, let's really create, have the same structure in place, same consistency, and really build a platform together so women could meet each other in different chapters, still attend local chapters, but also get a ton of other resources around the knowledge, the community, so then they can take confident action. So we've shifted because at the end of the day, our investor con is very popular. Women are like, oh, my God. This is like such at a level that even our sponsors, like, we don't have this experience at any of their conferences. The way you treat us, that structure you put in place. So, like, what if we put that kind of level of quality structure and put it into our. Our chapters, we're calling them, they were great, but we just. Great's not good enough. Right. We really want to be excellent and known for that. So we, we converted our, our chapters to being part of Investor plus, which is a new platform we've created. Really, really worked really hard on it. It's. It's an online platform, but chapters are kind of part of it where you can attend, and people were attending them for free. And there's nothing wrong with free, Scott. But I do believe if you are going to be a successful real estate investor there, it becomes a point you have to invest in yourself. I mean, investor plus costs $180 a year. If you can spend $180 to get connected to other women, to join local groups, to take an on demand course on how to buy and scale your portfolio, then I don't think this business is for you, to be honest with you. I don't mean to be mean, but it's just not. It's inconsistent so we feel we, we've found. Okay, let's change the structure a little bit. So women are actually investing in themselves and they're going to find that they are more committed versus when you go to networking, Scott, it's like some random people, some people who just woke up red, rich dad, poor dad, no offense. Some people are like really committed and, and we found that the women we were surrounding ourselves takes a lot for them to be part of something. They don't do it willy nilly. They don't have a lot of time to waste, not now, not with managing a lot in their space. So Investor plus has got, you know, a way for women to kind of connect with women across the country through matching where I, I have an asset class. You have an asset class. Let's get together for a zoom call. So very, very specific strategic networking, which networking isn't always that way. And then there's a bunch of other resources in there in terms of like an on demand course. Over 11 hours worth of me and Andresa team teaching women how to not only buy their first property but grow their portfolio. We bring on like 10 experts from taxes to knowing the market you're in and all those good things really chock full like our best course I think we've ever done and then all the chapters are included. So we're rebuilding and we're looking for new chapter leaders that want to have excellence and have a local group where if you go to Atlanta, if you go to New York, you're singing off the same sheet of music and stand for the same mission that we all embody. So it's kind of an exciting time for this program and this platform and we even created a free assessment Scott, where anyone can take this. Go to our website right now, the realestate investor.com and you'll see it in the middle of the page. But what kind of investor are you? It's a quiz, really cool quiz and it'll basically spit out one of four profiles whether you're beginning. I'm not going to tell you all the different profiles but it's. And it's a really cool. And you get an action plan and no strings attached, straight, free. And the action plan's good. You know when you take quizzes and they just did it so they could get your email and it tells you complete nonsense. I said we're not doing that. I, I can't. We're not going to spend our energy in creating something that's nonsense. So we put our heads together and it's a really cool action. It's like four steps of an action plan that if you do nothing with us take that and do what those four things say you'll you probably move the needle on your investing journey. So got a lot going on to to support women on the journey for sure.

Definitely. Knowing which route you should invest in is great to know because we get so many people oh I want to do this. Well, tell me about what you've done or what you want to do and what you really want to do. Don't match up. You know in some cases there your expectations don't make sense for what you want to achieve in a lot of cases or what you're willing to put the time in or have time available.

The biggest thing anyone listening and I think we always have to do this is I have a I was reading some of our our our mentees, our strive mentees planners like alignment planners. Literally we go through all of them and give them feedback and one of them said I'm just not sure what direction to go and I can either do short term rentals or I can do, you know, flip flips. Right now I'm just not sure what to do. And the next question is what's your North Star? And I feel like when you don't know where where your vision is for five years anything will do. It gets confusing. There's a lack of clarity. You get pulled in different directions. Very easy to get pulled when there's not a clear like agreed upon vision. And when your partner is involved or not involved, there are involved. If your money's involved that then takes that energy to say what is our vision together? So we're really really laser focused. Then that answer to say what makes sense in today's market, asset class and strategy becomes much easier because you know where you're headed because it's all got to match. Right. I mean I can want to fix and flip in a in an area that is a high rental area but I may not be able to flip it right. I mean there's only so much you can do. It's like it will align with my market. The trends, what's needed in the housing sector. But that North Star Scott it seems like such a basic thing like oh what's my vision? What's my vision? I've been told that before but honestly if you poll most people they don't have a current five year vision for themselves but yet they're they're wondering why they feel so with a lack of clarity it's because of that. And then your family's not enrolled. My family is like, we're all on the same page. Okay, how do we get there? How do we need to pivot? So that North Star I always call it is critical for. Even for me and you, you've been at. It's even more important, honestly, for people that have experience, because then you start just getting more deals underway and you're like, what are we buying that building for? Have we hit our number? Yeah, we have, but we have this business built, so just keep doing what we're doing. Where's it all going? Right? Where are we headed? What's meaningful here? So those conversations are always helpful to have. Not every day, but certainly on a yearly basis. And my husband and I revamped our vision for where we want to be in five years and are committed to it. Right. And our couldn't take steps every day to. So when this flip came up, okay, does this align with where we're headed? And the answer was yes. But if I had not that vision, it's a distraction we have really. We're both very busy in our businesses with investor and Dorosa. So we could have said now it's not the right time, but because it aligns with our vision and we have some space that. That makes it worth it.

So, so important having that plan. What do you. What's that big goal? Whether it's two years or five years, definitely. And it is. I agree totally. When you've been around for a while, you've been doing enough deals, you got to have a North Star, something that's going to keep you, keep you passionate because otherwise you burn out. I've seen so many friends burn out or flame out because they're just exhausted and chasing the next flip, the next rehab, and they're not really giving anything, giving anything back to their community or back and stuff like that. Now you're, you're a mom as well, right? You got a couple kids?

Yes, I do. Yeah. 11 year old and a 7 year old boy and girl, girls, Older boy, younger girl. Yeah.

So how is what you've learned affected how you teach your kids? Are your kids excited to be in real estate as well? Are they like, oh, no, I'm not. Quit talking about it. You know, that kind of stuff or, you know, some of the lessons learned from rich dad, poor dad and other things along the way. What are you instilling in your kids?

Yeah, it's a great question. Right. And, and obviously it's always age appropriate, but you know, for, for, for me and Matt. We do monthly meetings with our kids. And so we like to call it like, they get like a, they don't get allowance, but they get like a monthly stipend. And there's certain chores that are associated to that. Right. So. And then we'll talk about a project. So one time we were in a building that had a bunch of little restaurants and it was all. They. You tell. It was one of those converted factories and it was basically all these different restaurants, shops, really cool space in, in. In here in town called Doylestown, Pennsylvania. Anyway, we said, we started talking about, we were like, this is a great property to talk about real estate investing because there's a landlord, there's different tenants. So the kids went around, they did like a little project. They like, okay, what would you be able to get for this space? And then they put, you know, square footage. I mean, we, we, you know, we help them, but it got their wheels turning. Right. So I, I feel like it's not always like, okay, kids, I'm going to teach you a real estate lesson. It's more of like where we are and how we're doing things. You know, obviously, you know, give, spend, you know, you're always giving, you're always spending, always spending. But there's, there's a place for investing and giving and, and it certainly. What does that look like? I think the other big thing we're doing is getting one of the whys for us for our local project, beyond just wanting to get our creative juices going. And we hadn't, we haven't done a flip in a few years was actually to have our kids learn the process and really to be involved in a local project. We were so locally involved early on where we were doing everything. We were in it like, we didn't have kids for eight years, so they didn't see any of that. Then they got, they were born when we started buying apartment complexes further away from us. So again, they didn't, they didn't see that kind of sweat, blood and tears as we started. So we really. Not that they need to see us blood, sweat and tears, but I, they, I need to, I want them to see local projects. So honestly, that was a big, big reason to do something locally for just. And we're going to actually, they're going to invest in the project along with us. So they both have savings accounts that they've gotten, you know, Christmas money, whatever. And we're going to talk about, you know, we're going to talk about, do we they both said they want to invest in the project because it's all. We're. We're self funding, self funding, the down payment and everything. And they're going to come along with us and they're going to get an interest and we're going to talk about that. And so they're really excited, not just as investors, but to see the hard work that goes into it, because it isn't just glorious, right? There's decisions that need to be made. But yeah, the monthly meetings and the constantly kind of talking about the business in a way that's kind of interesting. And the other thing I do with my daughter, my son, too. I obviously pumped my son up, but I don't know if he needs as much of that. My daughter, I read a book to her every night called Women who Dare, and it's like the best book. And it talks about women you've never heard about, but they're great stories. Like the woman who went over Niagara falls, she was 60 years old. I mean, I still talk about it.

In a barrel and survived.

Yes, and in a barrel that survived. Right. I'm like, talk about courage. And she's like, she loves that story. I read a story last night about the woman, a really, really cool story about a woman who basically got arrested in the United States in the early 1900s because she was showing too much skin. So she just, she got out of jail and decided to start a women's swimsuit line. And my daughter was like, I never heard of her before. So really cool. Women's stories that, like women that are not famous necessarily, but really cool stories. Because that's just getting baked into her head too, you know, entrepreneurship, daring, bold. You know, I said, don't go over the Niagara Falls in a barrel. Please don't do that. But minus that, you know, all the other stories are very. She could repeat. But that's the. That's what I'm doing with my kids. Just trying to embrace and also quality of life. Scott, why do we do this? You know, it's not like I'm working till a midnight. Some nights I have to catch up on things, but I'm often helping them with homework. And they know that I work for myself, so I have the ability to do that. I come downstairs and help them with their homework every day. So that's important to, like, the balance and the who I'm being as a mom and spending time with them and not just working all the time. That's not why I do what I do.

That's awesome. So awesome. So, so glad to see growth and you're doing so well and you've had your bumps along the road like everybody else does, but doing great things out there to really expand your message and really helping others take that next step, get over that hurdle, whether it's physically or in person or mentally, whatever it is, to really take their business next level. Now, what's the best way for our audience to connect with you? Or check out the membership or check out the investor con that's coming up in June?

Yeah, our, our website's such a helpful place. The realestate investher H-E-R.com on that, on that homepage, you can scroll to the middle and there's a little more about Invest her plus and what it includes. Like I said, it's, it's less than like 50. 50 cents, 50 cents a day. Like when you think about coffee and it's literally 180 bucks a year. And you get so much strategic networking and, you know, on demand course and just so much all the chapters. But then if you scroll down, there's that free what type of investor quiz are you? And it's right in the middle of our webpage. In terms of connecting with me, I'd love to hear from you. We have a free Facebook group, so you're, you're certainly welcome to, to go over there. We have 15. No, I'm sorry, 16,000 women. But it's a very active group of women asking questions, getting support that they need. And that's just, that's just investher community dot com. I mean, not dot com. I'm sorry.

We'll put links, both of those to the Facebook group and then website and tag me.

I'm Elizabeth. I'm Elizabeth. I mean this sincerely. I'd love to hear one thing you learn and what you're doing and post it. In the Facebook group. We talk about accountability. I'm Elizabeth Randazzi Faircloth. In our Facebook group, I'm very active. I look at it every day. I'd love to hear, like, what did you learn and what action you're taking as a result of this podcast with Scott. Because that to me is what success looks like. It's not about having all the answers. It's just literally taking small steps, doing what you say you're going to do every day, step by step. That's how big things get created. And you know, and I, I take my own, I take my own advice when I get overwhelmed. Take it down. Do one thing at a time. It's all good. You know, have grace with yourself.

Well, there's nothing more joyful or we get more excited about here than seeing people closing on their first deal or landing their first private investor or just seeing success no matter what that is. Because there's a different definition for everybody. Whether it's a $5,000 note or it's a $500,000 note or it's a flip or whatever it might be a wholesale deal. It's always great to see people hit success or have success. And that builds so much belief, not only in themselves, but they not sharing that message. They can't share that belief growth with the network out there. So kudos to you for the Facebook group and everything that you're doing out there.

Well, and also what it does too, Scott, is it builds confidence in yourself. It does. And it creates momentum. It's like, oh, I can do this and you can, you can, you know, and it's. It's just a matter of surrounding yourself with other people and building. Building you up versus tearing it down. Just a unique business. Not everyone's doing it and. Or they think it's hdtv. Right? It's not.

No, it's not there, but it's not rewarding. And the freedom that comes along with it is just amazing. And being able to pass that on and helping others achieve things that they couldn't, couldn't think of success or getting to where they're at in five years and looking back and never understanding how they could have gotten there without having success. And mentors. And that's what we all need, good mentors and people out there to help us along the way. So, Liz, thank you so much for coming on and sharing it. We'll put the links to the website, the Facebook group, and also the event in the discussion there for you. But go out there and keep kicking off the mask and then make sure when you close and open up the house there, even let Bradley Cooper know. I'm sure he'd be glad to see.

Yeah, I know, right? Thank you for having me on, Scott.

Great. No problem. Great to see you as well. All right, guys, that's going to wrap it for this episode. Take advantage of what she shared, you know, less than 50 cents a day out there to get plugged into her group and into the investor community out there and take that assessment and learn. And if you're wanting to exponentially grow your business, hey, sounds like a great class to get started there. So go out, take some action, buddy, and we'll see at the top.

Hey.

Real estate investors, this is Scott Carson. I'm known across the country as the note guy and I've been an active note investor focused primarily on the niche of non performing notes, distressed mortgage notes on residential commercial properties for almost 20 years now. My company is we close notes.com and I know there's a lot of different things when it comes to the note world. Are you buying performing notes? Are you buying owner finance notes? Are you buying institutional debt? Like I would focus on, Are you buying first seconds contract for deeds? There's a lot of questions and it can be very confusing about what you can or cannot do. So one of the great things that we've hosted for the last couple years that we do on just about a regular monthly basis is we host our one day class called Note Weekend. If you go to noteweekend.com you can register for our free three and a half hour class. We'll talk to you and share with you how you find fun and flip non performing notes. And yes, you can buy non performing notes from banks, hedge funds and a variety of different hard money lenders out there for your own portfolio. No, you don't have to have millions of dollars to dive into the non performing note game. We've got students that have bought plenty of deals with 2530 grand getting their ball rolling using their self directed IRA who are tired of dealing with toilets, tenants, trash desks, tired of battling contractors and GCs to get properties rehabbed. We all know the market is changing and while it may not be like 2008, 9 and 10 again, it we do see a lot of distressed debt out there on both the residential and the commercial side. So if you're thinking about diving into the note game, becoming a note investor, a lean lord as you'd like to say, versus a landlord. Or you just want to figure out what it is about the sexy side of real estate in the note space. We'll check it out. Note Weekend.com doesn't cost you anything. We host it live usually the first or second Saturday of each month. You can go today. Register at the website noteweeking.com Register for the next live class we host. You'll get sent a replay to the previous class so you can start learning about the note business today. No questions asked, no credit card needed. This is a great way for you to dip your toes in the water and see if it's warm because I guarantee going through our 31 day class, you want to dive into the deep end and become a note investor. So check it out. Noteweekend.com you can also go to our website weclosenotes.com check out our podcast. Check out our YouTube number one YouTube channel. We are here to help support you. Whether you're experienced investor or you're brand new investing Note Weekend is a great place for you to get the ball rolling. People often say we cover more in our three hour class than most people cover in their three day class. So check it out. Love to have you be part of our Note family, but get signed up today@noteweekend.com thanks and have a great day.

Sam Sa.