Moneeka Sawyer is often described as one of the most blissful people you will ever meet. She has been investing in Real Estate for over 20 years, so has been through all the different cycles of the market. Still, she has turned $10,000 into over $5,000,000, working only 5-10 hours per MONTH with very little stress.
While building her multi-million dollar business, she has traveled to over 55 countries, dances every single day, supports causes that are important to her, and spends lots of time with her husband of over 20 years.
She is the international best-selling author of the multiple award-winning books "Choose Bliss: The Power and Practice of Joy and Contentment" and “Real Estate Investing for Women: Expert Conversations to Increase Wealth and Happiness the Blissful Way.”
Moneeka has been featured on stages including Carnegie Hall and Nasdaq, radio, podcasts such as Achieve Your Goals with Hal Elrod, and TV stations including ABC, CBS, FOX, and the CW, impacting over 150 million people.
Welcome to the Real Estate Investing for Women Podcast!
Where we focus on all aspects of Real Estate Investing, including strategies, mindset, emotional mastery, money smarts, and much more, to ensure your success!
Today I’d like to welcome to the show our guest Ali Boone!
Formerly an Aerospace Engineer, Ali Boone is a lifestyle entrepreneur, author, and real estate investor. After leaving her 9-to-5 to pursue ultimate freedom through entrepreneurship, her company Hipster Investments managed to facilitate over $18M in real estate transactions in its first five years of business.
She has Master’s degrees in both Aerospace Engineering and Spiritual Psychology. Ali also teaches flying and can often be found snowboarding or volunteering in prisons. Her ultimate goal is to one day challenge Tim Ferriss to a lifestyle design duel.
Hello Ali! Welcome to the show!
In This Episode We Talked About:
6 steps to get started in the least risky way
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Learn how to create a consistent income stream by only working 5 hours a month the Blissful Investor Way.
Moneeka Sawyer is often described as one of the most blissful people you will ever meet. She has been investing in Real Estate for over 20 years, so has been through all the different cycles of the market. Still, she has turned $10,000 into over $5,000,000, working only 5-10 hours per MONTH with very little stress.
While building her multi-million dollar business, she has traveled to over 55 countries, dances every single day, supports causes that are important to her, and spends lots of time with her husband of over 20 years.
She is the international best-selling author of the multiple award-winning books “Choose Bliss: The Power and Practice of Joy and Contentment” and “Real Estate Investing for Women: Expert Conversations to Increase Wealth and Happiness the Blissful Way.”
Moneeka has been featured on stages including Carnegie Hall and Nasdaq, radio, podcasts such as Achieve Your Goals with Hal Elrod, and TV stations including ABC, CBS, FOX, and the CW, impacting over 150 million people.
As a car crash survivor, in which it left Donavon Hunteman with chronic pains for more than a decade, Donavon chose to live a limitless life. In a short time, Donavon has Interviewed many influencers including Dr. Joe Vitale from the movie “The Secret”, hang out with Forbes Riley, a $2.5 Billion Co-Host of Home Shopping Network, and many high caliber influencers. He has shared the stage with Henry Gold, Peter Wolfing, James Neville-Taylor to name a few.
At a very young age, he served as the Content Director for Limitless Nation TV.
Donavon lives his life based on the principle of serving. It is also the reason WHY his partners and clients love, respect, and willing to do whatever it takes to work with him.
Show: Limitless Nation TV
In This Episode We Talked About:
Have Multiple goals
Why bigger than yourself
Master the V principle
Kicking the ball
EXTRA: 4 keys to living an impossible life
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Learn how to create a consistent income stream by only working 5 hours a month the Blissful Investor Way.
Moneeka Sawyer is often described as one of the most blissful people you will ever meet. She has been investing in Real Estate for over 20 years, so has been through all the different cycles of the market. Still, she has turned $10,000 into over $5,000,000, working only 5-10 hours per MONTH with very little stress.
While building her multi-million dollar business, she has traveled to over 55 countries, dances every single day, supports causes that are important to her, and spends lots of time with her husband of over 20 years.
She is the international best-selling author of the multiple award-winning books “Choose Bliss: The Power and Practice of Joy and Contentment” and “Real Estate Investing for Women: Expert Conversations to Increase Wealth and Happiness the Blissful Way.”
Moneeka has been featured on stages including Carnegie Hall and Nasdaq, radio, podcasts such as Achieve Your Goals with Hal Elrod, and TV stations including ABC, CBS, FOX, and the CW, impacting over 150 million people.
Life can put many roadblocks in our way. But as people, as humans, we can triumph past these obstacles and live a limitless life. Our host, Moneeka Sawyer is joined in this episode by content director, affiliate manager, and car-crash survivor, Donavon Hunteman. Donavon shares his life journey, triumphing over the physical limitations caused by a car crash, and what he learned he can do. Donavon also shares his four key principles that helped him recover and connect with people.
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Watch the episode here
Listen to the podcast here
Live A Limitless Life With Donavon Hunteman – Real Estate For Women
Real Estate Investing For Women
I am so excited to welcome to the show myfriend, Donavon Hunteman. As a car crash survivor which left Donavon with chronic pain for more than a decade, he chose to live a limitless life. In a short time, Donavon has interviewed many influencers including one of my favorites, Dr. Joe Vitale, from the movie, The Secret. He hangs out with Forbes Riley, a $2.5 billion cohost of the Home Shopping Network and many high caliber influencers. He has shared the stage with Henry Gold, Peter Wolfing, James Neville-Taylor to name a few. At a very young age, he served as the Content Director for Limitless Nation TV which is where I met him. Donavon lives his life based on the principle of serving. It is also the reason why his partners and clients love, respect and arewilling to do whatever it takes to work with him. Donavon, welcome to the show.
Thank you so much for having me here. I’m so excited.
Ladies, to give you a little perspective on how I met Donavon, I joined a program called something like Limitless Life with one of Donavon’s partners. One of the things that I got with that was I got to be on their show at LimitlessNationTV. We set up the interview. Finally, I meet this guy, the host. He’s Donavon Hunteman. He’s young and hip. It was one of the best interviews of my life. I felt so connected. His heart for service was there in so many ways. I wanted to share him with you. Part of what we connected on was both of us are car crash survivors. For me, I had a horrible car crash. I was a professional world-class dancer at the time. It took away my legs. They wanted to put me in a chair. I was a cripple for two years and didn’t recover for about ten. His and my story are so similar. I wanted him here to inspire you and show you what’s possible no matter what. Donavon, I’m so excited to share your story.
I’m excited to share with your audience and to be able to be around limitless people like yourself.
Tell us all about you. I want to know what happened.
A little bit of a backstory is the way I am now is nowhere near what I was before. When I was younger, I was raised with a lot of discipline. It wasn’t always an optional thing. Some people are told to go clean up the room. Me, it was clean up your room or get spanked. There were discipline and rules. It worked great until it didn’t because about 13 or 14, those are the rebellious years to some people, at least for me, it was. I changed my hairstyle into that of a mohawk, 12 inches tall. I had a product called that stuck it straight up. My parents were not that happy, but that was where my mindset was.
Fast forward back in 2010, my sister and I had finished doing a unicycling parade, which at the time was exciting because everyone was looking at me and my Mohawk. It was crazy. Towards the end of that unicycle ride, it started to rain. The parade got done. We loaded up the unicycles and started the ride home. On the way back home, we were on some highway next to the Campbell River in Ohio which has a series of S curves. With it being a complete downpour, my mom driving went around one of the curves and the car hydroplanes. From that hydroplane, it went off the road, hit a ditch, hit a telephone pole and back into the ditch.
That’s good and bad. It’s good that it hit the ditch because if it had gone the other way, we would have gone off to the edge and into the river. The bad part was I was in this part of the car where the telephone pole decided to kiss it. That wasn’t fun for me. I blacked out on impact. My mom and sister were able to get out of the vehicle without any injuries whatsoever other than being shaken up and seatbelt burn. I’m stuck in this car. I’m unconscious. From what I’m told, I had to be cut out of the vehicle. When I was cut out of the vehicle, it was determined that I needed immediate medical attention. I got an $8,000 helicopter ride but I still don’t remember. I know it’s exciting.
I had what was called white lights which is you can view things around you but you can’t see anything. I don’t remember talking to any of the doctors. I don’t remember the CAT scans, MRI, any of that stuff. I do remember waking up. After asking a series of questions. I ask if I could get up, eat and leave. It’s funny because I’d answer all three of those questions with the resounding no. I had sustained massive trauma, multiple broken bones, the entire side of my face was bruised. What I didn’t know at the time was I had significant nerve damage as well as I was in a neck brace and a lot of other variables. That was crazy because everyone and even the nurses were telling me, “Normally, people in the car accident that I was in, they don’t make it out alive.”
The fact that I was even able to be there was much, in their terms, a miracle. After talking to the nurse and I spent the night there, no surprise to that, the nurse told me, “Essentially, we put all this effort into you to keep you alive because your life is worth something. You might as well do something with it. It’s going to make it even better.” From that point, I decided that I wanted to change everything. I decided that I don’t need to be in this rubble anymore. I want to turn everything around, start being productive, help people and have the mission to help my family. The next day, the helicopter pilot gives me a teddy bear. I still have it to this day but I had no idea who he was. He also shared with me that I should have been dead.
He’s a little bit politically correct when he said that but still, at this point, he made his way home there. From that point forward, I decided to do everything that I could to get out of the hospital and get better. As soon as I got out of the hospital, that day I had a new haircut, new hairstyle, changed my clothes, changed my friends, started exercising and got myself to a completely different level. What I didn’t know walking out was that I had nerve damage in my leg, what that exact nerve damage was the tibia in my left knee had moved enough to pinch my sciatic nerve which is a nerve that goes from your toe to the middle of your back. It’s excruciatingly painful. Some people have called it similar to that of childbirth. I can’t say that for sure because I’m not that. After a few months of my leg being completely numb, I found a way to alleviate some of the pain. I also found four principles that helped shape my life in such a way that I’m now living an impossible life. Would you like me to share with you those four principles?
I would love that.
Limitless Life: Albert Einstein says, “Whatever type of problem that the thinking creates, you can’t use that same type of thinking to solve that problem.”
The first principle is to have multiple goals. You can’t have one goal because if you do, you’re going to run into a standstill. The second principle is to have a why greater than yourself. If you’re doing something solely for yourself, it’s easy to get sidetracked or lose your motivation. The third principle is to master what’s called a B principle. It’s a creative way to balance, “Am I focusing so much on the past than I’m losing focus on people?” The fourth principle is to kick the ball forward which is in layman’s terms, if you want to score a goal, you have to kick the ball and have to move forward.
Using those four principles, I was able to recover 98% from my car accident and connect with people like Moneeka all around the world who have incredible energy, who are passionate about helping people. That was part of my mission after that point. I met Henry Gold and I discovered that when you take something that’s not all focused on yourself, you find someone else’s dream or someone else’s passion and what they’re doing in their world that can inspire somebody else, there’s no other feeling like that. To be able to share that story with somebody else to inspire somebody else to say, “No matter what’s going on in your life, somebody else has already had it or had it worse. You can bounce back from it, no matter what’s going on.”
You are a perfect example of that. I like how you told that story with a big smile on your face the entire time. That was horrifying.
I was rather terrified at the moment. From that experience, I don’t like being in hospitals. It wasn’t that fun because realizing that you have lost all control in an instant like this. The last thing I remember was sitting in a car and that we were going to go to a banquet because my brother and I had placed second in the state of Ohio for being the best chap shoes in the state. We were going forward with that career opportunity. Being in that car accident changed everything because now with broken bones in my hand, I wasn’t able to practice. I wasn’t able to get back to where I was as quickly as I needed to be. It changed the dynamics of what matters because when you’re in the middle of a hospital or better yet if you all of a sudden lose your breath, have shortness of breath, you’re not thinking about, “Is this person going to call me? Is this person going to text me? Is this deal going to close?”
All you’re focusing on is, “How do I get there and into me?” At the end of the day, going through that traumatic experience helps re-evaluate or re-align the paradigm to realize what matters in your life. If it’s something that only you want to focus on or something that other people can also get behind you on that you’re helping more than just yourself, where you can leave a legacy. Moneeka, you have an incredible legacy and you’re still working on it. You’ve written 2 or 3 books now. You’re impacting over 100 million people. That is a legacy that no one else can take away from you. You’re doing it because you care and want to share with other people.
Ladies, we’re about to know more about how to implement those four keys in EXTRA. Donavon, can you tell us a little bit about what you’re up to and how my ladies can reach you if they want to?
The best way to reach me is through Facebook. Look up @DonavonHunteman. I’m on another passion project of helping business owners, marketers and as many people as possible because with everything going on in the world, I’m realizing that more people are suffering. As a result, more people need help. It’s not a shame to ask for help. What I do is help anyone and everyone who wants to grow their business, whether that’s an email list, an affiliate product or even a physical business. The best way to explain it is I am a solo ads provider. The best way to explain that is if you had a mall and you wanted to go shopping but you don’t know what store to shop in or better yet, if you’re a store owner and you have your store inside of this huge mall of millions of stores and you were just one small one, what I do is I get customers the number that you want.
If you want 750 customers to stand in front of your door, I get 750-plus people to stand in front of your storefront to see what you have in the windows. Most likely, more than half of them are going to walk into your store and buy something. That’s what I do because if you don’t have somebody at least even looking at your storefront, they’re not going to know you exist and you’re not going to make any money. You’re going to go out of business. What I do is helping business owners maintain and grow so that they can reach more people and provide even more value and even more service for other people.
How can people get more in touch with you and find out more about it?
The best way is Facebook but in finding out more about solo ads, look up MyLimitlessTraffic.com.
Thank you so much for that. I’ve got one question for you to close the show. What is one daily practice that you would say contributes to your personal success?
Limitless Life: No matter what’s going on in your life, somebody else has already had it or had it worse. You can bounce back from it, no matter what’s going on.
I have two things. Because of my car accident and how I had to bounce back from that, the two things that I had to do, first of all, prior to the car accident, I could touch my toes with my legs fully extended. After that car accident, I could not even touch my knees. I was not that happy about it at the time but over time, I’ve learned to become grateful for it because it instilled a new level of discipline where I’m exercising daily, stretching. I’m working on my body. That way, I don’t have to experience that extreme pain anymore and I can become better than what I was yesterday. The second thing that I do almost every day is I read some books. To work on your body, you got to work on your mind. As Albert Einstein says, “Whatever type of problem that the thinking creates, you can’t use that same type of thinking to solve that problem.” Reading your books is a great way to solve a problem.
Donavon, this has been amazing. Thank you so much for everything you’ve shared on this portion of this show.
You’re most welcome. I’m so thrilled to be here.
Ladies, we’ve got more coming from Donavan. He’s going to be talking about, in more depth, the four keys to living an impossible life. Impossibly amazing. He’s going to be talking about that in EXTRA. If you are already subscribed to EXTRA, stay tuned, we got more. If you’re not but would like to be, go to RealEstateInvestingForWomenEXTRA.com. You can subscribe there. You get the first seven days for free so you can get this EXTRA and as many others as you can download in seven days. Either you can stay subscribed if you love it or not. No obligation. Thank you so much for reading. Remember, goals without action are just dreams. Get out there, take action and create the life your heart deeply desires.
Moneeka Sawyer is often described as one of the most blissful people you will ever meet. She has been investing in Real Estate for over 20 years, so has been through all the different cycles of the market. Still, she has turned $10,000 into over $5,000,000, working only 5-10 hours per MONTH with very little stress.
While building her multi-million dollar business, she has traveled to over 55 countries, dances every single day, supports causes that are important to her, and spends lots of time with her husband of over 20 years.
She is the international best-selling author of the multiple award-winning books “Choose Bliss: The Power and Practice of Joy and Contentment” and “Real Estate Investing for Women: Expert Conversations to Increase Wealth and Happiness the Blissful Way.”
Moneeka has been featured on stages including Carnegie Hall and Nasdaq, radio, podcasts such as Achieve Your Goals with Hal Elrod, and TV stations including ABC, CBS, FOX, and the CW, impacting over 150 million people.
We might think that growing our profits is going to take a lot of time, but that isn’t always the case. Sometimes, what you need is to do a bit of level jumping, and today’s guest is just the right person to teach you how. Moneeka Sawyer is joined in this episode by real estate investor and author Mike Simmons in a great discussion on jumping to the next level. Mike shares his story of getting into the real estate space, and the challenges he faced along the way. Mike also shares his insights on success in the business and the things he learned as an investor.
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Watch the episode here
Listen to the podcast here
Level Jumping: How I Grew My Business To Over $1 Million In Profits In 12 Months With Mike Simmons – Real Estate For Women
Real Estate Investing For Women
I am so excited to welcome to the show, Mike Simmons. He is a real estate investor, podcaster and speaker who shared the stage with Gary Vaynerchuk at his Agent 2021 Conference. He is a Co-Owner of the wholesaling company, Return On Investments, Producer and Host of the popular podcast, Just Start Real Estate, which I was just on and a partner in 7 Figure Flipping, one of the nation’s largest real estate mastermind groups. He owns sixteen rental properties and has wholesaled and flipped over 80 properties in 2020. He wrote the book titled Level Jumping: How I Grew My Business to Over $1 Million in Profits in 12 Months, which tells the story of his success as a real estate investor.
Thanks for having me. You’re awesome. I can say that because I had an hour–long conversation with you. Thank you for having me.
You’re welcome. My pleasure. Ladies, we did this fun thing. We’re doing an episode swap. We did it in one big chunk. I don’t always do it this way. It is fun to get to have a long in–depth conversation with you. This has been amazing so far. I’m excited about what you’re going to share.
I appreciate it. I’m more excited to do this. I get the benefit of knowing you’re super cool and fun, even before we get started.
Mike, give us a high–level, two–minute version of your story of how you got started in real estate.
My story is relatable, which makes it normal. I worked from9:00to 5:00. I was in corporate. I went and got my degree much after high school.Ten years after I graduated, I went back and got my degree. The reason is right out of high school, I got a job working for UPS. It was a union. In my family, we were all Midwestern union–minded. My parents, all they wanted for me was to get into a job that had a good strong union. They thought that was it. That was the end game. Once I did that, I thought,“I didn’t love high school so why would I go to college.” I am in a union. This is what my parents said I’m supposed to do. I start working for UPS.Long story short, it wrecked my back at a young age. I couldn’t get out of bed without going to the chiropractor 3 to 4 times a week. I was on the road to being a cripple in my twenties. I was smart enough to look around and go, ” I can’t do this for the rest of my life. Something has got to change.”
I went into the automotive industry. I’m from Michigan. Everyone goes into the automotive industry. I did that. There was good pay, good benefits. I liked it. It was fun. I was lured away from school there too. We went through this recession. This real downturn and the automotive industry took a hit. People were getting laid off like crazy. I had to be honest with myself.The one thing I learned in growing up with a dad who’s a Marine is how to be very self–critical. I am not someone who has a hard time understanding their faults. When I looked around at this time in my life, I said, “There are so many layoffs happening. I don’t have a college degree. I have some experience. Honestly, if I were a company and hiring and some HR, I wouldn’t hire me. Why would I hire me? There are more qualified people. People with degrees and more experienced. I am very expendable right now.”
That scared me. I went back to college. I don’t use what I got in college anymore but I went back to college. What college did for me was it expanded my mind a little bit. It made me think about the possibilities. I started thinking about things that I never thought about before like retirement, investing and saving. Up to that point, I’m paycheck–to–paycheck like a lot of people. It’s stupid but that’s what I did. I started looking into the stock market and day trading. We talked about that a bit on my podcast. I did that for a while but I hated it. I didn’t like the stock market. It was boring to me. I needed something more exciting. I came across real estate. I decided this is what I want to do. I love this. I’m interested in it. It’s definitely a vehicle to get me where I want to go. I did the worst possible thing that you could ever do when you make a decision in your life that you want to do something was I got paralysis analysis. I started overthinking it.
I started reading books, taking courses and going to seminars. I was educating myself to the point that I was overwhelmed with information and I didn’t know what to do. I felt like I don’t know enough about anything. It’s sad to say the reason I called my podcast Just Start Real Estate is because I realized the biggest problem people have with success is they don’t even get started. I decided in 2003 that I wanted to be a real estate investor. I didn’t buy my first house until 2008. I spent five years paralyzed with fear. Paralyze thinking, “What are people going to say if I screw this up? What will my parents say? What will my wife say? Will I lose money? Will I look dumb?” All these crazy thoughts that people have legitimately. I was frozen with that for five years before I got started. The first house I bought, flipped, and made money was like being stuck underwater until you almost are ready to pass out and then being thrust above water. I took this deep breath of air.For the first time, I felt like I was doing what I meant to do and that was to create my own destiny. That was how it started.
Level Jumping: If you’re not an entrepreneur, it can be a scary, terrifying thing. That’s how you know that you might not be cut out for that.
That’s quite a visual. I felt that viscerally. It is interesting. We talked about this on your podcast, too, that entrepreneurial mindset. Being in corporate, for me, was being held underwater. It was suffocating, dying and miserable. I worked for great companies. I had a great job and great bosses. There was nothing wrong. It just wasn’t right for me. When I was able to get out there, it was taking that big gasp of air and feeling, “Finally, I get to be me.”
If you’re not an entrepreneur, it can be a scary, terrifying thing. That’s how you know that you might not be cut out for that. For the people who go, “I feel like I’m alive for the first time,” that’s where you’re supposed to be. That’s how I felt.
What’s interesting is that there’s a place for real estate investing in all of that whether you’re a corporate, executive, single mom, single dad or entrepreneur.In all of those places, that’s the beauty of real estate.There’s room for an investor strategy. Wouldn’t you agree?
100%. I know a lot of people that do real estate, work full time and love their job. They don’t want to leave. It’s something that helps them supplement and get them to where they want to go faster. For some people, it’s what they want to do. They don’t want to be in corporate. I was like you. I was miserable. I wasn’t the best employee because I was difficult. I always had an opinion of how things should be done. I was not necessarily beloved by all of my managers and things because I was difficult for them. I constantly had a way about how I wanted to do things. It was good to understand where I belong. I always tell folks, “In growing up my world, there was this gravitational pole.The gravitational pole was toward the security of air, unions, working hard and saving your money. That was it.” To become an entrepreneur, was like escaping gravity. It took a lot of energy. It took me twenty years. I skipped over it. I was working for someone else for twenty years before I got started in real estate. It took me that long to break out of the expectational grips that my parents had. It was no fault of theirs. They loved me. They were one of the best. That’s what they knew. That’s what they thought was the best thing for me so it took a while.
You talk a lot about creating a business that can operate without you. That’s real estate. That’s the dream. You go from a solopreneur to this business. As I say, I work 5 to 10 hours a month. I work very little on this.I call it my multimillion–dollar side hustle. That’s what we want.A business that we don’t have to trade time for money with. Talk a little bit more about that.
The worst thing you can do is go off from working eight hours a day for someone else to work sixteen hours a day for yourself. That’s not the goal. For me, what that looked like? I won’t lie. I think I’m a slow learner because it took me about 5 or 6 years to dial in and understand what it took to run a business. Up until then, I was running what I like to lovingly call a lemonade stand. The lemonade stand was making a lot of money. It was being run the same way a five-year-old runs a lemonade stand.I ‘m taking money in one hand and handing it in another. I don’t know what’s what and it’s just crazy. Going from a solopreneur to someone who is running a business, I didn’t know what I didn’t know. I bounced around. I stayed local. Everyone I talked to was friends, family and a couple of people REIAs who weren’t doing anything interesting in their business. My mind wasn’t able to grow much because, like a goldfish, I was in a very small bowl. That was the entire real estate world to me.These few folks I talked to.
It wasn’t until I was put in a much bigger bowl that I was like, “There is room to grow here. There are people doing some cool things that I’m not doing.” Specifically, the number one thing that got me out of that little bowl and allowed me to have access to people who were doing things that I wanted to do but I didn’t know how to get, there was no bridge for me to get to where they are. They were in another location with no way of getting there. To create that bridge, I needed to surround myself with people who were where I am at that time and got there. That was a mastermind. If it isn’t a mastermind then at least a mentor who has your best interests at heart which sometimes can be tricky or a coach or somebody. You need to put yourself in an environment with a person or ideally people who are beyond where you are in business and can help you bridge the gap between what you know and what they know that got them to where they are.
I met a guy named Andy. A very close friend of mine. I went on vacation with him. At the time when I met him, I was running about $200,000 a year gross profits. I don’t want to get CPA here because I’m not. He was doing about $2 million at the time. I was, “You have the business that I want. You have employees. You have people work for you. You have nothing but free time. You’re not doing much most of the time and you’re running this business. How did you get there?” He said, “It took me four years to get from where I am.” I sat down with him over the course of time. He laid out some of the things that move the needle for him to get them to where he was, not just the things that work but the things he tried that intuitively make sense and I would have tried.That didn’t work so well and why it didn’t work. He showed me this field, the path he took and he pointed out the landmines.
If you’re running through a field with landmines, you have them all clearly marked and there’s a path where you go. It may take you four years to get across that field with no information. I said, “Why can’t I do what you did in four years? Organically, you figured out. Why can’t I do that in one year? Can I?” He said, “Sure. There’s no reason why you can’t.” That’s the groundwork for my book. How did I do it in one year? That’s what I layout. I took all of his plans. I compressed everything he did slowly and methodically into a year and I executed it. Now, what’s the difference between me and somebody else? Nothing, except when I go to you, Moneeka and say, “You are successful. I want to emulate what you did because I think what you did was smart. I’m interested. Can you please tell me what you did?” You say, “Sure. Here’s exactly what I did.” What I don’t do in that situation is question you and say, “That doesn’t work in my mind. You had an advantage.” None of that. I just did it. I didn’t question it.
That’s part of being raised by a Marine. Guess what you don’t do when a marine tells you what to do when you’re eleven? You don’t question them. You do it right. That served me well in that instance because I just said, “This guy knows what he’s talking about. I believe it. He’s telling me. Why would I question them?” I didn’t. I executed and went from being a $200,000 gross profit business to over $1 million in gross profit within twelve months. I did that within a year. All I did was follow a blueprint that was put out before me.
There are some things I want to highlight there. First of all, when you decide to follow or take instructions for somebody, make sure a couple of things. Make sure you want to be in their shoes. There’s a couple of things to remember there. First of all, don’t take advice from someone who is not where you want to be. I used to always say don’t take investing advice from someone who’s broke. Don’t take real estate advice from someone who’s afraid of real estate. You want to be in their shoes. Also, the core mission of their business should be similar to yours.
For instance, for me, money is great but freedom is more important so freedom of choice and time. When I go to talk to somebody, I want instructions from someone who has freedom of time and freedom of choice, as you did. You went to somebody that has this multimillion-dollar business of revenue each year. They have all this free time. You didn’t go to somebody who has a multimillion-dollar business but working sixteen hours a day. They’re out there. They’re a million. They’re a dime, a dozen. When you’re choosing that person to follow, make sure there’s someone you want to be in their shoes and their life, not jealously, none of that stuff. You’re not aspiring to be them but you’re looking at their life and you want a similar life for yourself. Then follow instructions because they know things that you don’t know. You will make mistakes along the way and they will have the answers for you. After that, you can adjust it once you get good at their system. You can make it your own system. Don’t do that initially. Yes, you’re smart but you’re following somebody for a reason. They’re smarter than you in this way.
The crazy thing is, being smart is not necessarily a prerequisite for being successful. There’s a lot of smart people that fail. Find a successful formula and follow it.As you said,find the recipe that works. Make it the way they tell you to make it. If it tastes great, great. If you want to adjust it afterward, finebut you have the formula. You know how to do it. I totally agree with you. To your point, somebody who you admire. Someone who you look at and say, “They are in a position that I would like to be in, freedom of time, freedom, money, all that stuff” He fits that bill. He’s still a mentor of mine. He’s still somebody who I look up to and has my best interests at heart. He’s a great guy who I think a lot of.
You do a full breakdown of what you did in your book, correct?
Yes.Here’s the thing. One of the things that I’ve learned over the years that I’ve been in business is most people think it’s the software or specific technique that you employ. It’s not. It’s a little bit less sexy than that. It’s a little bit more of belief systems, structure and things like that. For me, going from what I was bouncing around, as a wholesaler flipper, a deal or two a month going to 10 to 15 deals a month, the difference was a couple of things. Number one, I had to learn that every time I bought a house, it should not be a brand new adventure where I change all of my systems and processes. As a flipper, I was walking through the aisles of Home Depot and Lowe’s picking out countertops. It’s, “I’ve already done 30 flips.Why am I coming up with a brand new pallet every single time?” That’s illogical and inefficient. It’s why my bandwidth was only allowing me to do so much.
Level Jumping: Being smart is not necessarily a prerequisite for being successful. There’s a lot of smart people who fail. Find a successful formula and follow it.
I learned to systemize and create processes that were easily trainable and downloadable so that people could take those processes. Go with them and I didn’t have to be the person doing all the thinking all the time. I learned to create systems and processes that were repeatable that could have efficiencies and economies of scale. That was number one. The second thing was, I learned to track numbers. I was running a lemonade stand. If you ask most five–year–olds how much money they made that day,they hand you a bunch of money. That’s how I was running my business. I learned that I have to track things. I need to track my KPIs.
I have a couple of different sets of KPIs that I use, key performance indicators. Some of them are what I call my island numbers. My island numbers are if I were stranded on an island or vacationing on an island and somebody gave me this handful of numbers. I would reasonably know the health of my company based onthis handful of numbers. It’s not all telling. I wouldn’t know if I’m succeeding or failing by looking at these numbers. That’s important. Certain departments have more granular numbers.At the end of the day, if you don’t understand what money is going out and what money is working when it comes to marketing,real estate investors may be using 2, 3, 4, 5 different marketing channels. They know they’re getting deals and making money but they don’t know which marketing channels are working. Should some of them be turned off? Should some of them be turned up because they’re very profitable and the other one is not profitable? You don’t know because they all blend together and not paying attention. Watching my numbers, knowing my numbers and when it comes to KPIs, we’ll get deeper into this during the EXTRA but as a high–level thing. I think that there are two separate categories when it comes to metrics or KPIs.
There are performance, result–based, result–oriented numbers, and activity numbers. We’ll break that down a little bit more. Sometimes, tracking the activity can be as or more important than tracking the actual results. We’ll get into that deeper. I did that. The third thing that I learned and dialed in was the hiring part of it. It’s virtually impossible to run a company at scale without people if you value your time. You can do it on your own but even Superman can’t be in two places at once. He can get to a place and be very fast or Wonder Woman but you can’t get there at the same time. I learned that hiring people effectively and hiring the right people cannot only make me more money but also free up my time. Some people think if I hire people, I don’t make as much. No. You hire the right people, you make a lot more and you get your time back.
I learned that.In the beginning, I hired so poorly. There are a lot of nuances to it that we can get in deeper to but some of it was I was hiring people based on their resume alone. I wasn’t giving any thought to culture fit. Do they have the same values as me and my company? We had to go through some pretty crazy amount of people in that first couple of years because I was hiring with only one thought in mind. I talked about this on my podcast. When you get into business and all you care about is money, it’s going to be tough. I would rather hire great people and train them to be good at their job than hire someone who appears to be good at the job on paper and maybe not the greatest personality fit or value fit with my company. That was huge for me.
Our conversations are so robust and so exciting to me. They just slip away from us.
I’m surprised it’s been this long. I love talking about this stuff.
What I want to do is let the ladies know that in EXTRA, we’re going to talk about business partnerships. I have a business partner. I know how valuable that can be. It’s also something that we haven’t talked about in the show. He also brought up some good points on what those actions are. We talked about results versus activity results. We’re going to talk a little bit about that. We’re also going to talk about hiring and scaling a team. This is a place where I, Moneeka, fall down almost 100% of the time. I have some good people that are working for me now. It’s been years of me and I would rather my ladies don’t have to go through what I’ve been through. I’m no expert. I think it would be fun. If we got the time in EXTRA, we’ll try to cover that too. Those are my objectives for EXTRA. Ladies, stay tuned. That is going to be so juicy. I’m excited about it. Before we end this show, Mike, could you tell my ladies where they can reach you?
Thank you for that. If you want to find out more about me and what I’m up to, you can always go to MikeSimmons.com. That always has the latest and greatest stuff that I’m working on or what I’m involved in. Also, we referenced a few times. You guys should definitely go and check out Moneeka on my show, Just Start Real Estate. We have fun conversations like this. We don’t always just ask the hardcore real estate stuff. We talk a little bit about life and things. Go, check that out. I’d love to have you.
Mike, give us one super tip on getting started investing in real estate.
I would say find someone local, hopefully, that has blazed some of that path for you and just ask for advice. There’s nothing better than having someone who’s been there and show you how to get there. That’s what people don’t do enough to ask for help when they need it.
What is one strategy for being successful in real estate investing?
Level Jumping: How I Grew My Business To Over $1 Million In Profits In 12 Months
This is not necessarily a positive look at it but I always think back to corporate and the thought of that scares me enough to make me get out of bed in the morning. It’s a little bit of motivating mea little more than pleasure sometimes but I never want to go back to that. That’s what I do.
What is one daily practice you do that you would say contributes to your personal success?
One of my superpowers is I’m very good at compartmentalizing. What I do is when I’m working, I’m working. I’m full–in and full–on. Everyone knows,don’t knock on the door. Don’t come in. Don’t bother me. When I’m not working, I am 1,000% into my family, kids and wife. I’m very good about not checking messages. I’m focused on her. I’m focused on them. I put up high and very thick walls between the things that are important between work and family. When I’m doing one, I’m not doing both.
That’s a hard thing to do.
When you’re talking to your spouse, boyfriend, girlfriend or someone, one of the biggest turnoff moves in the world is to look at your phone and read a message while they’re talking. It’s so rude. You’re holding your phone. You’re running a business. It could be important. It’s hard to not look but, what does it tell the person that you’re across from whether it’s your kids, your husband?What does it tell them when they’re talking, you look down,and your reading? It’s the rudest thing in the world. I try to be careful about that.
Mike, this has been such a good conversation. I can’t wait for the next part. Thank you for what you’ve offered so far.
Thank you for having me. It’s been fun. I cannot believe how fast times go.
I know it’s fun. Ladies, stay tuned for EXTRA. We’re going to talk about the actions that you can take to build your business, hiring a team and building a partnership.All of those things that EXTRA.We got a lot of stuff we’re going to cover so stay tuned. If you’re already subscribed to EXTRA, you can stay tuned and if you’re not but would like to be, go to RealEstateInvestingForWomenExtra.com. You get seven days for free. You can check it out. If it’s not for you, you don’t need to stay. For those of you that are leaving us now, thank you so much for joining Mike and I for this portion of the show. I look forward to seeing you next time. Until then, remember, goals without action are just dreams. Get out there, take action and create the life your heart deeply desires. I’ll see you soon. Bye.
As the owner of a successful real estate investing company, lending company, and also a partner in one of the country’s largest real estate mentorship/mastermind companies, I specialize in helping entrepreneurs create systems, processes, and automations that allow them to work on their business and not be a slave to it.
I am also the producer and host of my own online show, Just Start Real Estate, and have conducted over 350 interviews with entrepreneurs who run 6, 7, and 8 figure businesses. Additionally, I have a new book that is now available on Amazon: Level Jumping: How I Grew My Business to Over $1 Million in 12 Months.
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Moneeka Sawyer is often described as one of the most blissful people you will ever meet. She has been investing in Real Estate for over 20 years, so has been through all the different cycles of the market. Still, she has turned $10,000 into over $5,000,000, working only 5-10 hours per MONTH with very little stress.
While building her multi-million dollar business, she has traveled to over 55 countries, dances every single day, supports causes that are important to her, and spends lots of time with her husband of over 20 years.
She is the international best-selling author of the multiple award-winning books “Choose Bliss: The Power and Practice of Joy and Contentment” and “Real Estate Investing for Women: Expert Conversations to Increase Wealth and Happiness the Blissful Way.”
Moneeka has been featured on stages including Carnegie Hall and Nasdaq, radio, podcasts such as Achieve Your Goals with Hal Elrod, and TV stations including ABC, CBS, FOX, and the CW, impacting over 150 million people.
When a couple is looking for a house, it is not the man who has the final word. It’s the woman. Women know what to look for in houses, which would mean that they have the potential to invest in real estate. Maybe they just need to be introduced to it or to learn about it. After all, women are naturally good at handling money. Join your host, Moneeka Sawyer, and her guest, Victoria Lowell. Victoria is a financial coach and the founder of Empowered Worth, an educational platform for women to control their own financial future. In this conversation, they talk about empowering women in real estate, taking us through retirement planning, maxing out the ESPP, real estate debt, cheap money, and more. It is time to remind women of the power they hold when taking control of their wealth. Follow along as Victoria shows you through real estate investing.
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Watch the episode here
Listen to the podcast here
Real Estate Investing As A Way Of Taking Control Of Your Wealth With Victoria Lowell – Real Estate Women
Real Estate Investing for Women
I am excited to welcome to the show Vicky Lowell. Vicky is a financial advocate and coach, international best–selling author and the Founder of Empowered Worth, a financial education platform that empowers women to become active participants in their financial future and wellbeing. She is also the author of the international bestseller Empower Your Worth: A Woman’s Guide to Increase Self Worth and Net Worth. Her expertise in this field has led to her hosting a college planning seminar at the University of Miami in 2021 with several speaking opportunities planned both locally and nationally. Welcome to the show, Vicky. How are you?
I’m excited to be here to talk about women, finances and real estate investing because that is part of it. We have to diversify. That is a great way to do it. I am super excited to be here.
As soon as you applied to be on the show, I was, “Yes. This is the woman I got to talk to.” I’m glad you are here. Vicky, could you give us a high–level version of your story? Tell us how you got to where you are.
I’m going to do like Sophia used to say, just the facts. I was the quintessential stay-at-home mom, living in Greenwich, Connecticut, has been in finance, two kids, nice car, great house. 2008 came, the market crashed. I found myself turning to my husband, my college sweetheart, we are still married, saying, “What is a mortgage?” He’s like, “Our mortgage payment?” I have no idea what the mortgage payment is. I have no idea what the car payment is. I have no idea what it would cost to run this household if you were to lose your job or dropdead tomorrow. I got to college but my college degree has been hung up on the wall. I have forgotten about it. It was my a–ha moment. I said, “I’m going to figure this out. I’m going to get back into the workforce. I don’t like being a stay-at-home mom that much.” I was doing what was expected of me as a Cuban. I changed the narrative. That is what I did.
I went back to school for a little while. My husband came with an opportunity to work for him. He is a financial advisor. I started off as the marketing girl because that was my background. I ended up loving the women I was working with.I became a financial advisor. In 2019, I decided to start Empowered Worth. I decided that I was tired of women being in need. That was the empowerment for women. They weren’t connecting with their finances and I needed to be part of the solution. I couldn’t do that as a financial advisor. I didn’t want to have my desire to help tied to needing to get those assets under management and have people feel icky about it. It felt like a conflict of interest to me. I started an educational platform. It’s on–demand courses and coaching that women can get so that they can feel empowered and they can empower their worth. That’s why I wrote my book. 2018 was an epiphany. I set my first child off to college and I gave birth to Empowered Worth.
It’s interesting that you came from a financial planning background. We are talking about all the standard financial planning products. You moved out of that. We are talking about real estate as a part of diversification. Talk to me about your relationship with real estate.
I have a mother who frankly helped establish my family’s net worth by doing real estate investing. She didn’t realize that is what she was doing. She would drive around. She would get the pickup line. She would be 30 minutes early. She would drive around the neighborhood, look at houses and would buy them. She would fix them and flip them. She made herself a nice portfolio of real estate. That is something that I saw growing up. As I became a financial advisor, a financial planner and did all those educational parts, I realized diversification is key. When we talk about real estate diversification, a lot of times people think, “I’ll invest in a REIT or I will do something like that. That is on the market.” Those are great ways of doing it but for women, we are tactile. We would like to see what we are investing in. That is why real estate investing is crucial. I love to do it. I know what is selling in my area. I know what works. I know what I can get out of it. Why not have that be part of your investment strategy? It does make sense. The land is right there. You own it. No one can take that away from you. That is something that resonates with the female investor.
How do you invest? What is your strategy?
My strategy is diversification. I like to buy and hold things for a long time.When it comes to real estate, I have purchased something a little bit further up from where I am in Miami. It’s a great price, markets shooting up here. I know it’s going to rent well. I’m very intrigued with the Airbnb, VRBO market. I have had the opportunity to speak to some people on the board of VRBO. They are seeing huge growth. This is a great little niche to get into. That is what I did. I said, “Let me get into that.” I have never done that. I shy away usually from property management. I saw my mom have four stories. This is the time that it makes sense. People are going to look at traveling in a very different way post–COVID.
A lot of people are doing VRBO and Airbnb has been a rough year. People are, “All that income is gone.” That is interesting that you are looking at that. There is probably an entry–level opportunity again. Is that what you are thinking?
Yes. I have been able to take advantage of some of the people who were in it, who couldn’t ride the wave of the travel stoppage in the United States. In certain areas, I have seen people talking about it in ski communities. I have seen people talking about it in Orlando where you have Disney World. Not everybody wants to stay at a hotel especially if hotels aren’t giving you those extra little amenities. You can stay in a home. You know who has been in there. It’s usually sanitized well.You feel safer and you get a little bit more for your dollar. That is where I’m seeing. It’s a great way to start, buying an area for me that I know is going to go up. Being able to VRBO or Airbnb allows me to defray that cost and be able to hold it so I can be there as it grows.
How would it look to scale that? I have done Airbnb, too. I had one room in my house. I was in more of a corporate environment. We were walking distance to Google, walking distance to Box, driving distance to Facebook. We were right there. People would come for more corporate stuff. I have never had to scale that. Could you talk to me a little bit about what that might look like? I know that you are starting but do you have a plan?
It depends on location with any real estate. I happen to have a friend who went from being a teacher to being a full–time Airbnb, VRBO person. She now runs a property management company. She will literally grab other people’s and manage it while they put it on Airbnb. It’s very scalable. It all depends on where you are doing it and if the demand is there. For those houses, it makes sense to get 2 or 3 houses to start off with especially now, interest rates are at an all–time low. Get an arm that will allow you to have a low–interest rate. You are doing that. The biggest issue I have with scaling it is who is going to manage the property for you.
That’s where before you do anything. That is what I did. I researched property management companies because I was not going to manage this. I don’t have enough time. I have got a husband, children and a business. I found a great property management company. That is key and making sure to talk to people who are doing it, talk to other Airbnbers or VRBOs, whatever it may be.Talk to them and see who they are using and get that referral. That word-of-mouth referral is crucial.
Control Wealth: Women are usually the ones who flip and sell houses because they know what other women are looking for. Very rarely does a couple come in and the man says, “It’s this house.” She is going to say that.
We are on a complete tangent from what we expect that we were going to talk about but this is fascinating to me. The other thing is these management companies.What do they normally charge to manage a VRBO or an Airbnb?
I have seen everything from 8% to 10% of what you are charging daily. It all depends on the level of what services you are going to provide for your Airbnb or VRBO guest. If you are doing a very full Millennial. They’re going to have a basket. They are going to have pretzels and stuff. You’re going to be doing that. You could be filling the refrigerator for them. All of that will add on. That is going to cost you if you are providing that type of service. You should probably get that back with what you are charging. That all depends. I have also learned everything from what a good property management company because they are going to be the ones that are going to list it on Airbnb for you. They want to see in your rental. They are going to want to see, are there stainless steel appliances? What does that kitchen look like? What does the furniture look like? Are you a standard? Are you a premiere? Are you platinum? All that type of stuff goes into it but it’s a lot of fun. I don’t have fun picking stocks the way I have had doing this.
Thank you so much for going on that tangent with me. That was fun. Your whole thing is about empowering women financially. Talk to me a little bit about how that works and what that means to you.
What it means to me is changing that horrible narrative that women have had for years, that we have to get married and have our husbands manage our finances or that we can’t grasp high–level finances. Women are great at the day to day. Women are great at budgeting, statistically. Every bank on Wall Street has a report on this. You can Google it. Merrill, UBS, anyone you want to look at. Google women, they have done a report. Look at those statistics. They are the same. It’s shocking. 80% of those women are great at budgeting. They can tell you what the kids spend on orthodontia. They can tell you what’s being spent on groceries. They can tell you all that stuff but ask them a high–level personal finance question. Ask them, “What is your retirement plan? Where are your IRAs? What is your 401(k)? What are they invested in?” They can’t answer that. That is the narrative that I want to work to change. When you ask women, “Why aren’t you engaging?” “I don’t feel confident.”
That’s where Empowered Worth was born, to give women confidence. I want you to know that we are there for you. We are your coaches. We are the women who have your back in the financial world. You can feel comfortable coming to the financial table, talking to a financial advisor or getting your feet wet in what whatever type of financial investing, be it real estate, markets, equities, bonds, whatever it is. I want to give women that confidence because that’s where it all starts from. That’s self–worth and confidence leads to an increase in your network. It all ties in.
You are of the opinion that women gravitate more to real estate than to the markets. Could you talk to me a little bit about that?
Time and time again, when I was a financial advisor, I would call inand I’d say, “Why aren’t you coming to the meetings? Why aren’t you doing this?” She’s like, “I am involved. I have been doing some stuff.” What are you doing? “I have been buying houses and flipping them.” A lot of women were into the whole flipping market thing that we saw in 2008. They may have shied away a little bit but they are usually the ones because they know what other women are looking for. Consumer spending decision, the women decide what house to buy. Rarely does a couple come in and the man says,“It’s this house.” She is going to say that.
As a woman, when you are the one prepping, staging that house, doing the remodeling of the house, you are literally your market. It’s very easy. You also know the neighborhoods because those are your neighborhoods or it was your past neighborhood. You are buying something where you grew up, where your parents sell it. You understand that in a much more tactile way than the obscure investors buying something. That is where that power is and why they gravitate to it because they are selling to themselves.
I have been saying on this show all the time that we are naturally by default better predisposed to be successful in real estate. I have also heard this statistic that the multi–million, multi–trillion–dollar real estate industry, still in investors, there is only about 40% of the investors that are women. What that tells me is, we are more likely to gravitate to real estate. We are still only 40% of the market. We are a tiny little percent of what the people that invest in the markets. Would you say that is true?
I would think so. It goes back to confidence. What is holding them back? It might be access to funds. It’s whether or not you feel comfortable pitching to your husband. Let’s say you are the stay-at-home mom like I was. I don’t know if I would have felt comfortable back in 2008 telling my husband, “Can I have $60,000 for a down payment? I saw a great property and I’m going to flip it.” I don’t think I would have done that. A lot of women may not even know a lot about lending structures and how to get those sources of income. They are a little bit hesitant.
Once you get past that and you buy your first home, it’s a learning curve. Once you get there, you will do it and do it again. It’s like a drug. The women I know who are doing this are literally addicted. They are buying by the owner, which is incredible. A lot of them are buying by the owner or they are getting their realty licenses because they want to take that middleman out and keep that commission. It’s amazing. You can do that. That is the great thing about real estate. You can be a stay-at-home mom, have a job and it can be your side hustle or it becomes your main hustle. You can do that.
Talk to me about retirement planning for women.
Retirement planning for women is something that is an uncomfortable conversation and we need to have it. Women are incredibly underfunded for retirement, for a multitude of reasons. First and foremost, being the pay gap that we suffer in this country. Women are making less. We step out of the workforce. That is the very well–known mommy penalty. We don’t necessarily accrue the funds that we need to have by the time that we reach retirement. It’s scary, unless you have a partner who’s thinking, “What happens when my counterpart retires? Do I have enough money saved in my 401(k) or IRA to cover both of us?” You may be incredibly underfunded. In addition to that, Social Security is not going to get you there. Everybody understands that now. We need to embrace that. It’s not going to be enough even to add on to that 401(k) and IRA. We need to have that conversation.
Last, the divorce rate. For those over the age of 50 are double what they are for everyone else. What happens when you get divorcedat 50? You lose 50% of those retirement assets. Walk out the door because it’s the divorce. You’re going to get 50%. You don’t have the years of working to replenish that type of retirement savings. I’m always telling women, you are probably going to come into the workforce. That is the nature of the game. We have children. We caretake for spouses, children, our parents. You may not have that work trajectory in the workforce, increase and maximize your retirement savings when you are working. Give the max.If your company matches, give as much as you can. It is better to spend the money from your paycheck on retirement accounts than to go out and buy that purse that you are not going to have in ten years. You can’t eat the purse when you are in your 50s. Let’s be honest here.
Talk to me about filling that gap on the mommy penalty. What do you do to make sure you are maxing out the matching of the 401(k)? I like to talk about making sure you are maxing out your ESPP, which is the Employee Stock Purchase Plan. Those are some of the things that we do. What are the things that you talk about?
Those are great. Those are definitely ones that people need to think about. If you are in a situation where you are a stay-at-home mom, sit down with your spouse. If it’s feasible for you and your budget, talk about a spousal IRA. As an individual, if your husband is doing a 401(k), your partner is doing a 401(k), I get that there are benefits. There is matching. There is corporate stuff but you can still get a spousal IRA.We definitely have that conversation. It’s something you should think about. I’m all about the side hustle. Even though you are not working doesn’t mean you can’t be working. Think about it, thereare1,000 things.
With COVID, a lot of women have turned to their side hustles to add money. I know a lot of friends who are making jewelry and doing well. Does it surprisingly sell the same as the day–to–day work that they had before? No, but it’s putting food on the table. Think about that side hustle and stash that money away for your retirement. Do not take a vacation with it. Do not spend that money on a gift for your husband. That money is there to provide for you. In that side hustle, I include real estate investing. Save a little bit. My mom got her first amount of money that she used to buy her property by all the money she skipped off the groceries. She is probably going to kill me that I said it. I had a dear friend once who told me my husband never looked at the grocery bill. I’m knocking out $50 a week off the grocery bill. She bought a great property with it. That is a great way of doing it. Think about ways that you can skip and get some stuff there. Put it in a retirement account.
This is how things went for me. My husband is a software programmer. He has his normal job. We have made a decision that he would pay for this day and I would pay for the next day. I was planning for the future. He was paying for our lifestyle. We still have the 401(k)s. Everybody knows that the 401(k), those programs are still not going to retire you. We were very aware and we embraced early on that Social Security was probably not ever going to be around by the time we retired. I wanted to do the whole real estate thing. I grew up in that. I trusted it but my husband, not so much. The way that we did that whole conversation was we owned a piece of property. He knew that you should buy a piece of property. We worked those numbers. Why pay rent? Why make somebody else rich? We did that and then as an appreciated, I negotiated with him that any money that we get in real estate, I want to keep it in real estate and have it continue to work in real estate.
As equity grew, I took out an equity line. He is very conservative. He was like, “Real estate money needs to make money in real estate.” We took out up to 80%. I take that equity and I invested in more real estate. That is how we built our portfolio. What’s interesting about that is it required little for me. You have to live in our house, which we were doing. We had to let it appreciate. I had to pay attention enough to know when I could pull money out and buy something else. It was a slow process. It was my side hustle. I will say that is what is going to retire us in the end. It happened in fifteen years for us that we live in an appreciation market in California. Everybody doesn’t have that same experience. Sometimes you have to be a little bit more aggressive in there. For us, it was the side hustle that required no hustle. There was nothing. I did this natural thing. The whole argument about real estate money, staying in real estate, won him over and has provided the retirement venue for us.
That’s true. I go back to this. Women need education into what the lending options are. Let me get the equity line. Let me do that. You can write off your taxes. There is so much stuff that you can do. There are sources of money out there. You need to figure out how to structure that debt. People hear debt and they start sweating bullets. I’m, “No. There is bad debt. That is your credit card on Chanel bag you can’t eat.There is good debt and that is real estate debt.” I’m not worried about real estate debt because you own the land. You have this. If it makes sense, if you are doing it right, structure correctly, you are going to see a growth in your net worth.
Control Wealth: There’s good and bad debt. The bad debt is your credit card on that Chanel bag you can’t buy. The good debt is the real estate debt.
The other thing about real estate debt versus consumer debt, which is credit card debt, cars. Real estate debt is leverage. If you think about it, you put 20% down and get 100% access to any money that the property makes. If you put 20% down and the house goes up, it appreciates by $20,000, you get a $100,000 home. You put $20,000 down. The house appreciates by $20,000, you made 100% on your money. Who took most of the risk? It was the bank. You got very little risk for huge potential. The bank is asking for a little interest rate. When it was at 17%, relatively speaking, that was a small interest rate in comparison to consumer debt. It’s cheaper money. You get to write it off. There is a bunch of benefits that the government gives you. People are like, “I don’t want to be in debt.”
If you have to pay cash for a house, you don’t want to be in debt, you are using cash. You are not utilizing leverage. If you make $20,000 on that house, you’ve made 20%, not 100%. You’re not using all of the benefits of what real estate can do for you. This is what you are talking about with the higher–level conversation. Most of us understand debt, no debt, cash and loan. What we don’t understand is that there are ways to leverage so that debt is good debt. I will be the very first to say we do not pay for anything on credit cards. It is simply a budgeting tool for us. We paid every single month. I never pay for a car with a loan. I don’t lease cars. There is this whole argument of the opportunity cost of where I could invest it. I don’t do consumer debt. I just don’t do it. That is one of our rules. I am completely leveraged on all of my real estate because it’s cheap money. It makes me a ton of money. Buying a car does not make me money.
I love that you said this. I say this all the time. When I was a financial advisor, people come in and be like, “I’m going to pay that house off.” I get that. There is a lot of books that say you pay the house off. We are going to take the money that is growing in this account that we have that you are invested in. We are going to pay off this debt that costs you this much. Why? You are losing all that growth by getting rid of this debt that does not cost you what your returns are costing you. You need to understand the numbers behind it and sit down. That is what I live to do, to explain it to people because they get scared. They hear all this noise and it becomes like that Peanuts show then they tune it out. Thereare a lot of ways to invest especially in real estate like you are saying and have it be a moneymaker for you.
I would love to have that conversation about cheap money on this show. We haven’t done this. My husband and I have talked about it all the time. He keeps saying you need to have this conversation on your show. Let’s talk about this. What do we mean by cheap money? What do you explain it? I will jump in because I know you know how to do this.
What we are saying by cheap money is I look at the opportunity cost. What is borrowing that money going to cost me? The example I was giving. Let’s say you have a great stock portfolio and it is growing at 10%. I’m going to use easy numbers here. You have the opportunity to put 20% down and get a mortgage on a property of X, map 2%. It makes sense for you to do that because the cost of borrowing that money is less than you paying the house off full and holding out the full amount of the house. Youare taking that growth of money that you would have had.That’s what people should understand. You are losing the growth opportunity by putting it and paying it off.
What you are doing is you are paying 8% to pay off 2%. What you want to do is it the other way around. You want to pay 2%, get the 8%. This is the thing that I want you to know. Let’s get clear on this. Let’s say you pay taxes on that. It’s not long–term or short–term. Let’s take it to you earning 6% or 5%. Your mortgage is at 2% or 3%? Do you want to take the 5% that you’re earning and pay that money so that you can pay off 2%? That’s like saying, “I’m going to take $100 that my dad gave me to pay off $20.” Why would I do that? If my dad gives me $100, I’m going to pay something off. It’s going to be a lateral. Once I spend that $100 on that, $50 is gone. Why did you do that? You wouldn’t do that.
If you truly understood it, you would never do that. The same is true for people who say, “I’m going to borrow the money and I’m going to take the money out of my 401(k).” Why? You are going to pay penalty and taxes. Do you have to do all this to pay for this whole? No, you have enough of the down payment. Do that. Get the mortgage. Leave the retirement account alone and pay the mortgage off. There are some great mortgage options out there. I haven’t looked at them when new numbers come out. This is something that I have heard a lot are talking about, the fifteen–year arm. A lot of people aren’t holding their homes for fifteen years. Look at your age, if you are in your twenties, you are not going to be living in the house for fifteen years. Most people don’t live in the house. Why would you get back an interest–only fifteen–year arm and let your money work for you? I wish more people would have that conversation. I wish the mortgage lenders would explain it better. I wish that there was more financial planning and it was taught how money works for you.
That is one of the questions that I get most frequently especially here in California. People are investing. “I got a $1.5 million rental property. I’ve got $1 million loan. How am I ever going to pay that off?” You are never going to pay that off. It’s not cheap money. That is not something you should be paying off. What you want to figure out is how are you going to cashflow that? Paying off, when you are talking about mortgages unless when you are doing end-of-life planning, you want to have no mortgage. You want to be able to live at your least expensive. It makes sense. It shouldn’t even be part of the conversation because it’s a write–off. It’s something that is helping you to grow appreciation. It’s getting you cashflow. It’s cheap money.
I do agree with that. Once you are hitting that retirement age, once you are 65, 66, 67, that is the time to talk about paying off your primary home. We don’t have those secondary. Make sure you have everything in the LLC and title the way it should be for asset protection. If you are doing all of that then definitely don’t pay off those mortgages on those rental properties. There is no reason to.
Thank you for having that conversation with me. I can’t have that on my own. It needs to be a little bit of back and forth.
It’s my pleasure. I hope everybody understood what Moneeka said. You are going to be ecstatic once you do because you are going to make money.
We are going to get into our three rapid–fire questions. Before we do that, I want to let you know ladies, we are going to be talking in EXTRA about how COVID affected women financially and what are the repercussions and consequences are going to be for several years after that. We are going to have a conversation about that. It is a gift and another tough conversation that a lot of us are looking at. I love that Vicky is willing to have the tough conversations to help us grow, empower us, build what we need to build. We are going to have that conversation in EXTRA. Before we move on towards the end of the show, Vicky, could you tell everybody how they can get in touch with you?
The best way to get in touch with me is to visit my website, www.EmpoweredWorth.com. Everything is there for you. You have a great blog that comes up once a month. Join our free membership. It gives you great basic personal financial education on demand. You can do it at your leisure and some great other little things that we add in there monthly for you.
You have got a free membership. You said that you were going to offer my ladies a fifteen–minute session with you.
Yes. I have it on there. I call it the Fifteen Free Intro Coaching Session. If you have any questions, you get to pick my brain for fifteen minutes. You would be surprised how much we can get done in that time. I would love to hear from you, ladies. If you have any questions, if you want me to explain the money to you, I will do that. I will run you through it. I will put it on the whiteboard. We can do the math.
That is at EmpoweredWorth.com. Are you ready for our three rapid–fire questions?
Yes, I am. Let’s go.
Vicky, tell us one super tip on getting started investing in real estate.
Empower Your Worth: A Woman’s Guide To Increasing Self-Worth & Net Worth
Know your area, location. I personally believe in invest in the areas that you know either because you grew up there or you live there.
What is one strategy for being successful in real estate investing?
I say this to everybody. I say this when it comes to finances.Don’t be emotional.Be financial. Don’t take it personally. I know people put their blood, sweat and tears into these houses and making them perfect. If someone walks in or a realtor walks in and goes, “You made a mistake.” Don’t listen to them. Trust your gut.
Vicky, what would you say is one daily practice that you do that contributes to your personal success?
I love yoga. I have taken up yoga in 2020. It was something that got me through a lot. It has helped me. The best thing about yoga is the silence, meditation and being able to center me because there is a lot of noise in our lives. We need to connect with ourselves in a very spiritual, meaningful way. It’s not financial. It’s yoga.
A lot of people say that. They say yoga, meditation. That is fairly common. It’s good to realize that, ladies. In order to be successful in real estate or in our businesses or as moms or as anything, we need to take care of ourselves. We need some downtime where we are all about us. That is important. This has been amazing, Vicky. Thank you so much for what you have offered in this portion of the show.
Thank you for having me and for giving me this opportunity to connect with your readers to talk about how important real estate investing is. It’s where a lot of us get our start when we start investing before we even jump into the stock market. It is an important part of every portfolio.
Thank you for that. Ladies, we got more. We are going to be talking about the financial consequences to women from COVID and what are those long–term repercussions going to be? We are going to be talking about that in EXTRA. If you are subscribed, stay tuned. If you are not but would like to be, go to RealEstateInvestingForWomenExtra.com. You get seven days for free. Check it out and stick with it if you love it. The other thing is you can connect with me and find out everything that I’m doing at BlissfulInvestor.com. There is a free report there. There is the show. That is my website. Ladies, if you love this show, help out all the ladies in your life and tell them about it.
This is the most meaningful thing that I do and the reason I do it is because of the emails and reviews that I get. I’m talking out into the ether. I don’t know who is reading. When I get responses back about, “Moneeka, you started my investing life. I’m so excited. Moneeka, you changed my life because I finally bought a property after thinking about it for a few years.” When I get these letters back, it fills me up. We are making a change in the way women see the world. If you want to support other women that you love, tell them all about the show and have them read the blogpost. Hopefully, you will be a letter to me soon too. Go to BlissfulInvestor.com and tell all of your lady friends about the show. If you are leaving now, thank you so much for joining us. You know how much I appreciate you. Always remember, goals without action are just dreams. Get out there. Take action and create the life your heart deeply desires. I will see you soon.
Born and raised in Florida, Vicky has always been passionate about entrepreneurial pursuits. In 2012, she started her career in finance at UBS Financial Services. By 2017, she transitioned into a financial advisor.
Vicky has always been an active member of the community and worked for various entities nationwide. From open and honest conversations within these communities, she discovered the need for women to learn financial planning.
In late 2018, she left UBS Financial Services to follow her passion and founded EMPOWERED WORTH. Recently, she became an international bestselling author. Her book Empower your Worth, both English and Spanish versions, reaching the Bestseller’s List in various categories and countries. In 2020, Empower Your Worth became a finalist in the Canadian Book Club Awards.
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Moneeka Sawyer is often described as one of the most blissful people you will ever meet. She has been investing in Real Estate for over 20 years, so has been through all the different cycles of the market. Still, she has turned $10,000 into over $5,000,000, working only 5-10 hours per MONTH with very little stress.
While building her multi-million dollar business, she has traveled to over 55 countries, dances every single day, supports causes that are important to her, and spends lots of time with her husband of over 20 years.
She is the international best-selling author of the multiple award-winning books “Choose Bliss: The Power and Practice of Joy and Contentment” and “Real Estate Investing for Women: Expert Conversations to Increase Wealth and Happiness the Blissful Way.”
Moneeka has been featured on stages including Carnegie Hall and Nasdaq, radio, podcasts such as Achieve Your Goals with Hal Elrod, and TV stations including ABC, CBS, FOX, and the CW, impacting over 150 million people.
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Moneeka Sawyer
I am a serial entrepreneur at heart.
As the owner of a successful real estate investing company, lending company, and also a partner in one of the country’s largest real estate mentorship/mastermind companies, I specialize in helping entrepreneurs create systems, processes, and automations that allow them to work on their business and not be a slave to it.
Born and raised in Florida, Vicky has always been passionate about entrepreneurial pursuits. In 2012, she started her career in finance at UBS Financial Services. By 2017, she transitioned into a financial advisor.