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Investing In Vineyards & Wineries With Robyn & Jordan Bentley – Real Estate Women

 

Do you have a passion and interest in wine and want to find ways to turn it into an investment? Perhaps you should be looking into investing in vineyards and wineries! Mother-daughter duo Robyn Bentley & Jordan Bentley of Wine Country Consultants join Moneeka Sawyer to share how they’re helping wine lovers and investors fulfill their dreams and achieve success in their investments. There are so many things you can do in the industry, and opportunities for growth and earning are a-plenty if you know what you’re doing. Robyn & Jordan takes us through different regulations, tax benefits, due diligence, return on investments, and all things regarding investing in these types of land. Tune in to learn more and find out what you need to do to get started.

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Investing In Vineyards & Wineries With Robyn & Jordan Bentley – Real Estate Women

Real Estate Investing For Women

I am so excited to welcome to the show a fabulous mother and daughter team, Robyn and Jordan Bentley. Robyn Bentley, Broker at Wine Country Consultants, offers unrivaled insights into the world of vineyard and winery real estate. With over 30 years of experience, she has offices in St. Helena, California, Portland, Oregon, and Walla Walla, Washington.

Robyn’s lifelong commitment to assisting women and children in need has led her to volunteer for numerous organizations as well as serve on the board of Community Resources for Children of Napa Valley and The Oregon Children’s Trust Fund.

Robyn raised both her children, Jordan and Ross Bentley, in St. Helena and is very proud to have them as partners in the WCC team. With an MFA in photography and teaching experience at Tufts University, Jordan’s creative eye, dedication to detail, and knowledge of the Napa Valley are invaluable assets to the family real estate business. She serves as the President of Our Town St. Helena, a nonprofit dedicated to providing and creating affordable housing for all in St. Helena, California.

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Ladies, thank you so much for joining me. Welcome to the show.

Thank you for having us.

I’m so happy to meet you.

You too. I didn’t tell you guys in the green room, but I moved to Napa in the sixth grade. I went to Napa High School. I’m a Napa native, also. I never have people on the show from that area. It’s amazing to meet you.

We are honored to be your first. How long did you live in Napa?

I lived in Napa for 6 or 7 years. It’s so nice.

Did you enjoy it?

It was a weird time. I was there in the ‘80s. I enjoyed it, but I didn’t realize how much was going on behind my back until I left. I went to UC Berkeley from Napa. It was a completely different cultural thing, but I will say this. My husband and I will frequently do our weekends away, probably 2 or 3 times a year, to Napa to get me re-grounded. I was there when I was a teenager. They were the biggest, most important years of my life. It was my development. It helps me to ground, so we love going back. I do love that area very much.

Please, next time you’re in the area, join us for a glass of wine.

I would love that.

We’re in our office in St. Helena. We’d love that.

I love that. We’re planning something. We were thinking about going to Bistro Jeanty. It is my favorite. Maybe we could do some wine before that. I would love that. 

We do, too.

After we’ve got all our social stuff planned, let’s talk more about you. Tell us a little bit about how you got into investing in wine property and helping people do that.

We moved here in 1993 to St. Helena, right in the middle of Napa Valley. Jordan’s father, my first husband, it was his job that brought us here. Clark Bentley was hired as the CFO for Pine Ridge Vineyards. We all grew up in the wine business because Clark brought us here. We had lived in Mill Valley for ten years prior to the move here and had come often for weekends and getaways.

We looked at investing in vacant land during that time, thinking maybe we would do a second home and never imagining that we would find jobs in this wine world. We love wine and the lifestyle, which is a rural, Midwestern value community. I grew up in Illinois. Jordan’s father grew up in Oklahoma. We moved to California in ‘79. We continued to want to raise Jordan and Ross in an environment that was inclusive and very much a part of a smaller community. We had spent some time in Marin, which was growing and quite active at that juncture.

 

With that move here, I decided to step into the real estate world. I had been a buyer for Macy’s, California, in my first career. I ended up buying women’s shoes and traveling the world doing that. I have a great background in marketing, assessing numbers, understanding investing, and what kind of return you want.

The next career phase I had was with the Waverly Children’s Home. I was the community relations coordinator. That was during the Follow Your Heart and Follow Your Dream Oprah Winfrey influence, which I loved. It fits in with my commitment to helping women and children. I started volunteering in my mid-twenties, about the same time that I had Jordan. Jordan, all along, would come to events, help set up, and was always involved with any of the volunteer work I did.

Arriving here in ‘93, Jordan was in fourth grade and Ross was in kindergarten. I decided that I would follow my real passion, which had always been real estate, but I had this sense that it was going to take too much time away from raising my children. Real estate, at that point, was always talked about being a night and weekend gig.

In reality, because the focus is the wine industry, wineries, and vineyards, which is much more of a commercial aspect, the business is more of a 9:00 AM to 5:00 PM for us back then and now. It worked very well. The lure of real estate, especially in Napa Valley at that time, was that every property was unique. I liked that. It gave me my first opportunity to deal in land. My first real estate transaction was a vineyard transaction. It was my first million-dollar transaction. I was hooked.

That is one that’s interesting. It is land rather than residential. That is such an interesting way to go about that. Jordan, tell us a little bit about how this worked for you. You’re what I call a legacy. I’m a legacy, too, with my parents. We got a lot of mentorship through osmosis. A lot of people turn their back on the business. They’re like, “No, thank you.” Tell us a little bit about your story on how you joined your mom in all of this.

I was always there helping her out and setting up her volunteer groups, but that quickly morphed into helping her with open houses and all of her residential listings here in St. Helena. I like to say that I grew up in real estate. I always loved it and I always loved to be with mom and help her out as much as I could. I did go off after high school. I went to Colorado to earn my undergraduate degree at Colorado College. I then went over to Boston and earned my Master of Fine Arts, Photography from Massachusetts College of Art and Design. I followed my passion for the arts, photography, and teaching. I was gone for almost eleven years in total.

Mom and I, whenever we were parting, between the boohoos, would say that one day, we were going to live down the street from each other. It is true to this day, but at the time, we didn’t know how it was going to work out. The stars aligned. I was in Boston and had a pivotal point in my, “Do I keep going on this teaching career path, which I love, or do I take a big leap of faith, move back to California, and see where life takes me?” I went with the big leap of faith and I’m so happy that I did. A big part of that, who’s also a partner of ours, was my brother, Ross Bentley. He was living here in St. Helena, working as a winemaker. I wanted to come back and be able to have more time with him as well.

I came back and started helping mom with my photo background. I started with marketing. I started learning about her business, which is the real estate business, and the industry here through photographing, assisting, and creating the marketing pieces for her listings. I was hooked right away. It wasn’t until I was on site being her eyes and ears as a note taker because she was juggling a few different things at the time, that I got to see the land use consultant, the current owners, and the buyer that was in escrow. We had a civil engineer out. Everyone was talking about the various possibilities of how to successfully achieve receiving a permit for the winery on that property and how best to support that. I loved it. I was hooked. I loved all the bits and pieces of the puzzle.

In the photo world, I’m a big dark room rat. There are so many different ways to create that final product, as there are so many different ways to create a successful project and investment on a piece of land. That part of my brain dived in and started clicking. I asked mom a few months later how she felt about me earning my real estate license and joining her in a larger capacity. You were extremely excited and hoped it would go in that direction. That was the beginning of our official partnership. That was a couple of years ago when I started getting my license. We’ve been having way too much fun ever since.

There's so many different ways to create that final product just like there's so many different ways to create a successful project and investment on a piece of land. Share on X

I love that. It’s so much fun to watch. I left high school in ’87. I moved there in ‘79. We did all of our leadership conferences at Robert Mondavi. There were very few wineries. Robert Mondavi was trying to spearhead that industry in that area. It was a baby industry. There were maybe ten wineries. Maybe I’m exaggerating. That’s Napa proper on the way up to St. Helena in Yountville and all of those areas. It has been fascinating to watch the way that the wineries and everything have exploded. It’s gotten so much bigger. There are so many more opportunities.

It’s been fun to watch the industry expand and grow and see the wines get better. The reason I was telling you all of this is it does seem like building a dream. It’s what you were saying, Jordan. There are so many different pieces and people that come up there from the valley, all over the country, and the world to start a winery there. You start with this idea and you build an entire dream. It is beautiful. I’ve watched it over the years happen over and over again. It’s fabulous to meet some of the people that are making it happen.

It is a huge passion of both of ours to assist each and every one of our clients that comes to us no matter where it might be, whether they’re from outside of the wine industry but they’ve had a passion for it, all of us here loving the area, the valley, and the connection and then wanting to grow that, or if it’s an existing vintner or grower that is within the wine industry. They’re wanting to expand, build upon their dream, and create even deeper roots with their own legacy. I see it as an extreme privilege to be able to be one piece of that puzzle or one spoke of that wheel for them to achieve their success.

 

Tell me. When people come to you, do they have their checklist and they’ve got their budget? Do they have their vision or do you help massage that? What’s the number one reason for investing in Napa Valley?

The number one reason is that people love wine, to begin with. In some cases, they have the financial capacity to jump into that world maybe within the first few years of going, “I like wine. I like this area. How can we begin to put a little foothold down?” We have been talking with a gentleman who’s a dentist who identified the buyer for his business in Arizona. He’s going to retire in a couple of years. He invested in a vineyard site that he will start working on so it is ready for him when he arrives. He has been loving wine for many years. This will be the beginning of that new dream and passion for the rest of his life after coming out of dentistry.

Do people normally have a vision or are you normally massaging that vision? How do people come to you?

They are from clients from all different parts of the world, so to speak, and different industries. In terms of their own checklist, people come with a relatively clear vision. With the dentist that Robyn was describing, he has a clear vision and that he wants wine. He is creating a brand to be his next step in life. A few years ago, we had a client call us. He was a real estate developer in Colorado and on the east coast. He called up and said the same thing. He was like, “I love wine. How do I start?” We did help flush out the various steps and connected him to the various consultants and players within the industry that would help him gain success in the dream that he had.

It starts off with, “I love wine,” and, “I want to create something.” That usually is a brand. I have one way or the other. We have people that have been in the industry since the “very beginning.” We have some people that we’re connected with and clients that are 6th or 7th generation in Napa Valley. They’ve been either growers, winemakers, or vintners and have their own successful brands and labels that are well-known to us all. They are wanting to have more supply, which is more vineyard land, or perhaps they have a second label and they want a new home for that brand. We assist the whole gamut. They come to us.

The ones that are already within the industry have a very specific and clear checklist. It’s a lot of fun to help them achieve that. For instance, from the vineyard’s point of view, location and varietal needs are huge. We have a lot of fun hearing, “We would like X amount of acreage with this varietal and this AVA.” We then get to go out, do our best, and find that connection for them.

We’re putting a deal together for a grower or vintner who wants to expand supply. We started that search a few months ago because he was very specific about the varietal, location, and orientation of the vineyard. There were a lot of details. All sorts of things went into that checklist. We didn’t know if we were going to make it. There was a tax exchange involved. We serendipitously came across the ideal property for him that we are excited to be moving forward on.

Do you feel like you’re usually able to check off all of their checkboxes?

I think so. With what Robyn said about that timeline, the timeline for a wine industry investment, which is land, vineyard, and wineries, is much longer than your typical residential timeline. When we do get that checklist, it is our goal to meet every single need.

A lot of times, though, what’s interesting in the process of searching is whenever we see something and it only checks off two of the boxes, but we think it could still be an interesting investment that also can shift and change their checklist, so to speak. Sometimes, it grows, and sometimes, it goes even narrower. We have been lucky in that majority of the time, we’re able to make sure that they get what they want and sometimes more.

I’m curious. Usually, people will come up and invest in the winery parts of Napa Valley because they have an interest in wine. Do you find that most people invest because they want to start growing grapes or because they want to open a winery? There are so many different things you can do in that industry. Do you find that some people just invest for growth? Is there a lot of growth? Let’s talk a little bit about that. Maybe you love wine, but you don’t want to get your hands dirty in it necessarily. You don’t want to work it, but you’re very interested in the industry and investing in it. What’s the growth like in the industry, and are there possibilities for that?

There absolutely are. The biggest growth potential in Napa Valley is real estate appreciation. Making money as a vintner is a very hard road. Some people knock it out of the park. Other people struggle forever, but they are okay with struggling because they love the lifestyle and they’re doing what they love to do.

The biggest growth potential in Napa Valley is real estate appreciation. Share on X

Let’s say your first investment in possibly coming to the valley is buying a home. Depending on whether you want to use it or not, you are buying it as an investment with a vineyard surrounding it. You could start with a minimum of five acres and a house that you use on weekends. You could also rent it out and receive income and tax benefits from the vineyard. Those are some interesting additional benefits to the investment.

Learn how you feel about it as time goes on. That small step of buying a vineyard into the wine world will open up your understanding of how the process works and how viticulture and winemaking go hand in hand in a short, easy way. There’s support around all of that. Let’s say you thought, “I have an extra $1.5 million or $2 million. I’ll buy a house and some vines.”

Part of Wine Country Consultants’ passion and what we bring to the table is that we have worked with our consulting crew for many years also. Everyone is at the top of their game. Everybody’s game is to make you successful. We would be able to help you with a vineyard manager. We’ll be able to help you with an accountant and things that you may need going forward.

Let’s say five years down the road, we can all look at different periods of appreciation. They call it California Gold for a reason. With real estate, if you can get in and make a stand in a very short period of time, you’re going to have significant equity. Part of our job is to understand all the pieces of that vineyard vibe. We’re like, “What is the age of the vines? What’s going to cross going forward so that you have a clear map and you can afford this 5 to 10-year hold?” Maybe what you do is sell that in the future. If you like what this business is doing, maybe you go to a little bigger vineyard or a second buy. Maybe that vineyard’s in a different AVA.

 

What do you mean by AVA?

AVAs are American Viticulture Areas. We have around fifteen or so in Napa Valley. AVAs are micro-climates within Napa Valley. We have Howell Mountain AVA and Spring Mountain AVA. Stags Leap is probably our most famous and most expensive. Washington and Oregon all have viticulture areas. The pricing is different for almost every AVA. The growing conditions are different. The varietals are different. That decision-making for a first-time investor in what AVA they would like to be in is generally reflective of the wine that they like.

That decision making for a first time investor on what AVA you would like to be is reflective of the wine that they like. Share on X

You brought up some interesting points. I know that you are not tax consultants or anything like that, but there are some very specific tax benefits that you get from owning. Vineyards are considered agriculture. I know the disclosure. You’re not CPAs, but you understand what people are going for. What are some of the tax benefits of owning, for instance, a house surrounded by a vineyard?

We are not tax specialists, but we can connect you with several people that are and the ins and outs and specifics of them. To be honest, I cannot give you exact examples. There’s something in California called the Williamson Act. Do not quote me, but I believe the property has to have 70% of it dedicated to ag in order to receive a lot of tax benefits that are through property taxes and things of that sort. That’s one avenue. Even if it’s not in the Williamson Act, there are benefits if you have a certain amount of your property dedicated to ag. Let’s say 99% is dedicated to vineyards and growing grapes.

Also, ag can be considered as cattle land or orchards. There is a whole bunch across the whole state of California and all over the country. In the state of California, there are lots of different departments in ag. Also, with the fruit, I know that there are benefits depending on the sales. Vines have value there that is an asset to the land that then is depreciated. Depending on what your growing program is, there are also some benefits in that department as well.

Within the last couple of years, the vintner community has gotten good at understanding multiple ways to depreciate a vine. There are also cost benefits to identifying the AVA. When you buy a vineyard, some AVAs cost more than others. That cost difference is also a tax benefit. The depreciation of the vine itself is also one avenue.

 

There is also the depreciation of the irrigation lines. All these things go very deep. Larger growers and vintners go deep because it’s worth doing so for every penny that it takes to be successful. Starting on the smaller end, maybe not so much, but there are agricultural advantages to it. We are doing our own little video series with some of our consultants talking about different aspects. One of our future conversations is going to be having a wonderful accountant and consultant explain in detail.

The reason we depreciate a house is that it’s losing its value. It is an asset that is not as nice. Things break and stuff happens. Depreciating a wine is because the vines get better with age.

If you’d like to do an Old Vine Zin, perhaps there are lots of reasons to keep that 50-year-old vine. The life cycle of a vineyard has its peak and then it starts to trail off.

In Napa Valley, that’s around twenty years. If a vineyard’s twenty years old, all of a sudden, there’s a little talk about replanting. We generally don’t go longer than about 30 years before there’s a replant. Many changes happen over time. They learn so much more about how to orient rows and growing practices that the vintners get excited about that change up. It is not only the orientation towards the sun but should they be 4×7 or 5×6. These kinds of things play into that decision to replant.

When we look at the return on investment in a vineyard, you gain that return through selling your fruit, which is selling tonnage. For Napa Valley Cab, in general, they’re growing fruit to come in at about three tons per acre. That compared to the central coast, where they’re doing more of a bulk supply issue, they might be growing to 6 to 7 tons.

When we look at the return on investment on a vineyard, how you gain that return is through selling your fruit, which is selling tonnage. Share on X

Understanding as divine ages that the tonnage, because they all end up with some disease, which is also a matter of fact as we age, things start to fall apart. The investor is constantly looking for that breakeven. They’re like, “How far can I go before the tonnage and the vineyard is going to start predicting that I need to replant?”

We lived in France for a year and a half, too. There was a lot of talk about purchasing old vines and making sure that you’re getting the right kind of fruit. There’s an old vine culture in France. It sounds like it’s not quite the same.

It’s not the same in Napa. Even in Willamette Valley, which we like a lot, they love their old vines. They are 60 years old. They make a big deal about it, but not so much here. Jordan mentioned Zin. Zin seems to be the one where people can hang onto some vines for 40 to 50 years and still sell, even if it’s only producing a ton. Maybe that ton is worth $20,000. It makes sense for them to keep farming.

That’s so interesting Willamette does that. I’m crazy about the Willamette Valley wines.

We are, too. We have an office in Portland. They’ve taken a huge market share from Sonoma Valley in terms of Pinot. At the same time, Sonoma Valley and Willamette Valley played beautifully together in making Pinot Noir much more popular than it’s been in many years.

They have a completely different flavor, so they fill a different need. As I’m thinking about it, I’m not a wine person, but I can taste the difference between a Sonoma Valley Pinot, a Willamette Pinot, or a French Pinot. The grapes make a huge difference. I thought how old the vines are and stuff like that made a pretty big difference. I do think that if older vines are based on what you’re saying, where old vines are valued and they can sustain themselves without getting diseased, they’re going to produce a very different kind of flavor. You pay for that more, wouldn’t you agree?

Yes.

Absolutely.

The price per ton of that fruit is reflected in the bottle.

We talk a lot about investing. You come in and you invest in a 5-acre vineyard right off the bat. If someone buys fruit from that vineyard and it’s not branded, then it would go into the program that may not necessarily need to call out that vineyard on their bottle. If it’s a branded vineyard with some good legs on it already, so to speak, then a lot of times, the growers will require that the vintner puts the name of that vineyard on their bottle. It would be Napa Valley from the XYZ Vineyard.

They called it the vineyard designate.

Talk to me a little bit about financing with these vineyards. It’s not going to be the same as we’re used to in other places. Could you tell us a little bit about what’s different and how it works?

We had a long conversation with Nick Cadigan, who’s an appraiser for AgCredit. We work with all the lenders in the valley very closely. You have options for lending. You can go with a traditional lender like AgCredit. Silicon Valley Bank is big in the area. There are also small business loans available. We have done a lot of work with Jeff Clark with Live Oak Bank. You can get a loan that will be amortized over 30 years.

There are some real benefits to digging into what your lending options are. That process is something that is for the first-time investor or for any investor. That’s where you want to start. You’re like, “What terms am I looking at? What expectations does the lender have of what I am purchasing?” The lender will go deep into your business plan and help you be successful. We work hand in hand with our clients and lenders all the time. In Napa Valley, we are also lucky. 80% of the transactions that we do are all cash transactions.

 

That was going to be my next question. Do people use leverage? How much do you need to put down? Can you get loans and that sort of thing? If you’re going to finance it, first of all, do you think that’s a good idea? If you do, how much do people usually need to put down on a loan like that?

It’s generally known it is wonderful to have cash on hand and be able to receive a loan that has wonderful terms and rates. In a lot of ways, that is very beneficial. If you look into both options, absolutely. The lenders that Robyn spoke of and others have wonderful options for our clients and anyone looking to invest. It is a bit different than a residential play. Even though some of our lenders can sometimes accommodate 0% down, which is full funding, that is rare. I would say, typically, you are looking at a minimum of 20% but more than 30% of what you’re putting down. 30% down and then 70% is put towards the loan.

That’s like most rental properties that we buy. You usually have to put 25% to 35% down, even on residential.

Live Oak Bank, for example, has a program where if you’re already in the business, making money, and it makes sense, they will do the full loan amount and will also then loan for improvements.

That’s what I was going to ask. That’s the next step. Let’s say someone who’s not in the business comes up and gets a loan. How do you finance the actual buying of the vines, equipment, and all of those different things? Do you get financing for that separately as a business loan? Will the lender that does the mortgage do that? Do you have to keep enough on reserves to do that? I know there are lots of different options, but can you talk to me a little bit about some of those?

Yeah. There are certain lenders that will then give you a certain amount on top of the loan of the actual purchase of the investment of the property to then put back into the business that you’re creating. You mentioned equipment. Often time, if there is equipment for a winery, the value of that equipment is determined within the process of the purchase agreement. There is a value in that. It usually is included in the property, but sometimes, it is not. Sometimes, there are things that are excluded, like any other investment. Certain fixtures come as standard and others are an option.

With a vineyard, oftentimes, there is perhaps some equipment that is usually included in the sale. Oftentimes, though, the vineyard is managed by a vineyard manager. They bring in their own equipment. There isn’t much besides the nuts and bolts of the actual vines that come with that land automatically. There are options, for sure, to grow and immediately receive financial help through those lenders to go forward and be successful with your investment.

If you’re not buying an actual vineyard that’s already planted, what happens if you buy land and you want to start from the ground up? You need to buy all those vines, the fans, and all of that stuff that happens.

Before you get to buy all that fun stuff, you have to have approval from Napa County. If you’re looking to develop, the actual spending of money starts with hiring engineers and experts on what soil type you have and what slope you have. You are creating a lot of detail that then needs to be approved by Napa County. Unless the land you’re buying is under a 5% slope, which is flat, you have to have an erosion control plan developed and presented. That process alone can take a year or two to happen.

Part of what we do is if that is indeed what the intention is, which is to buy and develop, during the due diligence process, we have to identify approximately how many acres that is. That’s done with consultants that are experts in the area, what the cost associated would be, and what that timing looks like. Once you plant these vines, you’re not going to start receiving income until we’re 3, 4, or 5 years down the road. It takes a lender and an investor with a long-term vision because we’re going to get out of that short-term vision in about five years. It’s inclined to ten years after you purchase that you’re going to see the fruits of your labor.

Once you plant these vines, you're really not going to start receiving income until we're 3, 4, 5 years down the road. Share on X

That’s a good segue talking about due diligence. We are going to be talking in EXTRA about how the offer process works when you find something that you want to buy and how to go through that process, part of the due diligence, all of those pieces that go into making that offer, setting a price, and all of that stuff. We are going to be talking about that in EXTRA, so stay tuned for that. Before we go through our three Rapid-fire questions, could you talk a little bit about how people can get in touch with you and what kinds of services you’re offering the ladies?

Absolutely. Probably the quickest way to understand what we do, the breadth of our reach, and how we can help is to go to our website, which is WineCC.net. There, you’re going to find all of our information, phone numbers, and email addresses. We put a list of our consultants. We’d love to hear from you, whether it’s easier to pick up the phone or shoot an email or text. We are always excited to meet new people and talk about new projects. We’re all readily accessible. We look forward to hearing from you. We are also excited to talk about any questions you have. It doesn’t have to necessarily be that you have an investment in mind right away. We’re happy to kick around and explore ideas.

Go check it out. There is so much to learn about this. We’ve never had anybody on the show talking about wineries, so what fun. Are you ready for three Rapid-fire questions?

Yes.

Give us one super tip on getting started investing in real estate.

Contact a local real estate broker in the area that you want to invest and find out from them what they believe would be a good stepping stone to your investment.

 

Jordan, did you want to add anything?

Oftentimes, your local broker is your window into the area. Unless you are a local yourself, and even if you aren’t, that brokerage firm and broker knows and understands the current market or the current “hotspots” that are perhaps already getting some legs and then new ones that are starting. It’s wonderful to figure out where you can find your spot in the super new or even already-established market.

Thank you. What would you say is a strategy to be successful as a real estate investor?

Having a passion, number one, for the location that you’re investing in. If you truly love the area and the community, whether or not you are a super active part of that, by having an investment in that area, you are, in my opinion, part of that area. Even if you only visit once a year or every single day, know that your investment adds to the fabric and the success of that community. I feel that having a passion and a true desire to be part of that is the number one foundation for a successful investment.

Know that your investment adds to the fabric and the success of that community. Having a passion and a true desire to be part of that is the number one foundation for a successful investment. Share on X

Robyn, what do you think?

I have to agree with Jordan. In every area of life, if you’re going to be successful, it is bringing that positive attitude and an open mind. You are fueled by your love either of the investment or the area, or both, hopefully.

It is so interesting to have that particular conversation where both of you said that. That’s the opposite of what a lot of people will say about residential investing. A lot of times, people will say for residential investing, “Live where you love but invest where the numbers make sense.” What you’re saying makes sense in wine country. As we think about real estate, there are so many different approaches. I often say there are 1 million ways to make $1 million in real estate.

Where you decide to pursue your real estate career, whether it is in wineries, single-family homes, multifamily, storage, senior living, or whatever, with the way that you’re going to approach that, your mindset is going to make a huge difference. If you’re going to invest, for instance, in the wine country, what you said makes perfect sense. It is a labor of love. There is not a fast turnaround. You’re in there for the long haul. It makes sense to do it exactly that way. Thank you for that. What is one daily practice that each of you does that contributes to your daily success?

My meditation practice keeps me extremely grounded and balanced. I am able to navigate all the various challenges that happen daily, weekly, and monthly not only in my career but in my personal life as well. That practice is ever-evolving, as always. It shifts as my daily routine shifts. It also depends on which escrow I’m in and who I’m helping out. I always make sure that it’s there.

That didn’t start, to be honest, on a daily practice until June 2020. Before then, it was probably five years of meditating sporadically. By sporadically, I mean it could be once a week, once a month, or once every couple of months. Once I decided to give myself that self-love of daily mindful meditation practice, my inner world shifted and then the outer world started to reflect that. I had always heard people speak of this. It wasn’t until I decided to jump in with both feet and make that commitment to myself that I did see the positive changes. I would say I can’t live without my daily meditation.

Jordan inspired me to meditate daily. It is a game-changer. Even if it’s only five minutes, it is worth every second in gold. The culture of our company is very much centered around self-love and positivity. Besides meditation, what we both do, and this includes Ross, is we generally are exercising outside every day. We are lucky to live close to Lake Hennessey here with great trails. You cannot get enough of being out in nature. That can be a meditative experience, too.

I do a lot of walking meditations. If you sit still for five minutes, that’s awesome. Sometimes, I need more. After these shows, I’ve got a whole series of meetings. To switch gears, I’ll go out for lunch, go for a long walk with the dog, and do it mindfully. It’s interesting both of you say it because those things, which are meditation, exercise, and being in nature, are also all things that the top performers all say. We think, “That’s hokey or woo-woo.” The top performers in the world do this.

In order to be a billionaire, these are things that you need to do. That’s what they do. I always say, “If you want to be whoever you want to be, follow their path because success is replicable.” These are some of those skills. People think that it is not money-building specific, but it is you-building specific. You are the person that needs to perform.

Our number one investment is ourselves. These are things that we can do to keep our minds, bodies, and spirits healthy. That’s different for everyone. If there’s anything we can do that is going to create success and generate long-lasting success in our lives physically, it has to come from an inner spot first. Those can be exercise, meditation, and nature.

 

This has been amazing. Thank you so much for what you’ve offered at this portion of the show.

Thank you.

Thank you so much.

It’s been so much fun. Stay tuned for EXTRA. We’ve got more. We’re going to be talking about what happens once you find a target property, how to go through your due diligence, what the offering process is, and all of that. We’re going to be talking about that in EXTRA. If you’re subscribed, stay tuned. If you’re not but would like to be, go to RealEstateInvestingForWomenEXTRA.com. You can sign up there. For those of you that are leaving us, thank you so much for joining Robyn, Jordan, and me for this portion of the show. I look forward to seeing you next time. Until then, remember that goals without action are just dreams. Get out there, take action, and create the life your heart deeply desires. I’ll talk to you soon.

 

Important Links

• Wine Country Consultants
• Our Town St. Helena
• RealEstateInvestingForWomenEXTRA.com

 

About Robyn Bentley

Robyn Bentley is the Broker at Wine Country Consultants. Shortly after moving to the Napa Valley in the early 1990’s, Robyn launched her vineyard and winery oriented real estate career by representing a purchase in the Carneros AVA, a hillside vineyard by Pine Ridge Winery, and has been assisting the wine industry and investors in acquiring strategic properties for over 30 years.

Robyn’s expertise lies in her consensus-building team approach to working with investors on both sides of an acquisition. Beginning with her intimate knowledge of viticulture areas and an in-depth understanding of the wine industry, she can identify key and often overlooked investment opportunities and assist her clients by building a team of industry experts to make the decision-making process and transaction a well-informed and transparent exchange.

Given the increased interest of the wine industry, investors crossover between California, Oregon and Washington’s viticulture regions. Robyn is qualified and available to assist on a consulting basis in all 50 states as well as internationally. Her long-term industry contacts enable her to play an invaluable role in assisting investors throughout the world.

Robyn’s life-long commitment to assisting women and children in need has led her to volunteer for numerous organizations over the years as well as serving on the board of Community Resources for Children of Napa Valley and the Oregon Children’s Trust Fund.

Robyn raised both of her children, Jordan and Ross Bentley, in St. Helena and is very proud to have them as partners in the WCC team.

Robyn is married to Trace Brash with whom she shares a love of real estate and the sea. Trace owns a successful construction company in Portland, OR. In 2006, when their youngest left for college, Trace and Robyn took a sabbatical of nearly a year to sail their 44’ sloop down the Caribbean chain to Venezuela.

 

About Jordan Bentley

Jordan Bentley “grew-up” in real estate assisting her mother, Robyn Bentley, while being raised in Saint Helena.

Jordan earned a BA in creative writing from Colorado College and kept going east to Boston where she earned an MFA in photography from the Massachusetts College of Art and Design. After teaching at her alma mater and Tufts University, she decided it was time to return to her roots in Napa Valley.

Jordan has been working with Wine Country Consultants for over ten years and is proud to be part of her family business. Through Robyn’s mentorship and invaluable hands-on experience, Jordan has organically fused her previous talents with real estate to offer clients a unique skill set. Her creative eye and dedication to detail along with her in-depth knowledge and local perspective of Napa Valley allows Jordan to assist clients successfully reach their goals.

Jordan is an avid traveler who thrives when meeting new people and immersing herself in a new culture. Some of her favorite places are Finland, where she lived for a year as a foreign exchange student, and her husband’s native South Africa.

Jordan and her husband, Frameworks owner Rob Watermeyer, have two young sons named McCary and Gray. The four of them enjoy running, biking or strolling around town and Lake Hennessey with their dog, Pan.

Jordan is not only dedicated to her clients and family but also to serving her community. Her passion for education led her to serve on the board of her sons’ pre-school, the St. Helena Cooperative Nursery School, as President and Vice President from 2016-2022. Jordan currently serves as the President of the board of Our Town St. Helena, a non-profit dedicated to preserving and creating affordable housing for all in St. Helena. Past service led Jordan to be a board member and lead chair for the youth exchange program in the Saint Helena Rotary Club from 2014-2017.

 

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Real Estate Investing For Good With Dr. Nancy Huynh – Real Estate Women

 

Many investors are in real estate as a side hustle and to create passive income. But how do you know when it is time to finally start settling in the industry for good, taking a more active role in achieving financial freedom? Eye surgeon and impact real estate investor Nancy Huynh, MD, helps us answer this question as she joins Moneeka Sawyer in this episode. Nancy founded Clear Vision Investing to help others, especially physicians, realize the power of real estate and achieve financial security. She tells us how she does that while sharing her own journey to investing and getting in syndications. Extending her success to others, Nancy then discusses investing for impact. She talks about her mission with real estate to help cure preventable blindness globally. Follow along with this impactful conversation to learn how you can achieve financial freedom and help others at the same time.

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Watch the episode here

 

Listen to the podcast here

 

Real Estate Investing For Good With Dr. Nancy Huynh – Real Estate Women

Real Estate Investing For Women

I am so excited to welcome to the show, Nancy Huynh. Nancy is a Physician, an Eye Surgeon and Impact Real Estate Investor. She started investing in real estate to create passive income, hoping to regain control of her time and stop trading time for money. She founded Clear Vision Investing not only to grow her own portfolio but also to help others realize the power of real estate. She’s passionate about helping others, especially physicians, gain financial literacy and achieve financial security through real estate investing.

She believes that financially intelligent physicians can change medicine and the world for the better. As an impact investor, Nancy believes that real estate investing can deliver attractive financial returns while also making a positive social impact. I believe that too. Part of the profits from her company is donated to giving the gift of sight to someone in need and to cure preventable blindness globally. Nancy, that sent shivers down my spine and all over. What a beautiful bio and a beautiful mission. Welcome to the show.

Thank you so much for having me. I’m so excited to be here with you.

It’s so funny, Nancy. We think of doctors as rich and smart. Many people think of them as pompous. They think they know everything. My mom’s a physician, so you know, I know the way the world perceives. We need our doctors and there are all these opinions. What’s so interesting is we never think of a physician as needing financial literacy. I know from personal experience because my mom is a physician, so we hung out with a lot of them. They make a lot of money. They also have this huge social expectation to live up to. They spend so much of that time, first of all, serving their patients but then also feel it because they’re of service. They come to the world of service.

That’s what physicians do. They also feel that they have to live up to the expectations of how people see them. They put so much more importance outwardly. They don’t have the financial of literacy to create a life that then can be bigger than themselves. It’s so awesome. We’ve had one other doctor that’s doing a very similar thing on the show. I love what you’re doing for these people that serve us, serve their communities. They go through this huge education. They go through their residencies.

They sacrifice so much to be able to be of service then their lives get so tied up that they never get to retire or never get to get the freedom of time with their children and their families and the things that are important to them. Good job. To expand it to something even bigger than that, to be even bigger service to the community in different ways. Thank you for that.

Thank you for that perspective. You hit it right on point. Physicians were so used to sacrifice. Sacrificing our twenties and often our early thirties or even later, sometimes many years to get into this profession and become that attending physician. Through that process, we also financially accumulate a lot of debt. A lot of us graduate with over six figures of student loans from college and med school. When you’re in residency, you’re earning less than minimum wage for the amount of hours that you work. You start off with this negative net worth and all of a sudden, as you said, society expects you to live up to this expectation of this doctor image, the big house, the cars, the private schools.

People often get caught in the cycle of where they’re working and they’re making good money, but they’re chasing a hamster wheel. They never, as you said, experience that financial freedom but also that time freedom and, eventually, that geographic freedom, freedom of relationships and freedom of purpose to do what you want to do.

It’s so sad. This is true in many professions. Not just with physicians. I’ve seen it with vets, with dentists, in all different professions, whether it’s healthcare or not, where people sacrifice so much and end up in a place where they don’t get the freedoms that will make their life blissful. It’s amazing. Tell us a little bit about your journey, like how did you get from being physician to real estate investor? The two-minute high level, how did you get here?

Briefly, I’m a child of refugees. My parents came here after the Vietnam War in 1980. I was the first in my family to be born in the US. Unlike many children from immigrant families, were taught, “Study hard. Go to school and get good grades. Go to a good college and get that good job.” I followed this very prescribed path and along the way, I fell in love with medicine. That’s what I did. I went through medical school and fell in love with eye and ophthalmology and eye surgeries and giving the gift of sight. After I got off that training, I started working.

This is what got me. I realized, “I’m making pretty good money,” but the one thing I could never make back was my time, the one non-renewable resource. I could never get back and this especially hit home. I already had this feeling, but this especially hit home when my daughter was born. I remember she had a 103-degree fever and I had gone back to work after maternity leave. She was probably three or four months old.

The nanny called me and was like, “Can you come home? I’m not sure what to do.” I remember looking at my clinic schedule and I was like, “I cannot because I can’t cancel on these patients. I’ll be home as soon as possible.” I remember that feeling I was serving everyone but the one thing that I want to do now, which was to be with my daughter to figure out what was going on. I couldn’t do it because I didn’t have that time freedom. That time, I realized, was more valuable than anything. That’s when I thought to see what I could do. I discovered this thing called passive income and through that, I discovered real estate. That’s when I was off to the races with real estate.

What you talk about is that passive income creates optionality and choices. I don’t know if you’ve ever seen my TEDx Talk, but it’s all about choice creates happiness. Choice gives you time freedom. Choice gives you the relationships that you want. I love your perspective on that. Could you talk a little bit about that?

Money can’t buy happiness in and of itself but advise you that optionality, as we’re talking about. Once you take that financial burden off of you, you’re a little freer to say, “Now I don’t need to trade my time to earn this paycheck, to pay the bills, to pay the mortgage. What do I do with that time?” Sometimes it means I want to work more. I want to be more patient. I want to do more surgeries, but the freedom of saying it’s my choice to do that is different than saying, “I have to do it.”

 

I think that’s the key distinction that I want your readers to know. It’s different when you’re doing something, but you feel like you have to do it versus, I’m choosing to do it. It might be the same thing, for instance. I could do twenty cataract cases, but it’s one thing to say, “I have to do it because I have to earn this amount of money to cover these expenses.” Versus, “I choose to do it because I love it. I want to help these patients.” It brings a completely different viewpoint and it’s so freeing.

It also helps to shift your identity. I’ve got a similar story. My husband and I were trying to get pregnant. We were going through the fertility thing and I had had eleven miscarriages and we were on our 12th pregnancy. I remember one morning. I went to my doctor to do my ultrasound and we lost the heartbeat that morning. I remember bawling in the little white room that I was sitting there. The doctor left to give me a moment. I cried and cried. I called my husband and I said, “We lost the heartbeat. I need you.” It was about 11:00 and he said, “Sweetheart, I’ve got meetings all day. I’ll be home at 4:00.”

He wanted to be there with me and I knew that. It wasn’t his fault, but I think for him, he also realized, “I want to be able to be a yes. My identity as a software programmer is not as important as my identity as husband to Moneeka.” It was an interesting shift from being professional, this is how I identify myself and this is my value to, I want to be a choice for this. I want to be a programmer because it’s fun. That’s when he got involved. He’s still not hugely involved in my business but got his buy-in.

We need to create enough passive income so that if you decide that you don’t want to be a programmer anymore, you don’t want to be tied up to a job, now you can do that. When you’re doing it, it’s because you love it, you’re passionate about it, not because you have to. It’s this idea of creating the passive income to become job optional. Not necessarily retire. I say retire and all my stuff because it’s an easier way to say. It sounds better than job optional, but what we’re going for is being able to create the bliss in your life that you’re searching for. That may be continuing to work.

I think for a lot of us, it’s going to involve some work. Whether it be, “I want to stay home more with my kids.” Being a mom is a lot of work. I have two young children so that in itself is work. You get to choose, as you said, what your identity, what title you want to choose and it could be fluid, but then it becomes your choice. Instead of saying, “I have to be changed to this 9:00 to 5:00 at this desk because my employer told me I have to. I have to get that every two-week paycheck. I have to be this identity from Monday to Friday from 9:00 to 5:00.”

What if you have those options with passive income to say, “Monday and Tuesday, I want to be a doctor. I want to be a surgeon. Wednesday, Thursday and Friday, I want to be a mom or I want to be a real estate investor or whatever you want to do.” It gives you a lot more choices. The flexibility of having options is what frees the mind. I think when people get stuck and feeling like they’re “trap” is when they don’t have options. If you have ten options, even whatever problem you’re solving, it doesn’t seem like a problem anymore, then it’s very freeing.

The flexibility of having options is what frees the mind. Share on X

It may feel like a challenge, but you have more confidence. You have more emotional and mental and creative confidence that you can get through it, get to the other side of it. Do you think anybody can invest in real estate?

I do.

Tell me about that.

I knew nothing about real estate other than buying a primary home. There’s so much out there now, so much education. Maybe it was different years ago. I don’t know. I didn’t look way back, but I’m sure if there’s a will, there’s a way. Especially in this day and age, there are podcasts. There are free webinars, a bunch of events that you could go to. It’s a matter of getting educated but also getting your mindset right.

A lot of the roadblock to people starting in real estate is in their minds and the mind games that they play themselves with. As Tony Robbins likes to say, “80% of success is psychology or mindsets and only 20% of strategy.” If it were all strategy, then all of us would have six packs. All the librarians would be billionaires with all the books that they consume. It’s not just the knowledge. It’s also knowledge of your mindset and with action that you could make it happen.

I’ve been calling mindset the ultimate strategy. It is a strategy in and of itself to get that under control.

A lot of the mindset, as we were talking about before, it is the identity you choose for yourself and the stories that we choose ourself. As women, how many stories do we tell ourselves that are not necessarily true or that we think it’s true, then we found so much evidence to reinforce it, to say it’s true when it’s not?

I always tell people everything that’s going on in our lives, we’ve made up anyways. We make up the story. The circumstance happens and three different people will see it in three different ways. You’ve made up your story about that circumstance. Why not make up stories that support you and make you and uplift you and give you those rose-colored glasses that will make life easier and more blissful. Rather than making up the stories about strife and difficulty and challenges and exhaustion and all of those things?

The fact of the circumstance, it’s how we view, as you said, through our colored lens or no colored lens. That’s how it shapes our perception and our thoughts of it. Our thoughts ultimately shape our actions, which lead to our results. That’s why it all starts with mindset. It’s circumstance but then the thoughts we put on it, which ultimately drive our actions then our results. It’s all in what story you want to tell ourselves, like when we’re little girls. Some of us tell ourselves these fairy tales. Why can’t we dream like that anymore? We can.

Our thoughts ultimately shape our actions, which lead to our results. Share on X

Talk to me a little bit about the difference between active real estate investing as opposed to passive real estate investing because you’ve chosen passive. Talk to me a little bit about how you see those differences.

I think it’s a spectrum of active versus passive. Oftentimes, we make this clear divide, but it’s not necessarily soul. It depends on your circumstance, what you want, and what your goal of investing is. I’ve done both. I started off active like many people do that we think of real estate investing, which is to buy a single-family or a duplex and rent it out, which is what I did because it’s what I knew and what I was comfortable with. With comfort gives certainty and it makes you take action. I’m so glad I did that.

As I started building up my portfolio, I first self-managed my first one and quickly realized it was not worth my time. My time was better spent with my children, taking care of my patients, so I quickly handed off to a property manager. Even with a property manager, the decisions always float up to the top. I get calls about it. The other thing about active is you are the one who has to go source the property. Go find it, put in the offer and you might not win it. It does take time to find the property and get it under contract and all that.

Even for a property manager, it still requires some of your time management. I’ll give you an example. I was at the park with my daughter and I get this call from the property manager. They’re like, “All the water has backed up into both bathrooms into this property.” I was like, “Okay.” He’s like, “Don’t worry, I’ll get it all taken care of,” but you worry. You can’t not worry. The sewer had backed up. Instead of spending that afternoon with my daughter, I was like spent on the phone texting and calling.

That’s an example of what I found wasn’t quite fitting the lifestyle that I wanted at this time. That’s when I discovered passive investing. Passive investing with syndications, for those of us who don’t know what syn occasions are, it’s basically a group investment, instead of you taking your $100,000 and buying a single-family home, for instance. You could take that $100,000 and pull it with a group of people to buy a $10 million apartment building. No one person can probably have that huge down payment or that money to buy that apartment but as a group, you can do that.

I’ve shifted to the strategy for several reasons. One is my time, as I said. Even if I had the time, I didn’t necessarily want to spend it working in a real estate business, doing all the properties I wanted to spend time with my daughter, being the best surgeon I can, and honing that craft. The second was I could leverage a professional team who do this full time and leverage their network, their time, their expertise.

The third thing that I saw was I’m able to diversify because when I was buying my own active properties. I like to see and feel and touch it. I invested in my backyard here in Atlanta. I was pretty confined in terms of market, but now, I get an investment in the South, the Southeast and the Midwest. I could also diversify. I do mostly multifamily, but I invested in hotels and other commercial properties. You get to spread your money across different sponsors as well because you could put $50,000 here, $100,000 here and spread it across.

You’re mitigating your risk across markets and also across sponsors. One more thing that I like is that you have limited liability. When you own your own properties, even if you put in an LLC, you’re personally liable. Eventually, the buck stops with you. With being a limited partner and syndications, you’re basically limited to the amount that you invest in, no matter what happens for the most part. If someone falls on the sidewalk and sues, the most they could ever get is the amount that you invested. I like those aspects. Now because I have young children and I’m busy with my career, I found that passive investing has been a great vehicle for me.

 

How did you get into investing in syndications? Let me give you some perspective, Nancy, on why I’m asking that question. I’m in a lot of syndications for the same reasons, different markets and different class types. I’ve invested in storage, mobile home parks, multi-unit, even some big luxury single families.

I’m in some cool projects and I have my own projects also. I get so many of these that come across my desk now as a show host. People know me now because I’m public about that I’m interested in this. I get so many of these that come across my desk. For me, I know how I got started. I started having guests like you on my show but how did you get started? What turned you onto that?

How I heard this term syndication, I had never heard of it, even though I had been buying single-family and duplexes. My husband’s also a physician. One of his colleagues had owned quite a bit of a portfolio here. All of a sudden, when we got with him one day to catch up, he’s like, “I sold off my whole portfolio. I’m investing in these syndications.” I’m like, “What? What is this?” We started digging and I started digging and found out what it was.

At first, I thought, “This is like a scam. It sounds like a Ponzi scheme.” As I got further into it and got educated, I think that’s the key. The more education you get, the more confidence you feel. I’m like, “I think this is legitimate. I hear people doing it. I’ve seen it work for other people. They have these structures in place.” The key thing is to vet the sponsor and vet the deal. Number one is sponsor. Number two, I would say, is market then number three is the actual deal. That’s what we did. I started interviewing different sponsors. We’re doing it and getting comfortable and watching on the sidelines before I jumped in to make sure that we were the right fit that they were conducting themself, character-wise, in a way that someone I want to partner with.

It is scary because you’re handing over control to someone else versus if you bought your own property. You got to choose when you refinance, what colors you paint the walls, etc. This is like handing over $50,000, $100,00 to someone and saying, “I trust you to be a good steward of this money. That you’re going to protect it and grow it.” It is scary when you first wire that money to someone you might have met o online. I think the first key is to get educated.

As you were saying that, something came to me. It’s a little bit, not quite, but it’s a little bit like investing in stock. When you invest in the stock market into a company, you’re basically turning over this money to a company where they make all of the decisions. You have very little stay unless you’re a major stockholder. They’re managing the whole thing. I feel like in syndications, we have a lot more control over who we invest with. We have a lot more information about who’s running the project and that thing. It is a little bit of that same feeling of someone else has control over this project that I’m now investing in. Would you say that that’s true?

I would agree and disagree with that. I would agree in the sense that you are handing over your money to someone so it feels like you don’t have control anymore. Something I like about syndication that’s different from stock market is that you know who controls it. In the stock market, you’re like, “Let me click this button,” and some big corporation is doing it, which brings me to the point of the difference between syndications and REITs. Sometimes when I talk to other women, physicians, or investors, like, “I don’t need to diversify in real estate. I own some REITs or some stocks in real estate.”

Those are two different things because owning a REIT is like buying stock or a share in a company that invests in real estate, but you don’t own the real estate like you do when you invest in a syndication, which is like you own a fraction of a piece of real estate. You still get all the depreciation, the tax benefits, the cashflow versus when you invest in a REIT. It’s like investing, say, an Apple or Facebook. You get a share in that stock.

Thank you. These are great investments. REITs are great investments if you want to be completely hands-off. They have different kinds of REITs. You can go into doing malls. You could do all of it. You could do the mobile homes. They’ve got all these different REITs or whatever or full spectrum. To me, that’s a little bit more like a mutual fund with a manager. It’s not as much as direct real estate investment. Good distinction. Thank you for that. Talk to me a little bit about investing for impact. I know this is a big piece of who you are in the world. I’d love to hear how you do this and why this is so important to you.

I think at the core of it, especially for us women, when we invest. It is great to get the returns, but especially for women, we’re so purpose driven. We’re so community driven that a lot of the women investors I talk to resonate with the fact that they want to do something bigger for the world, for their community, for their families. If you think about it, that’s what money’s for it. It’s not to collect this power of cash. It’s what you can do with it. If you can make a positive impact for yourself, for your family, for your community, for the world, it’s so much better.

For me, one of my passion projects that are preventable blindness. I was turned on to ophthalmology, the field of eyes. When I was a medical student and I witnessed the miracle of cataract surgery for the first time. When this completely blind patient was hunched over, walked in with someone assisting him and with a ten-minute surgery, walked out jumping for joy and able to independently stand up and walk away, it changed his life.

What your readers may not know is that 80% of the world’s blindness is preventable. It was something as simple as pure glasses or a 5 or 10-minute $25 cataract surgery. That’s unacceptable. Part of my mission with real estate investing and the profits I earn is going towards this cause because I think it’s a tragedy and an injustice for people to live like this who are blind and don’t necessarily have to be. I would challenge your readers. There’s something that you want to make an impact off because we’re all purpose-driven.

We all want to grow and contribute in some way. Find what you’re passionate about, then see how your returns and your investments from real estate or whatever you’re investing in can help feel that mission of yours. That’s why I’m so passionate about it because impact investing, you can invest not just for great returns but also make a positive social impact on whatever you decide to make an impact on.

How does that translate for you? Does that mean that you have extra time to do the surgeries? Do you contribute to other organizations that do the surgeries? How do you utilize the money that you make from real estate to make that possible for yourself?

I would love to travel more to be able to lend my skills to this. I’ve done so in the past. With COVID, it’s less easy and with two young kids, it’s harder to travel. As I get older, it’s a priority of mine to physically go and perform these cataract surgeries. I partner with different organizations before, but the one that I’ve partnered with my real estate company, Clear Vision Investing with a nonprofit called Gifts like Global. Why? I love their mission.

They’re on this mission to cure preventable blindness, but they’re doing it very entrepreneurial. It’s the thought of, don’t give a man a fish but teaching them how to fish. Instead of saying, “We’re going to send a group of surgeons in there from the US, from Canada for two weeks and to do a bunch of cataract surgery,” which is the traditional model of “curing preventable blindness.” Instead, they’re funding these vision centers where the people in the village or the community are going out to screen their own people to see who needs surgery.

In turn, they’re building surgery centers within the hospital and bringing in surgeons from the US or Europe to teach people within that community, the doctors within that community, or they might have to travel further to learn to do these surgeries. It becomes a self-sustaining cycle where when you donate once, it hopefully continues to cycle where you don’t have to keep donating the money or bringing in surgeons every 2 weeks, every 2 months. It’s setting that foundation for them, letting them run it as a business.

The self-sustaining contribution. I’ve got a little story like that too. My ladies know that I have, since I was very young, a sixteen-year-old woman, been contributing to the education of women in India because of a traumatic experience that I had when I was living there. As I became a little bit older, the temple that I’ve affiliated with opened up a school in India to educate the community. Not just girls. The girls got an education but to educate the boys also that equality is a good thing. To elevate the entire community so that the women get educated and can have a better life. Everybody has a better life as each of us is uplifted. I became very involved with that school and have made multiple thousands of dollars of contribution to that school over the years.

My ladies have heard about this. What’s been very interesting lately is I had a conversation. I was having lunch with my swami. He was saying that the school is now completely self-sustaining. They built a water line that they then utilize and they also sell some water now. That water line also goes to their orchard of coconut trees. They then sell coconut milk, coconut water, coconuts, all this stuff because that’s a very big product in India to surrounding communities. They have some cows, so they have milk.

They’ve got all this stuff that they have their farm, so now the school is self-sustaining as far as its food and nutrition and all of that stuff. They also can sell some of this. Now they can continue to pay the teachers and stuff like that. I still donate because I want them to expand further, which is what their goal is. The students that are in the school now, all 1,000 of them, are guaranteed in education up through high school, basically. I think it’s from kindergarten through high school. It’s a full twelve grades.

Once they’re in, they’re guaranteed that education because they’re self-sustaining. I also appreciate it. It was part of the goal from years ago when we first started this. We have to build and we need to get donations and all of those things. Part of the plan is to make itself sustaining so that these children are guaranteed the education, the communities are guaranteed this uplifting presence, an opportunity in their communities and for it to be self-sustaining so that we’re not constantly trying to get more money and doing the fundraising thing. To me, that’s a new path of contribution. Would you agree with me on that?

I agree when it’s self-sustaining like that or requiring very minimal continuous donations. It not only helps the donors or nonprofits that keep having to chase donor money. It also helps the communities or countries you’re trying to help because, as you said, it uplifts them. When you give someone the power to change their situation, give them the power to earn some money and give them the power of entrepreneurship, their lives can change. They realize they have the power within to change their situation. That’s so powerful, not from a monetary contribution standpoint but also from the point of view of the people that were trying to help.

 

I had never thought of that, Nancy, that other piece of that this is even possible, the mindset shift that happens. That’s amazing. You changed my paradigm right there. Thank you for that.

You’re welcome. I’ll give you a classic example. There’s a gender gap with blindness, so 55% or a little over 55% of people who are blind around the world are female and girls. Now that we’ve given them this opportunity to go around screening people for vision, they have economic opportunities that they otherwise wouldn’t be able to have.

After they get their surgeries and their cure of their blindness and able to see, they’re able to contribute to the very organization and mission of what helped them with their vision. It’s like a self-sustaining cycle where the people that you help are now able to help others in their community. It would be wonderful if we could find some self-sustaining solution for all problems around the world.

I love that. I’ve never said this and I’m not sure how to articulate this. I don’t want it to come out wrong. Ladies, bear with me, but I’m very much into Abraham Hicks. Do you know anything about this?

I don’t know him.

Law of Attraction? She started this trend. Esther Hicks started this trend, Esther and Jerry. It’s a long story, but I’m very much into the law of attraction that what we put out there is what we get in return. When I talk about having a blissful life, part of that blissful life is that I know I’m an attractive magnet for bliss to come towards me because that’s the energy that I send out consistently. It’s my biggest mission in my own life.

That works financially and health-wise and all of those things, what you put out is attractive. We all know that, but there’s this what we call the Law of Attraction. Anyway, I’m into Esther Hicks and Abraham Hicks. I was on a cruise once with them. Someone came to the chair, the hot seat. You can tell I’m Indian. She said, “I wanted to make all of this money so that she can co she can contribute to causes.” What Esther immediately said and she supposedly channels. I believe that she does, but whatever for whatever.

She channels all of her answers. The answer that came back is that, “You can enable people’s inability to take care of themselves.” I was offended by that because I am so big into contribution. I feel like there are so many people that are so much less fortunate than me. I want to help. I’m so blessed with what I’m able to do. It’s a big piece of who I am and how I define myself. I was offended, but then we have this conversation about contribution can have a different face. It’s not necessarily giving to people and enabling them to continue to need. It can be enabling people to grow and be uplifted and to then turn around and contribute in the way that they were contributed to. That was such a beautiful paradigm shift for me. Thank you.

Thank you for sharing that. That’s beautiful. You put it perfectly.

Thank you. This has been such a lovely conversation. We’ve got more. Nancy wants to talk about harmony integration. As women, we play so many roles. With her, it’s physician, mother, wife, surgeon, investor, entrepreneur and philanthropist, there are so many roles that she plays. There are so many roles that each of us plays in our life, daughter, grandchild, sister. There are so many of these, friend. We’ve had other ladies come on the show and talk about that balance.

I think that each time we have a lady talk about that, we pick up new nuggets because each of us perceives our lives differently. We bring a different skill set into creating that harmony. I feel like we’re due for that conversation again. I asked Nancy if she’d be happy to share that with us in EXTRA and she said yes. I’m so excited. We’re going to be talking about that in EXTRA, so stay tuned ladies. Nancy, can you tell people, I know you’ve got a free gift for my ladies. Could you share about that?

I have a free due diligence checklist for ladies interested in real estate syndications. Some of you might be interested in buying your own rentals, but for those of you who are like, “I never want to be a landlord. I don’t want to fix toilets, deal with tenants.” A great way to passively invest, like we briefly touch upon in this episode, is through syndications. One of the things that stop a lot of people is that they don’t know where to start or what questions to ask or how they know that the sponsors, whoever they are handing the money to, is not going to take it and run it away and never to be seen again.

I put together this checklist because these questions have helped me analyze the deals I’ve been looking at since I first started. You can go to my website at ClearVisionInvesting.com. Under Learn, there’ll be a due diligence checklist and it’s free. Download it, see if you could get any value from it and I’ll love to hop on a call to chat if you want to and walk you through it.

That’s how they can reach you and all of that too?

Yes.

Perfect. Thank you for that. That was very generous.

Thank you.

Are you ready for our three rapid-fire questions?

I’m ready. Let’s go.

Nancy, tell us one super tip for getting started investing in real estate.

Education. The more you get educated, the more confident you’ll be and the more you’ll be ready to take action. That’s the question I get asked quite often by a lot of ladies, a lot of women physicians. How do I get started? I said, “Start with your education.” That’s the one thing that no one can take away from you. Once you’re armed with that power, you’re ready. Armed with education then getting your mindset right and taking action. You’ll get the results that you want. Start with your education.

The more you get educated, the more confident you'll be and the more you'll be ready to take action. Share on X

What’s one strategy on being successful as a real estate investor?

I think it’s learning to pivot. I take this from my medical and surgical career because there have been so many times I’ve had to pivot. Whether it be this medication’s not working at the pivot to another medication or I’m in the middle of eye surgery and something is wrong. I have to pivot to get through the surgery. I’ve taken those skills to apply to real estate because, as we know, as real estate investors, nothing is as planned.

No matter how much you underwrite it. No matter how much the performer looks great. Something is always bound to go wrong or not take the turn that you didn’t expect it to. Learning to recognize the situation as it is, as we talked about in this episode then what are the options? What do you do from here? Having that flexibility and knowing how to pivot will take you a long way.

That’s so good. It’s been so real over the last couple of years, with so much changing so fast.

If you think about from COVID to now, during COVID, it was like, all these prices were blowing up, but the interest rates were super low. Now, as interest rates are rising, people are shooting themselves in the foot to say, “I should have walked in at the low-interest rate because I still would’ve earned a better return than yes, the prices are stabilizing or falling.” Depending on the market you are. Now the interest rates are high and some properties don’t even cashflow anymore. It’s learning to pivot according to what the current conditions are.

Nancy, what would you say is one daily practice that you do that contributes to your personal success?

The one thing is that I have a very set morning routine. Part of that includes exercise. I exercise almost every day. It’s very rare that I miss it unless I’m traveling or something. I feel that if you get your body right in the right state, it puts your mind in the right state then you feel like you’re ready to take the world after that. I love to get my body running and moving first thing in the morning so that I feel like nothing can derail me.

Do that before you pick up your phone and answer emails. Set that time for yourself. It might not be an exercise for some people. It might be something else, but before you pick up that phone to check Instagram or Facebook, leave that alone and focus on you for the first 30 minutes or so of the morning, then you could react to everything else. We’re so used to reacting throughout the day that we’re not proactive about what our intentions are. How do I want to act? How do I want to react to various situations throughout the day?

I always say that my little smartphone is this little device of other people’s agendas. Even a game is another person’s agenda. They’ve got in-app purchases. This little device has everybody else’s intentions and everybody else’s agendas.

It’s hard. I have my phone right next to me as we’re speaking. It attaches to us, but I think saying, “I’m not going to touch it for this amount of time,” in the morning in particular, it sets your day so well because then you’re like, “This is my agenda for this time and for this day.”

It sets you straight on the right road moving forward. I love that. Thank you for that. This has been such a great show. Thank you for all that you’ve offered my ladies, Nancy.

Thank you for having me. I’m glad and hopefully, people took something away from it. I always learn from these conversations and from people I meet. We’re all better together. A rising tide lifts all boats. I believe in that saying and we lift each other up.

Thank you so much. Ladies, we’ve got more, so stay tuned. Nancy’s going to be sharing how to integrate and harmonize all of those roles that we play in our lives. It’s so important to our bliss. I’m excited that she’s going to be sharing her perspective on that in EXTRA. If you are subscribed to EXTRA, stay tuned. If you are not, you can get subscribed by going to RealEstateInvestingForWomenEXTRA.com.

For those of you that are leaving Nancy and I now, thank you so much for joining us for this portion of this show. I so appreciate you and I’ll look forward to seeing you next episode. Until then, remember, goals without action are dreams. Get out there, take action and create the life your heart deeply desires. I’ll see you soon.

 

Important Links

• Clear Vision Investing
• Gifts like Global
• RealEstateInvestingForWomenEXTRA.com

 

 

 

About Nancy Huynh

I was born and raised in Los Angeles, but headed to the East Coast for college. I completed my undergraduate studies in biochemistry and biophysics at Yale University. It was in college that I first became interested in medicine, after spending some time at a local clinic and several summers abroad in developing countries working on innovative health care delivery programs. During medical school, I was drawn to the field of ophthalmology because of the mix of medicine and surgery, the wide variety of interesting pathology and the gratification of preserving and restoring vision. I completed my ophthalmology residency at the Massachusetts Eye and Ear Infirmary/Harvard Medical School, and obtained additional fellowship training in ophthalmic genetics at the National Eye Institute, National Institutes of Health.

 

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To listen to the EXTRA portion of this show go to RealEstateInvestingForWomenExtra.com

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From Waitress To Running A $200 Million Dollar Business With Jennifer Wehner

 

When you’re down, there’s nowhere else to go but up. All it takes is the right mindset! Jennifer Wehner, the CEO and Team Leader of The Wehner Group, joins Moneeka Sawyer and talks about resilience. Jennifer shares her success story, from saving tips to running her $200-million business. She also talks about scaling your business through a channel account. Don’t let the recession keep you from reaching your goals. Time is of the essence! Tune in, get inspired, and find out how you can drown those limiting beliefs, get into the opportunity mindset, and seize the chance to take your business to the next level!

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Watch the episode here

 

Listen to the podcast here

 

From Waitress To Running A $200 Million Dollar Business With Jennifer Wehner

Real Estate Investing For Women

I am so excited to welcome Jennifer Wehner to the show. Jenn got into real estate in 2003 as an investor, growing her buyer and investor business, and became the top agent in her office within the first full year of being in real estate. In 2014, she started her team, The Wehner Group, and in 2020 sold 373 homes and over $178 million in real estate volume. In 2021, Jenn hit $198 million in volume. Jenn is a mom of four, ages 5 to 23. She owns multiple businesses and investment properties and is also a Forbes author. She’s a foodie, biohacker, podcast junkie, avid reader, skydiver, and a lifelong learner with a ton of curiosity and a wild imagination. Jenn, welcome to the show. How did you get here? Give us two minutes of your story.

I was built with adversity because I was a teen mom at eighteen. I was going to college for Plan X and I knew I wanted to work for myself. I was in Orange County and I was saving up all my tip money, waiting tables at night, going to college, and getting A’s for business, but I didn’t want to work for the man. I was in California. I did the math. I’m like, “You can buy two homes and own them for the price you rent a house in Huntington Beach.”

I moved here, started flipping, working with investors, invested myself, working with buyers, sellers, and all of the fund gambits. I lost huge in ‘08 but also pivoted quickly, and then started to get back into investing in 2011. I grew in my team. Here I am now. I’m a builder. I love building, I love creating. 2023 will be my 28th year in real estate. I’ve also raised all my kids through real estate.

My daughter bought her house two years ago, my oldest. She’s 25. She has made over $250,000 on her house. I’m like, “We’re going to take a HELOC at it and buy your first house and rent that one out.” I love practicing, seeing my kids being able to do it, and being able to have something where you can leave a legacy and you can leave a mark on the world. There’s no other avenue that I have seen better than real estate, which is the American dream.

That was such a quick impactful story. I love when moms were able to help their children to start and create that same empowering business. I love what you talked about buying your primary residence, getting a HELOC, and buying something else. That’s exactly how I built my business too. Ladies, you’re learning it from somebody other than me. It’s a strategy that works and you can do that alongside the other things that you’re doing. She’s going to college. She’s building her own life. You can do that on the side and build multiple million-dollar businesses starting from this thing that’s not even your business. It’s not even your life. It’s that sort of thing that’s happening because you have to pay rent anyways. I love that.

Talk to me a little bit because since you went through the 2008 thing and so did I, I know that real estate is a roller coaster. How can people get through it? It’s a cycle. I do know that in EXTRA, we’re going to be talking about the resilient mindset. Ladies, we are going to do a deep dive into that. Give us a high level. What do you recommend to investors when they talk about the fear of the rollercoaster?

First of all, if we all got into a DeLorean, we would do a few things differently. I had gotten into real estate at the end of ‘03, so ‘04 was my first full year. It was a good year. In ’05, I put Craigslist ads out and sold homes like it was no one’s business. I bought homes like it was no one’s business. I even built luxury homes, so I got into development. When the market crashed, I had to pivot fast because I had kids to provide for. There was no option. It’s that mindset of when I lost everything. I go back to that because I think no matter where you at, maybe you’ve never lost as much as I have or maybe you’ve lost more, we’ve all gone through adversity or resilience in our life.

 

During that time, it was millions of dollars below zero. That’s how much I was worth. There was also an opportunity. 2007 was the year that was flat. 2008 was when it blew up. For me, it was the collaboration where I knew I needed help. In 2008, I got into an REO coaching mastermind and started to get REO accounts. I was already working on short sales, but now I was able to get these channel accounts and get them at a much higher volume and scale where I can build from that.

What I want to do is do some definitions of that. Talk about REO and channel accounts, so people understand what we’re talking about.

REO means Real Estate Owned. It’s bank owned. The home went to foreclosure and the bank got the asset back. Here in Arizona, we were extremely affected by the crash. I had read Robert Kiyosaki and I thought I was setting my family up because all the money I was making from real estate, I was putting back into the investment side of things. I didn’t follow his advice totally because we weren’t cashflowing on a lot of those properties. When the market blew up, I was so heavily invested in one thing, which was luxury homes that I could not sell. I owed $1.2 million on each one. Each one ended up being worth $300,000 to $400,000 at the very bottom.

If I had the collaboration that I had now back in ’05, ’06 and ’07, I would have been prepped, ready and primed for the opportunity because I would have seen it coming. When we have to change when change is already here, it’s hard. You’re caught with your pants down. You change before you have to change, and so much of this is just in your mind. When you’re the smartest person in the room, it’s going to be a problem. First of all, get yourself into a room full of smart people that have been where you’re at and where you want to go.

Get into a room full of smart people who have been where you're at and where you want to go. Share on X

It’s not just in terms of money, it’s a skill level that’s super important, but also look at their lifestyle and their character. Is that somebody that you truly aspire to be like? When you’re in a room like that, it’s the energy, focus and direction. I might be able to see myself one pebble step here. I’m a visionary. I put things together like a step here, but maybe with you, I can see the third step and the fourth step. Maybe we bring a group of girls and now I can see a path laid out in front of me.

It’s the resilience I had because it was hard. I’m a recovered alcoholic. I haven’t had a drink of alcohol in four years. When I lost everything in ‘08, there were some times that my alcoholism got bad because I felt very defeated. In that defeat. I remember crying to God and praying for anything to happen. I was able to shift because when you finally admit defeat, you find a way. I found a collaboration group and the REOs. I was able to build channel accounts. When I have a relationship with you, it’s not just one home. You might give me 100 homes or maybe 200 homes

Is that what a channel account is? You build a relationship with a bank. Is that it? What happened?

It could be anybody. It could be a divorce attorney. It could be an HR department. If you’re an investor, maybe it’s a hedge fund. There are so many different channel accounts, but it’s going to be somebody that’s going to be able to give you business over and over again. Maybe it’s somebody that can give you a business of twenty units a year. Maybe it’s somebody that can give you 200 units a year. It’s going to be somebody that is formed through relationship and opportunity. Obviously, you have to sync on what they want, what you’re providing in terms of value, and what your goals are. When you have those aligned and you can provide the best client experience, then that’s what sets you apart. It’s shifting that mindset of not just a growth mindset but specifically an opportunity mindset.

In every down market, that’s when the most millionaires were made. If I had known so much back then, I would have been more like you. In 2009 and 2010, I would have been buying the heck out of the real estate, which I didn’t. We were broke during those years. Luckily, I had REO and short sale and still a resale business. I took every signed call. I was not too good at anything. I was selling $25,000 homes if that’s what it took, but I was able to get to that next level where I could start to build again.

I love that story. What has intrigued me so much is digging deep into that resilience mindset. I’m so excited about EXTRA. It’s like, how did you get there? I also want to hear more about the channel accounts. I’ve never heard it positioned quite that way. We’ll talk about that in EXTRA. I’ve taken note because I want to definitely hear more about that. I love that you gave a story as an example of we are capable of so much. When you go into that place of despair, which I know so many people did in 2008, including myself, it’s what we can do. I was in despair because I had lost 50% of the value of my portfolio in three months. I watched it all go down.

I remember, like you, I was crying. I was huddled up in bed in the fetal position. I was like, “What was I going to do?” I managed to make it through. Part of that was my own positioning. I don’t consider myself a super smart person, but I did some smart things inadvertently with the advice of mentors and my dad that helped me to get through some stuff. I made a lot of sacrifices. As you mentioned, you’re not too good at anything. You make some sacrifices so that you can keep your life going and that sort of thing. I didn’t suffer from the loss. What I want to hear in EXTRA is what that mindset was when you suffered through that despair and the financial loss.

What we’ve learned so much on this show so far is people who got through it and then the strategies they used to get back on top and to get their lives back. I know that you did that. I’m so excited to hear about your mindset stuff in EXTRA. Thank you so much for the lead-in, so we know what to look forward to. You have this interesting term about renaissance real estate. You talk about being a renaissance real estate agent and investor. Could you talk a little bit about what that means to you? I totally agree with you. This is another thing, ladies, that we talked about in the green room. It’s so exciting. Could you share that with us, Jenn?

To backtrack a little bit. I’m writing a book, the Renaissance Real Estate Agent: How to Unleash the Art of Systems in Your Business. I was inspired by my love of Leonardo Da Vinci and the whole Renaissance is fascinating. Here in Phoenix, we have absolutely been in the renaissance. We here now as a nation are absolutely in the renaissance. It’s a new way of doing business. As with the renaissance, so much of this is foundational. It’s back to the basics and back to the long-term foundations because that advice still applies.

You pick up Think and Grow Rich, and it still applies. Pick up Marcus Aurelius from 150 AD, it still applies. Some of these foundational still apply, but what we are also in is a revolution and an evolution of technology. We have systems. It is a lot more competitive. Any time a market changes like it’s changing right now, you have to be like the renaissance masters, who were able to pivot. They collaborated. They weren’t trying to do this all solo.

In that opportunity, where is that opportunity? There’s an art, there’s a science, there’s a balance, but you find your individuality. You find what makes you different and what sets you apart. I have a strong opinion on something that everybody is an artist. When I say that, it’s each one of us has our own gifts. We each sometimes have our own weaknesses, but sometimes those weaknesses can be our gifts. Sometimes that adversity and those problems that come our way are gifts in disguise.

We each have our own gifts and weaknesses, but sometimes, those weaknesses can be our gifts. Share on X

I even think about that with my alcoholism. I’m an addict. Am I doing drugs or drinking? No, but can I be a workaholic? Can I even be addicted to growth? Yes, absolutely. I could be addicted to learning. When you apply the art and science to your own life, into your calendar, and some of those foundational things like living by your calendar, you’re able to set specific measurable goals. You have to have numbers. You have to know if you have met your goal or not. You’re able to apply your own individuality and your own gifts into the marketplace and create value.

That’s what makes you the artist in your business. That’s what makes you an entrepreneur. That’s what branding is. When you look at the whole as far as your legacy, what are you doing this for? Where’s your money? Where’s your work? Where are your friends? When I say balanced, it doesn’t mean I relax. I very rarely relax. The way I live is a more balanced approach to spirituality. When I am in a good spiritual place, I know my limiting beliefs and my fear are not leading me. It’s my inner voice, my gut, and my inner authority. Everybody has that.

Get past the noise of the media. Know that you have to use media for your business. It’s part of the technology evolution that we’re seeing. Use these systems to your advantage, but work into your highest and best use of time. Ultimately, no matter what industry you are in, time is going to be your biggest commodity. I’m 44. Time is fleeting. I am so aware of my time. I know what my dollar per hour is. I know how I’m spending it. I can look at my calendar and see how I’m spending it. I can look at my calendar for the past year. I can look at my calendar all the way up until the end of this quarter or at the fourth quarter and see where I’m at.

No matter what industry you are in, time will be your biggest commodity. Share on X

I know where I’m spending my time to the highest and best use and what makes me different. I think we have 80,000 agents here in Phoenix. How you’re able to get to the top is a lot of Darwinism, but it’s that collaboration and that individuality. If I can give some advice, one of the biggest things that I let be the barrier for me and what I’m actually capable of is what other people think about me. As you get to higher levels, you grow this pack of haters. Sometimes those voices that you hear in your mind like, “You can’t do this. You’re not good enough,” are not even your voices. It’s the voices of the other people that have hated you. They’re jealous because they don’t think they could do it themselves. You have to start to drown out that noise.

There were a couple of things that you said. Both of these two things, I wanted to highlight. Time is our most unsustainable or unreplenishable resource. What I’ve done in the last 50 years, I don’t get back. I don’t get back that time. We can replenish the money. We can replenish relationships, although relationships are going to support your joy. We can replenish a lot of things, but we cannot replenish time. We cannot replenish our health. I love what you said about those two things that we don’t get back. You want to make sure that anything that you do supports the best use of those things and the best development of those things, the time and its use with health as development.

I love that you mentioned that. It’s so key to success to understand what your time is worth. A lot of people like stay-at-home moms are like, “I’m spending all this time with my kids.” Being a mom is the most important job on the planet. It’s worth your time. Just because you’re a mom doesn’t mean that your time is not worth something. Those sorts of things like those paradigms, you need to understand the value of your time, whether it’s financially, in relationships, in health or wherever it is. However you’re using that time, be clear that you’re utilizing it in a way that’s going to support your bliss.

The haters. My show is all about bliss, joy and happiness. I’m always surprised by how many haters I have. You should see reviews on my show where people are like, “She’s too happy. I can’t listen to that voice,” or “She’s so fake. She has no idea what life is about.” People have said this stuff to me my whole life. I’m like, “How can you hate that?” We all have our perspectives. It’s not necessarily even jealousy. Sometimes it is. What I have found is it’s there on their path, and their path is not your path. I can cry because those haters don’t love me but instead focus on the people that I’m impacting and improving their lives with my voice, this voice that they hate.

Love your haters too because sometimes it’s that chip on your shoulder. Anger is the closest thing to passion. Laugh is the best revenge. You can laugh all the way to the bank, but when you are being genuine and living up, only you know that. When you don’t make your commitment for that day and you could even lie to your coach or your team, whatever, “No, I didn’t make those 100 calls,” or whatever it was, but you know. When you start honoring those commitments to yourself, you start to grow not just confidence but self-esteem. I think women sometimes put so many other people first. We don’t put ourselves first.

 

Sometimes that’s why we don’t make these commitments to ourselves that we know we should be making. When we talk about health, if I could go a little bit further on that because I’m such a big proponent of it, I have ulcerative colitis, an autoimmune disease. I almost lost my colon in 2015. I had been overweight. I hadn’t been working out past high school. Sometimes you become a mom and work a lot. I also weighed 192 pounds after my last son, and that was after he was out of my body. I still had all that weight to lose. I got into learning more about my health. I will say I’m a junkie when it comes to podcasts and books, but I biohack through diet, exercise and meditation.

I no longer even live with symptoms of my autoimmune disease. I still have my full colon left and I’ve lost all the baby weight plus some. I need to be in good health so that I can be the best mom for my kids. I believe in quality over quantity when it’s my kids. When I’m on with my kids, I’m here. Even if it’s fewer hours, if I have four hours with them a night, those four hours could be like 40.

I don’t feel guilty when I’m working because I know I’m honoring the commitments I’ve made, not just to my business and myself but also to my kids. I’m able to offer them things like let’s take vacations together. They can see through their mom that it’s possible for them in this land of opportunity and freedom in the country that we’re in that allows us to be able to build these multiple businesses, and legacies, and help more people. At the end of the day, that’s what it is. You’re helping more and more people along the way.

I want to sit in that because it’s so true. I feel like I misstepped a little bit when I said that relationships are replaceable. I didn’t mean it the way that it came out. Many of them are not.

Some of them are. Sometimes you do have to cut friends though. It’s not for bad reasons. It might be this person is not growth-oriented. I don’t want to talk about gossip. Sometimes along the way, you’re cutting some relationships to make room for other ones and those ones that are important to you.

Your kids, your spouse or your parents, those sorts of relationships. The other thing that you said about relationships that were so valuable is if you’re the smartest person in the room, you’re never going to grow. For our egos, we want to be the smartest person in the room. What I have found is that if I’m the smartest person in the room, and please don’t take this the wrong way ladies, but I get bored. It’s exhausting because you are carrying everything. I feel it even in this show.

If I’ve got someone where I’ve got to carry the entire show, it’s exhausting on the other end of that. I need a cup of coffee. I’m feeling drained. If I’m talking to people that are significantly smarter than me, and almost every one of my guests is, I don’t ever want to be critical. Everybody has something to offer me. Every single person. You can feel it when someone is elevating you. That’s the thing that I love.

I was talking about this. I have to get away at least once a quarter. That’s pretty much what my travel schedule has been, even though I should be traveling a tiny bit more. I had been sick and I didn’t travel for 3 or 4 months. I was trapped in my own limiting beliefs and the team that I had at that time around. My leadership team is a new leadership team now. It was exhausting. I went to San Diego with my mentors. They had a mastermind. It was refreshing to see that these lies I was telling myself, “I couldn’t do it. This is not possible,” these complaints, this negativity, I go into this room where big things are happening. I am so not the smartest person in the room.

We all had different things to offer. I was so inspired and fueled and energetic that when I came back, I made things happen. I created the new leadership team that I have now that I’m able to now pivot my time from 90% of my team to 10%, and 90% of my network in some other projects like publishing books. It was so integral to get away and not be the smartest person in the room because you don’t even know sometimes these limiting beliefs are limiting beliefs.

Sometimes you don't even know that those limiting beliefs are limiting beliefs until someone else sees them. Share on X

Until someone else sees it or says something completely different. It’s so sweet. I tell this story on my show a lot. I think it’s worth mentioning again here. My little sister, we have this big sister, little sister paradigm like angst. She does not want a big sister. She wants to be the big sister. We have such an interesting thing. She says some things that are so profound and I don’t think she realizes how insightful she can be. I’m always listening when she’s talking.

One day she said something about our nephew that we were talking about. There was something going on. He needed a little surgery. She said, “He’s perfect the way he is as long as we don’t compare him to anybody else.” It was so interesting because I didn’t realize that even I feel like I’m such an unjudgmental person. I was worried about this thing for him, but her saying that shone a light on my own opinions and impressions of what was going on in my mind about this whole thing. It completely released and liberated me to accept him exactly as he was.

I think that’s what happens when you’re in these conversations with people that elevate you. They challenge your thoughts and beliefs. They allow you to release things and liberate yourself so that you can bring in more good stuff. That’s just in my family. It happens in my mastermind all the time. I love that. Our relationships are very important. Speaking of relationships, you talk a lot about legacy, and it’s not just relationships but in lots of different ways. Could you talk to us about leaving a legacy and how to leave it? What’s your perspective on that?

Money is important. People who say, “Money doesn’t buy happiness,” never had money. It’s not just the money. It’s the security. I love to give. I think it’s one of the most selfish things that I do. When I give my money away or my time away to a cause, I feel so good about myself. I don’t have to plaster it all over social media. The more money you have, the more money you can give away. There’s a certain point of money where you can have houses and vacations. Those are all great. Those are all fun to work for, but it’s also more short-term.

 

The more money you have, the more money you can give away. Share on X

At a certain point, you’re going to get to be at maybe a comfortable place if you don’t live, desire, and want all the time. When you think about the legacy you leave, it’s a why that’s so much bigger than yourself. When you think about what our ancestors went through. Maybe they weren’t your ancestors, just some of the greats in history. You can see what human potential is. What are your great-great-grandchildren going to know of you? Can they know you? To me, that is so much more exciting than the house that I can buy, the second home, and the vacations I can take, but it’s what I can do with the money that I make. It’s the impact.

I feel like a calling in the world right now. I think we all know that the world is not the most stable place, but what can we do to provide more value? When I say value, it’s like energy. You’re putting energy out there into the world through your businesses, through a way for them to make their own value. You’re creating leaders. Leaders create leaders. You’re creating a whole energy movement that maybe you will write a book. There will be a chapter in history about you, but your great-great-grandchildren are going to know what you stood for and know what is possible. More than ever, that imagination and that possibility, that’s where it’s at. That’s where we can find that magic that sometimes we’ve lost along the way since people squashed our childhood dreams.

All the good intentions, but we have to bring them back. I think it’s true. This whole thing about giving back, I talk about it a lot on my show, not to brag but to encourage and for people to understand that money can be a very good thing. It was so interesting. I was talking to my swami who runs a school in India that I have been very supportive of for 30 years since it began. I talk about it a lot. I remember talking to my swami one day and he goes, “If you give this much money, we’ll build a building and put your name on it.” I was like, “That would be horrifying.” I don’t want anybody to know because that’s not why I’m doing it.

Put some other inspirational name that means something on that building. My name doesn’t mean anything to anybody but me. Do you know what I mean? I love that you were talking about you don’t need to splash it around on social media. You don’t need to make a big deal about it. The big deal is what happens in your heart. When you have the money, you can fill your heart up in that way. You can help so many more people on a small level and a big level. Money gives you the freedom of time.

Suddenly you’re not head down, nose down. You’re looking up and seeing in the world what people need and how you can help. It gives you so much more freedom, not just financially but it allows your heart to open because you’ve got the time. You’re not exhausted all the time. You’re not working so hard all the time. You’re now much more open to the world if you allow yourself to be. There are a lot of people that have money and don’t do those things. They’re more about vacations, cars, and how cool I am. When they give, everybody knows about it. It’s that sort of thing.

At what point does it become uninspiring? I’ve never seen a U-Haul follow a hearse. You’re not taking that with you to the other side. When you’re doing it for more than just yourself, you’ll always find a way. I think we’ve all been like if we have an appointment at 10:00, I’m going to be there at 10:00. We’ve all had those, “I’m going to go to the gym at 10:00,” and we don’t go to the gym. When you’re doing it for other people, you’re naturally going to be more inclined to show up in your best way because it’s for them. It’s not just for yourself.

 

They say that accountability is the highest form of love. As parents, it’s hard sometimes to have accountability when you want to make them happy, “Here you go. Here’s the money. Here’s the candy,” whatever. When you know that accountability is the highest form of love. It’s that discipline. It’s that sacrifice. Even love itself takes sacrifice. If you say it doesn’t, it’s a one-way road. We know that’s not the way it is with relationships. It’s about both of you. It’s about both needs and wants. Are we aligned? Can we grow and do this together? That’s where the excitement happens, that spark.

I love this conversation. Where can people get in touch with you if they want more?

I am all over YouTube and the website. I would say the best way to instantly get a hold of me is on Instagram, @Jennifer.Wehner. I check my messages regularly. If you DM me, I have coaching products. We have a network. I love to meet other people from other industries. We do a lot of cross-collaboration amongst industries and also stay on top of cutting-edge trends because it changes daily.

Thank you for that. We’re going to go into our three rapid-fire questions, but I want to remind you, ladies, what we’re going to be talking about in EXTRA. We’re going to talk about creating a resilient mindset and also channel accounts and how you develop those relationships. I’m super excited about that. Are you for our three rapid-fire questions?

Let’s go.

Tell us one super tip on getting started investing in real estate.

I’m going to go to a foundational. Begin with a long game in mind and have a plan. I don’t know wherever you’re starting out. You might have $10,000 saved up. You might have $20,000 saved up. No matter where you are, look at where you’re at and what you’re going to need. That’s going to be that plan. I always suggest either a coach or a collaboration group somewhere. You need to have somewhere you’re going to learn and gain energy from and stay relevant.

Learn the basics and that skill. Learn the expertise that you need. Find your mentor, find your tribe, get your plan in place, and begin with that long game in mind. If it’s shortsighted like, “I’m trying to make $1 million this year and then I don’t know about the next year,” no. Think about where you want to be in 5, 10, 20 and 30 years, and then you’re going to look at the first year. That would be my advice. It’s pretty generic. It’s one of those foundational things that you need to have in place before you can start building the skyscraper.

Find your mentor and tribe, get your plan in place, and begin with that long game in mind. Share on X

What would you say is a strategy for being successful as a real estate investor?

I would tap maybe your wrist here and see if you’re feeling too comfortable. If you are comfortable, chances are you’re not playing the game. Sometimes you have to get out of your way to see the way. Stop and take a moment. Look at where you’re at. Are you on pace with your goals? Are your goals too small? Are you off your goals? Can you increase those goals? Success is like there’s never going to get to the top of the mountain. Nobody reaches the top of the mountain. We all die. Hopefully, we’re going up the mountain, not down. Always keep thinking big.

I use Albert Einstein’s quotes a lot and I love him. He said, “Logic will take you from A to Z. Imagination will take you everywhere.” I do have something called the spiritual wheel. I calendar block this. I do my spiritual wheel exercise every six months or so and see how balanced I am and how much I give myself in the spiritual box, friendship box, money box, work box, and self-care box. Sometimes if I’m lacking in one area, I can pivot that.

Let’s say it’s self-care. I took a painting for example. Now I have every Sunday time blocked for the morning time, so I can paint with my mentor. This is the thing I did because when I looked at my self-care, it was pretty low. I know I needed to do things for myself beyond just going to the gym. When we say successful, are we really successful? Are we happy? Are we comfortable? Where are we going? Where are we at and where are we going? Repause, reflect, revision, recast, and then take action.

What would you say is one daily practice that you use that contributes to your personal success?

I think we do talk a lot about AM routines, but I don’t think we talk enough about PM routines. The PM routines are so important. As a biohacker, I’ve done my PM routines accurately with my Oura ring. For me, no blue light before bed. Look at your calendar. Did you meet all your requirements? Reflect on your day. If you have things in your calendar you didn’t do like prospecting, take it out, put what you did, and then have your plan for tomorrow. Give yourself your win. Have that reflection time and then you could empty your brain out. You’re not trying to go to bed at 10:00 and you’re trying to think about what you were supposed to do.

 

No blue light for two hours before bed. I know it’s a sacrifice, but no Netflix and you fall asleep to it. For me, that could be a walk at night. That could be having dinner and exchange. One night, I’m reading this wonderful book, The Motivation Manifesto. I read that an hour before bed. It’s what I am putting into my brain before I go to sleep because who knows where we go when we sleep, but it’s so important we’re waking up. One of the things they say when you start bodybuilding, because that’s what I do, is make sure you sleep first. Why do you start with your sleep first? It’s because it’s all about our energy. Energy is everything.

In those PM routines, building a solid PM routine. Even if you’re at a conference, maybe it’s twenty minutes where you have that wind-down time, that reflection, and that meditation. If you have a hard time meditating because you’re an entrepreneur, I’m going to give you a little biohack here. There are a lot of apps that do it like Breathe and Calm. I like Frequency. You can get the sleep mask, because you want to sleep as dark as you can, with headsets built into it. It’s very comfortable.

I put my Frequency music in so my brain is being trained all night to whatever frequency I need. If it’s insomnia or if it’s delta, I get to pick. It’s those PM routines that help me wake up excited. Even if you don’t feel excited, your energy levels are already amped up. I don’t know if you’ve had a bad night of sleep, but if you stack those, you’re not your best self. You’re not waking up with the clear focused energy that you need to have to attack your day.

I love that you talk about that because we do talk a lot about the AM routine. Even I do, but I have a very distinctive bliss-focused PM routine also that helps me to sleep well. I’m not turning on what I did not get done or should I, and all these things that we turn about. What did I not get done? Should I have said that to that person? All of those things happen in our minds. Having a good strong PM routine is so important. Thank you so much for sharing that. This has been amazing and I’m so excited to talk more in EXTRA. Thank you so much for what you’ve shared in this part of the show.

Thank you. It was an honor to meet you and I’ve learned to replenish. I was taking notes. Thank you so much for having me. I appreciate it.

Ladies, we are going to do more in EXTRA. We’re going to be talking about creating a resilient mindset. We’re also going to be talking about how to build channel accounts and what those are. If you are subscribed, stay tuned. We’ve got more. If you’re not but would like to be, go to RealEstateInvestingForWomenEXTRA.com. For those of you that are not going to be joining us any further but are leaving us now, thank you so much for joining Jenn and me 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.

 

 Important Links

• The Wehner Group
• Think and Grow Rich
• YouTube – Jennifer Wehner
• @Jennifer.Wehner – Instagram
• The Motivation Manifesto

 

About Jennifer Wehner

In Real Estate since 2003, Jennifer has helped hundreds of buyers, sellers, and investors achieve their real estate goals. Placing in the Top 10 agents in the Arizona Regional MLS, and top 100 Zillow Agents nationwide, Jennifer has a passion for providing excellent customer service. Our #1 Goal is to meet or exceed the expectations of our clients. Jennifer has a large team of full-time, licensed professionals, and assists in resale, new homes, land, and investment properties in Maricopa County, Prescott, Flagstaff and Orlando, FL.

 

 

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To listen to the EXTRA portion of this show go to RealEstateInvestingForWomenExtra.com

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Mitigating Your Taxes Through Trusts With Dr. Gina Gaudio-Grace

 

How can you get iron-clad asset protection, tax mitigation, and pass your wealth down for generations without judgment liens or levies? Business coach Dr. Gina Gaudio-Grace calls this the trifecta package, and it’s achievable through a trust structure that she shares with us today. Dr. Gina is an Asset Protection and Tax Mitigation Specialist and the Founder of Abundance Group Trust. Tune in to learn more about this multi-generational trust that lets us keep the wealth in the trust to do more good in the world with.

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Watch the episode here

 

Listen to the podcast here

 

Mitigating Your Taxes Through Trusts With Dr. Gina Gaudio-Grace

Real Estate Investing For Women

In this episode, I am so excited to welcome to the show my friend, business coach, and personal mentor, Dr. Gina Gaudio-Grace. She is a retired attorney and a 1991 graduate of Notre Dame Law School, where she was the lead note editor for the Notre Dame Law Review. Dr. Gina holds a PhD in entrepreneurship and business strategy, and she’s a Certified Wealth Management Specialist and a Licensed Document Preparer. Dr. Gina is also the Founder of Abundance Group Trust and the Cofounder of the Abundance for All Foundation. Her personal mission is to touch the lives of every person on this planet in a meaningful way.

Gina, welcome to this show. I’m so excited to have you here.

I am so glad to be here, Moneeka. As you know, I love every opportunity to get to talk to you, and now, I get to talk to your audience as well.

I know. I’m so excited to share you with them. I read Gina’s bio but I want to give you a little background on why we are talking. Gina has been my business coach for several years. She understands my heart and that my heart is about serving you. I do this show in service to you so that I can expand your possibilities and help you to live a blissful life.

What’s also interesting is the reason that I chose Gina as my coach is because her heart is the same. We were talking before the show in the green room that our relationships are different, our businesses are different, and our doggies are different like everything in our life is. We march to the beat of our own drummer. We’re very individualistic women but the other thing that makes us very similar like two peas in a pod, she says, is our heart to help the world.

She’s that person, so it made sense when she was my coach because she understood my heart. I never will work with a coach that someone that doesn’t understand bliss and my heart. I’ve been through many coaches but Gina was one that I stuck with for years because she understood those things. When we had conversations, I didn’t have to re-explain my priorities or my values because she had these very similar ones.

I feel so blessed to have her in my life. Now so long ago, we’ve been talking about trusts. I’ve had people on the show before that have talked about trust. I’ve pursued and built trust myself and have not been very happy with the outcomes. Not because the companies weren’t amazing in what they did. They were. The trust that I have performs what they were supposed to do but they’re not giving me the full spectrum of what I need.

When I was talking to Gina about this once, we were on the call as friends having a conversation. She was like, “Moneeka, I need to tell you about this trust that I built.” She has been working with other people in the industry who are very well-known for the trust that they build. She, herself, as a retired attorney took what other people are doing and added her own specialty to them based on her education as a lawyer in Trust Law.

She’s got this amazing trust. Interestingly, she and I were having a hard time recording. I never record on Saturdays. That’s my day off but the only day I could get Gina on the phone to record was on a Saturday. I had this niggling instinct that somebody out there needed to know this. As I say, I’m here in service to you ladies.” I’ve had this happen before where I recorded a show.

I was going to release it in 3 months and I push it up to 2 weeks because I feel inside that someone out there is needing to know it as I get this intuitive sense. Anyways, I had this intuitive sense and I texted Gina. I was like, “We’ve got to do this before the end of 2022. Someone out there needs to know this.” For any of you that are thinking, “Moneeka, that was for me.” I’m saying here I am recording for you. I love you.

That’s why I pushed it to a Saturday. When you told me that you had that instinct and I know your instincts, I’m like, “I’m wiping whatever I got. I can do it on Saturday,” so here we are.

We’re doing this for you guys on a day that neither one of us would ever record. We love hanging out with each other, so that makes it a lot nicer.

We do.

After that very long intro, here is Gina and we’re going to talk about trust. I’m totally excited. The other thing is that I am in the process of creating this trust myself. I have been hearing about this trust from Gina. I am very conservative, you know this. I have 10,000 questions. I’ve listened to all of our conversations many times so that it sinks into my brain because this is not something that I understand. It’s not intuitive and you can do that too.

That’s the nice thing about a recording is you can listen to it. If the 1st time it doesn’t make any sense, the 2nd time you’ll pick up a little bit more. Listen to it ten times because this isn’t stuff that normally we talk about. You can listen to it over and over again. You don’t have to feel dumb about it asking questions.

For those of you that want to talk to Gina personally, we’re going to be doing a webinar on the 20th of October 2022 from 1:00 to 2:30 PM Pacific Time so you can come and talk to her live and read to this a few times before that. If you are coming in later and you miss that date, the webinar is going to be recorded. There’s a lot of information, but Gina, we’re going to turn it over to you. Tell us about this amazing trust.

Before I do, let me say the whole reason I went to law school in the first place. Teaching is not what I do. It’s who I am. In the third grade, I went and researched to find out how could I be a high-paid teacher. I saw all my teachers who had second jobs sometimes as garbage men. I’m like, “That’s not for me but I got to be a teacher.” That’s why I went to law school.

Law school professors made more money than any other teacher. Had I known that being a coach and mentor and having a business like the one that I have now with Trust, where I teach all day, every day, would pay as well as it does and serve people as well as it does? I probably never would’ve gone to law school in the first place.

I don’t that you would’ve created this trust if you hadn’t been to law school. I think that in life, every step of the way turns us into who we are now.

It does and it pulls all of me together. I also have a PhD in Business and Entrepreneurship. That came into play with the trusts as well. Everything I have done for probably the last 40 years, all got pulled together with the trusts. I wish I could say this is something that even I learned in law school but it’s not.

Before we launch into this because I want to hear that story, could we start by saying what this trust does, so ladies know if they’re even interested in reading this?

How about we start with what is trust then I’ll answer that specific question.

That sounds perfect then we can come back.

What is trust in the first place? A trust is set up for usually avoiding state taxes and probate taxes. It’s a way of taking the legal parts of ownership. There’s equitable title, beneficial interest, and dividing them among multiple people and because it’s divided among multiple people, that’s why it’s able to offer benefits.

A trust is usually set up to avoid state taxes and probate taxes. It's a way of taking the legal parts of ownership and dividing them among multiple people. And because it's divided among multiple people, that's why it's able to offer benefits. Share on X

Trust got started way back in 1600 in England with one of the Kings who wanted to protect his wealth. That’s when we got spend full of trust and trust in general. Fast forward a few hundred years, the early 1800 are old money families like the Kennedys, the Carnegies, the Gettys, and the Rockefellers. They all started amassing the fortunes that their families have now and they wanted protection. What did they do? They set up trusts.

Now back in 1800, we didn’t have an Internal Revenue Service and Internal Revenue Code. That came back around 1913 and 1914. Fast forward a hundred years and those families now have big money and lots of assets in their trusts and they’re being fully protected. Now, the government needs a treasury, so they’re setting up the internal revenue service and the Internal Revenue Code. These families didn’t want their trusts taxed to death.

Lucky for them, they had friends and family in high places in Washington that were part of writing the very first Internal Revenue Code. Since the inception of the tax code in early 1900, there has been a provision that gives tax mitigation benefits to our trust. I doubt it’s ever going to be taken out of the tax code because there are too many big high-powered people that make use of it with their trusts. With this trust, it’s a very novel trust structure.

For most people who have even heard of a trust, their context is usually a living trust. A living trust is what’s called a Grantor Trust. It’s typically something governed by state statute. State statute prescribes what it needs to do and how it needs to work and it provides one benefit, you get to avoid probate taxes when you die. That’s about all it does. In a grantor trust, which is what that trust is. You give assets to the trust but it doesn’t protect the assets at all. For families that have lots of wealth or are growing their wealth actively, you need something more than the living trust.

I was first introduced to a similar trust structure, although still a little different, back in 2004. Back then, my business was coaching, mentoring, and joint venture brokering. The woman that introduced me to it has since retired. She had something she called an Intellectual Property Trust. It made any income derived from intellectual property 100% tax deferred. I’m like, “You can do that?” I took 2.5 years of trust law in law school. That’s two years longer than any other required course of action in law school. You’d think I would’ve known that but I didn’t.

When you go out to trust lawyers, they each specialize. A lot of times they’ve heard some of this other stuff. What I found as I’ve been doing research is you go to a trust lawyer and they’re like, “We haven’t heard about this or you can’t do this.” Until they do more research. That’s so relevant because you haven’t heard about it. A lot of people won’t have heard about it.

For years, I’ve been researching and studying trust, and let me tell you. On this particular trust structure, conservatively I have something in excess of 6,000 hours worth of research. It’s not a small amount of research. I don’t expect any of my clients to go out and do even six hours of research. That’s why they have me. When I found this trust in 2004, it worked phenomenally well until 2010 when the person that introduced me to it decided to retire.

It was structured in a way that was required to renew annually with a new fee. When she retired, she didn’t give us a way to continue renewing. All my back taxes that had been deferred came due instantaneously. It was horrible. I went on a mission in 2010 to find another trust that could continue. My tax defer all the way that I had had it. I had not been able to find it until about a few years ago. When I found similar trust but not intellectual property trusts, every time I looked at them, I found another issue.

Down the rabbit hole, I’d go doing more research, which is what led me to the unique structure that we have now. It combines 7 or 8 different kinds of trust into a singular trust so that it can provide ironclad asset protection. When I say ironclad, I mean ironclad. No judgments, liens, levies, and often, even divorce are going to reach assets held in this type of trust. I’m not going to explain why now but we’ll get into it a little later.

The second big benefit is tax mitigation for real estate investors. First, under Section 643 of the Tax Code, any capital gains income, the capital gains taxes are completely and totally eliminated, not deferred. Second, any passive income, which for real estate investors, is rent and lease income. It is 100% tax-deferred in perpetuity. Now, if we have entrepreneurs who have active business income, which you would have from a brick-and-mortar business whether you’re a dentist, a chiropractor, a doctor, a carwash, or whatever, you usually have active business income.

Using a multiple trust structure that I like to call the trifecta package, we can even find ways of getting rid of the taxes on the active business income completely legally. Tax mitigation is the second large benefit. The third one, and to me, the singular most important one, is helping to pass wealth down for generations. This is not a trust that dies when you die or when you and your spouse die.

This is a multigenerational trust. It is going to be here from one generation to the next generation and so on. We don’t have crystal balls so I can’t tell you how many years that is. Until 21 years after the death of the last heir to the last beneficiary, the trust continues to exist. At the time that it terminates, everyone has been gone for 21 years.

At that time, whatever remained in the trust, usually the IRS seizes it, sells it, and uses it to satisfy all the back taxes for all those years. For people like us who want to make a difference in the world, what we’re able to do because of this unique structure is gigantic because we’re keeping the wealth in the trust so that we’ve got that much more to do good with.

 

You even structure that in the trifecta as part of the way that you do things because you do a family foundation in there too. Ladies, I’m jumping ahead but that was part of what excited me so much. In her trifecta, she’s got the personal trust, the business trust, and a personal foundation to help do more good in the world.

It is a private family foundation and is a 501(c)3 tax-exempt organization. Using those three trusts together, I know it sounds like I’m bragging but it blows my mind all that it can do for both you and your family and the heir that you haven’t even met because they’re not even born yet. Even the whole world, given the foundation, is a part of the mix. I’m very blessed. This was something that you’ll be okay with me saying was divinely guided. This is not something that I figured out. The universe and energy led me to this. I cannot take credit for it myself. It would be so wrong to do that.

Gina, there was a story you were going to tell before we talked about the benefits but I want to recap the three big benefits in a couple of sentences. What are the three big benefits?

The first one is the Ironclad Asset Protection. No creditors are going to reach this through judgment, liens, and levies. I even have two clients that were able to protect properties from an imminent domain. One in Arkansas and one in Louisiana. The second big benefit is the Massive Tax Mitigation. With the trifecta package especially, we can sit down at the beginning of the year, have a conversation and I can ask, “How much do you want to pay on taxes this year?” Regardless of what the answer is, the strategy using the three trusts together, we can come up to that exact number.

The tax mitigation is like capital gains, passive income, and active income for all three of these.

You’ll never have to do a 1031 exchange ever again.

I was about to slip up and say that. What was the third benefit?

The third big benefit is Transferring Wealth To Future Generations and doing good in the world.

I wanted to let you know that those are the top three things that we’re talking about. If this is interesting to you, please stay tuned. Who’s not interested in it? Isn’t it cool? I wanted to make sure the ladies got to read that, Gina. You were heading into a story. Do you want to do that?

Back in school, I didn’t learn about any of this at all. In law school, you take one semester of Trust Law, that’s it. I was very interested in trust, especially for businesses. I took two extra years of Trust Law but I didn’t get to learn about it then either. Had the woman not brought this to me in 2004 with Intellectual Property Trust, I don’t know that I would’ve ended up here now. The more I learn about trust, the more excited it gets me.

Every year, Notre Dame is different. This is the 49th year in 2022. In October 2022, they put a symposium on and it’s the Trust and Taxation symposium. I’ve known about that years ago when I was in law school. Even in that symposium, they didn’t talk about what you can do with this trust structure. They did finally, for the first time, in 2021 in the 48th Annual Trust and Taxation Symposium. Guys, don’t be like, “Why didn’t I hear about this?” I’m telling you, even lawyers aren’t going to have heard about this. It came from this unique journey that I have been on for so many years.

Gina, my question as you tell this story is you can’t make up a trust, can you? How does that even happen that you can create this individual unique trust out of your learnings? I thought that a trust was a thing that was created by the IRS. There’s structure and all of this other stuff around it. How do you create it?

There are two kinds of trusts. There are Statutory Trusts and Contractual Trusts. What we’re talking about is a contractual trust, not a statutory trust. In a contractual trust, it has to follow the rules of contract law. Where do we get the Rules of Contract Law? The Uniform Commercial Code. That’s been adopted in all 50 states. When I first started down the path of writing this trust and creating it, I started by looking at the uniform commercial code to make sure we were going to meet all of the contract law requirements.

I took what’s been done in the past through other contractual trusts. I combined 7 or 8 of them into one instrument. The rules are governed by things like the Uniform Trust Code. We have one. It’s been adopted in almost every state. We also have something called the Uniform Principal and Income Act. It’s been adopted in better than 40 states. Uniform Principal and Income Act governs accounting principles for what’s called a Complex Trust. It’s called Fiduciary Accounting.

This is in the Tax Code in the IRS, yes?

This is not in the Tax Code. This is separate from the Tax Code but in the Tax Code, it says, “When it comes to what’s called a complex trust, it is governed for tax purposes by a combination of the trust instrument itself.” That’s first and foremost. Second is a local law, which is the Uniform Principal and Income Act. Third, by the tax code, which is very strange. Who would’ve thought that something other than the tax code would control federal taxes?

A complex trust is governed for tax purposes by a combination of the trust instrument itself, the local law, and the tax code. Who would have thought that something other than the tax code would control federal taxes? Share on X

I am here to tell you if you want to look it up, go find it on the IRS website the 1041 Tax Return Form. That’s the form that a Complex Trust would file. Scroll to page two. On page two, it starts with schedule A. The middle is Schedule B. Read line eight. Line eight says, “Enter accounting income for the tax year as dictated by the trust instrument and local law,” right on a federal tax form. As I realized all of these things, I’m like, “Oh my goodness.” I have a contract that has to follow contract law that, for other principles, has to follow the trust instrument and local law. Pulling it all together was not as difficult as you might think because I’ve been writing contracts for many years.

It’s all supported. I know when you and I started talking about it, you sent me the whole IRS code regarding trust.

I sure did.

It’s all supported in the whole trust. All of this is completely legal according to the IRS, right?

My partner is a practicing attorney out of Burbank, California. He’s an estate planning attorney. I would go to him when I had questions about estate planning stuff to make sure that we were complying with all the rules there. It works in all 50 states. The way this trust is structured, it is treated as a common law trust. What that means is it works in any country whose legal system follows the common law like the UK and many countries in Europe and South America. It’s all over the world. More than 70% of our legal systems are based on common law. This trust gives you flexibility even if you want to be living abroad because of that where a living trust wouldn’t work out, just so you know.

That’s an American thing. One of the questions that I asked you back then is when you’re looking at the IRS Code, the laws are so old. It’s all written in 1980 or 1972. It’s way back then. My concern is what if it changes? Am I going to get caught in this whirlwind or trapped by the IRS when they changed the rules?

As I said when I told you the story about our old money families here in America, Section 643 of the Tax Code is what gives us the tax mitigation power that the trust has. It has been in place since the very first tax code was written. Now, fast forward to 2021 when Vice President Harris and President Biden took office in April 2022, they have to disclose their tax returns for the first time once they take office.

Also, at the same time, Dr. Fauci came on to head the COVID task force and had to do the same thing. All newcomers to Washington have to do it. If you look at their publicly available tax returns, you will see that they received income from their tax advantage trusts that take advantage of 643 of the Internal Revenue Code. Many people in Washington are making use of trusts that use this part of the tax code. I can’t imagine any of them being willing to make changes to it because it’s going to hurt them, not just hurt us.

In the current administration, they’re doing that but this is true for almost every single administration, would you say?

I haven’t gone back to the mid-1990s. I haven’t gone any further back than that but every administration since the mid-1990s, it is 100% true for.

It’s not just the current. It’s the way that they do business in Washington.

There is something that governs how tax attorneys practice law and what they have to do in front of the tax bar. It’s governed by something called Circular 230. It’s put out by the IRS. In Circular 230, there is a section that says, “Members of the tax bar, tax attorneys, are allowed to write written opinion letters that their tax paying clients can rely on.” Now, it’s got a very prescribed format that has to be followed and has to include certain details.

 

If a taxpayer, meaning all of us, were to rely on a written opinion letter from a member of the tax bar, the IRS later came back and said, “That letter is wrong. They are not allowed to assess penalties at all.” For my clients, we have a team of tax attorneys who are all separate practitioners in their own practice. They can’t be part of Abundance Group Trust but we can make introductions to them for you. If you want the best protection I could give you from something happening down the road, we’ll set up a time for you to talk to one of the tax attorneys so you can get a written opinion letter. I don’t want to say it this way but it’s like a get-out-of-jail-free card in Monopoly because it will protect you.

There’s one other piece with those partners I want you to mention.

Every one of the attorneys that work with our clients not only has the normal malpractice insurance. They also have errors and omissions coverage. The reason being, and that’s $1 million per occurrence. Each one of them is required to carry that or they’re not working with our clients. That way, God forbid, something did happen and the IRS says, “No, the letter is wrong. Now you owe back taxes plus interest.” It might not be the equivalent of malpractice. You can’t recover against the attorney’s malpractice insurance but the errors and omissions policy would certainly cover you for up to $1 million per occurrence. That is good peace of mind.

We got all of that stuff that I’m like, “These are the things that make me nervous.”

If you heard about that, you weren’t even willing to have a more in-depth conversation with me.

That’s true. Ladies, you need to know that. Gina is a close friend of mine. I trust her. I’ve trusted her with my business. I’ve trusted her with my life in so many cases and vice versa but I was not willing to continue any conversation about a trust unless I knew it was fully legal and I was fully protected in case something came up.

I didn’t push you. I knew at some point when the time was right, we would have that conversation. I’m so excited that we finally did.

Me too. Now that we’ve gotten all out of the way so people can open up, let’s talk about trust.

My favorite. Let me talk about it this way first. I promise to tell you what a complex trust was. You’re going to laugh but there are two kinds of trust. A Simple Trust and a Complex Trust. It doesn’t mean that it’s complicated. It’s a legal term. The legal definition of a complex trust is any trust that is not a simple trust.

I hate lawyers who do that, but what is a simple trust? A simple trust is a trust that must distribute 100% of its income at least annually. A living trust is a great example of simple trust. For those who understand LLCs that are single-member LLCs, it’s a pass-through entity. You don’t have to file a separate tax return for a single-member LLC. It’s taxed on your 1040 return. A simple trust works the exact same way.

It’s a pass-through trust because it’s distributing 100% of its income at least annually. That income gets taxed on whoever received the money called the Beneficiary whoever that person is on their 1040 return. In a complex trust, the trust is not required to distribute ever until it terminates. With a complex trust, especially with ours, it has income.

The income gets added to the corpus of the trust. Corpus is Latin for the body. All that means is income comes in, it gets put in an account in the name of the trust. Now that it’s in the name of the trust, it’s not required to get distributed. Instead, it can be invested. It can be used to pay for lots of things. The list of what it can’t pay for is shorter than the list of what it can pay for.

There are only three things it cannot pay for and that is food, fun, and fashion, meaning clothing. It can pay for health, so medical expenses. It can pay for educational expenses. I went from Gina Gaudio-Grace to Dr. Gina Gaudio-Grace, when I set up my trust and realized, “I can use tax-deferred dollars to go back to school and get my PhD,” so I did. That was so much fun.

Education, it can also pay for maintenance and support. For your children, it can pay for food and clothing until they turn 21. It can pay for their education from preschool up through graduate school and post-graduate school. Now, the other cool thing about it is because the trust is not required to distribute ever until termination, it becomes an exempt asset for purposes of financial aid forms. If your children are going to private school, you do not tell any of the financial aid forms about the income or assets held in this trust.

It is the only trust that is totally exempt from financial aid. Let me tell you what that does before I tell you in other ways it’s an exempt asset. On a financial aid form, when you don’t report it, you’re going to look like a popper on paper. I have one family. It was one of the first ones I experienced this with. It was so incredible. Their son wanted to go to my alma mater in Notre Dame. They had about a $20 million net worth.

Notre Dame’s tuition that year was about $74,000. We set up the trust. Now it’s time to file for financial aid forms and they’ve got practically nothing and practically no income. Notre Dame reduced his tuition from $74,000 to $15,000 and he got need-based money, not student loans that had to be repaid but grants to cover the $15,000, plus room and board, and books. That’s what happens when everything is in the trust and there’s no income and assets to report outside of the trust.

When everything's in the trust, there's no income and no assets to report outside of the trust. Share on X

It’s also an exempt asset when it comes to Medicare and Medicaid. You set this up and everything gets sold to the trust, not gifted to the trust. Once it’s in the trust, if you ever needed long-term care, you go into long-term care and you instantly qualify for Medicaid because it is an exempt asset with no look-back period. In so many ways, this is incredible from what it can do for helping with educational expenses for your children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren to what it can do with things like long-term care.

That’s awesome, especially for me, I’m a sandwich generation. I’m taking care of elderly parents and then there’s also kids going to college and that thing. That’s amazing on both of those sides but what happens to me in the middle? What can I use it for in my own life?

Pretty much everything just not for food, fun, and fashion. If we set up that trifecta package we talked about with the personal trust, the business trust, and the foundation, your foundation is so incredible. It’s because as a founder and trustee within the foundation, the foundation can pay for fringe benefits. One of the fun things that the trust cannot pay for is vacations. The foundation can pay for family retreats to solidify the family unit up to once per quarter.

If you want to do more vacations than that, like Moneeka who loves to travel all over the place as often as she can, then in between family retreats, you can go on what is called site visits. Maybe Moneeka decides she wants to go to Bali. She goes to Bali. She goes and looks for some good work that her foundation can do while she’s there. That is a legitimate use of the foundation’s money and therefore, a foundation can pay for the whole trip.

I do that. I go to Bali and look at what we can do to help.

When we combine them together, the list of what you can’t pay for is way shorter than the list of what you can’t pay for, pretty much anything. It’s going to own all of your assets through a sale to the trust. Let’s say you’ve got your primary residence. You’re going to sell that to the trust. If the trust doesn’t have money when you do it, it’s going to give you a specialized form of promissory note called the Demand Note.

That demand note’s going to have a small interest rate based on the AFR tables that the IRS sets. It’s 3.5% now. If we took the value of all of the assets at basis that you sell to the trust and put that all into a promissory note, anytime you need money to cover food, fun, or fashion, you take it out by reducing the value of that note. 3.5% is the tax rate for the interest, so 3.5% is what’s going to get attributed to interest income on a 1099 INT. The balance of it is all repayment of principle on your note.

You don’t get taxed on that.

No, not at all because it’s repayment of principle. It’s incredible what the trust can do. You literally live your life and run your business out of the trust or the foundation.

Isn’t that hard, like more paperwork and complication?

You would think that because we didn’t learn about this stuff in school. I am here to tell you, 30 to 45 days after you set it up, you’re going to wake up one morning and feel like you just had the biggest a-ha moment of your life. It’s a paradigm shift. From that moment forward, you’re going to realize it’s easier than what it is outside of the trust. Everything is simpler. You don’t have to scrounge for deductions to get your tax bill down at the end of the year.

It’s all going to have tax deferral or elimination of taxes, so you don’t have to worry about it. I think it keeps people more honest on their tax returns, but believe it or not, you don’t have to scrounge for those deductions. It doesn’t need to be deducted because it’s tax-deferred or tax eliminated, which is awesome. In the beginning, it will feel hard but hang in there. Get through the training that we provide and the handholding that comes with it. It will simplify everything, especially business.

Talk to us a little bit about the training because that’s valuable. This is one of those things that I have to confess with the trust that I personally have built already. They committed to lots of training and I pay $50 a month for all of this stuff. I feel like I never got trained and I don’t have access to people. I’m still paying for that. Those are a couple of things. Are there maintenance fees? Talk to us a little bit about the training.

I’m going to start with a second question first. Remember, how I started this was business because of what happened to me in 2010 when I lost my tax deferral. You don’t ever have to pay after the initial investment if you choose not to. The Trust is yours. It won’t ever get invalidated. You continue to use it for generations to come with my blessings. No extra payments on it at all. It needs a tax return but any entity you set up is going to need a tax return every year anyway but that’s it.

For training, every Trust has a training podcast anywhere from 6 to 8 hours in length. It’s given to you in video, audio, and written format. Whatever style you have for learning best, you’ve got it right there for you. Each lesson will come with assignments. At each step, you listen to the training, go off and do the homework, and come back and do the next step. We also include things like we have calls three days a week. There are Q&A calls. On Wednesdays and Fridays at noon Eastern, it deals with the Personal Trust. On Mondays, one Monday is the Business Trust, the next Monday is the foundation.

My commitment to you folks is every one of those calls will be me leading it. I don’t ever leave that up to other people on my team. In addition to all of that, those are all kept in podcasts too, written, video, and audio format for all of those calls. We also include a Trust advisor. I have seventeen Trust advisors on my team. All of them started out as Trust clients and then became Trust advisors. These are not people who learned about the Trust and I’m paying them to do something. They came to me wanting to work with clients because they love the trust so much in their own lives.

That changed everything for me. I’m so blessed to have had that happen. You get your own Trust advisor. That Trust advisor is there to help you in any way, shape, or form that you might need over the course of the next twelve months. If that’s not enough, you get a tax advisor. We include the investment, the first year’s tax return, and consulting with the tax advisor throughout the next twelve months. Now, at the end of the year, if you want to continue receiving all of those different pieces of support, it’s $2,000 a year for the personal trust, $1,500 for the business trust and the foundation, that’s a gift for me to you.

We are here to support our clients. My mission is to touch the life of every person on this planet in a meaningful way. I can’t do it on my own. It’s by working with my clients, helping them to more meaningfully touch the lives that they come into contact with. Together, that can be our reality. I am here to support you as much or as little as you would like.

Thank you for that. What happens if they don’t pay the extra $2,000, $1,500, or whatever then something comes up with a trust? if something maybe goes wrong or there are questions, what happens then? Do they get any support?

They still have access to the support desk where they can ask a question. If the answer something went wrong and the Trust is getting sued for some reason. We may need to come in and help oversee it. If it’s something that would jeopardize the trust itself, we’re going to do that without having you pay us a bunch of money to do it.

If it’s something else that you need support on, we can either do something on an hourly basis or that should come back into support packages later on. Whatever serves you best. I am always accessible through email and text. Every client has both my email address and my text. I have an entire succession plan in place. At some point in time, not any time soon, I’m going to either pass away or decide to retire or who knows what.

My nephew, Ben, who I helped raise, I have no children, is 32 years old now in 2022. He is our fulfillment director and he will be taking over for me when I am gone. In addition to Ben, we have an endowment that we’ve created at the University of Notre Dame that will be paying for three scholarships each year. One for a law student, one for an MBA student, and one for either a Master’s of Accounting or a Master’s of Finance.

Those students who receive the scholarship will be required to work with us for one summer throughout their education. It’s a way for us to get to know them and them to get to know us. Ben will be pulling in one from each discipline when he takes over. When all of them decide to retire, they will pull in three more to take over so that your heirs will have the same level of support that you had.

I would not be doing my job of serving our clients had we not found that solution to make that happen. We even have trainings already ready in a podcast for successors. None of our clients have passed away, so their successors haven’t had to take over but successors are welcome to come into the live calls now. They can go through trainings now, whatever serves you best. When you are gone, the training is ready for them.

I’ve got so many questions, Gina, as always, and we’re out of time.

I know. That’s why I said let’s do a webinar together.

Let’s do that. Ladies, if this is intriguing to you, there are a couple of things that we have that I want to offer you for more information. As I said, I’ve been talking to Gina about this probably for many months. I’m very slow like nothing happens until you take action but here I am, a year and a half later.

It’s because you take your commitment to your readers so seriously, Moneeka. I can say that honestly as your business coach and mentor. Until you have 100% comfort with something, you’re not going to bring it to your people. I commend you for that and encourage it.

As a business coach and mentor, until you have 100% comfort with something, you're not going to bring it to your people. Share on X

Thank you. My heart for my ladies is like the thing that drives me, and in my own business. Ladies, I know that you feel this too. You don’t want to bring something to your family that you don’t feel confident about. I didn’t want to bring this to my husband until I felt like I could talk about it. It’s like driving a car.

I don’t need to know all the mechanics about how a car works to drive it but I need to know enough to take good care of it and make a sales pitch to my husband about why I want this particular car like my Tesla, for instance. I need to know enough and for me, I think I need to know a little bit more. I’m a little bit of not a brainiac as in smart but a brainiac as in I need a lot of information before I make decisions like this.

If you want more information, the first thing that I would recommend is please read this show a few times. Maybe you feel like you got everything out of it. I always get a little extra when I listen to a show over and over again. If you can stand it, I would read this one a few times. When I say open up, I don’t mean like I have any interest at all in influencing you but for me, getting a lot of that initial stuff out of the way allowed me to move forward to get more information.

If that’s what you are needing or wanting, that’s an opportunity. Read the show a few more times. We’ve also got some other things and opportunities that we want to present to you. You’ve heard how much time she’s spending on the trust and the training, so she doesn’t have a lot of extra time. On that other extra time, she’s talking to clients. All you guys that call, she’s going to be talking to you.

She has a lot of appointments. Her time is very valuable as is all of our time but she is very graciously offered to do a webinar for us. This is just for my community. She holds friends and family to webinars where she’s held one. It’s now in the can and that’s for all of the people that she’s affiliated with. Because she and I have a special relationship, she’s offering an opportunity for my ladies, which I feel so grateful for. Thank you for that.

You are so welcome.

We’ve got a date where we’re going to get together and talk to you ladies on October 20th, 2022 which is a Thursday, from 1:00 to 2:30 PM Pacific Time. Check your time zone and you can adjust for that. Anyway, that’s going to be a time. I will say this about Gina and myself, we will stay on as long as the questions go. I know she’s had webinars that have lasted two hours but we want to make sure that your questions are answered. This is an important topic for wealth building, wealth sustainability and legacies.

I consider myself wealthy. I’m very grateful to have what I’ve had, to have the success that I’ve had, and to be able to grow my own wealth, but we don’t hear about this stuff. In another one of Gina’s webinars, she said she has a billionaire client who had never heard about this stuff but this is how the educated wealthy.

I’m not talking educated like in college. I’m talking about the wealthy that get educated on their money. This is the thing that they do to continue to build their wealth and to pass wealth down to organizations and causes that they believe in, their families, and so forth. You’re getting a very special education here and something that certainly people in the middle class don’t hear about.

Think about the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, Jeff Bezos and his foundation, and Warren Buffet’s Foundation. Their foundations go hand in hand with their trusts and how did they get to the point that they’re at? The trusts were the secret sauce.

The more money that you’re able to hold onto, the loft of compounding, the more that that can grow, which gives you more opportunity to do good in the world and your family. Family first then do good in the world. It makes it easier. You don’t have to struggle so hard to keep making that money because you’re not giving as much of it away. I know that there are a lot of emotional reactions to this by people that don’t understand the way that it works. That’s why I’m here to educate on that. I want to give you an opportunity to know if that’s something that you’re not going to learn anywhere else. I didn’t know about it.

 

Most of the people that I know about it don’t know about it. Most of the lawyers that I talked to trust lawyers don’t know about it. It’s a gift that Gina brought this to me and I wanted to make sure that I give you, ladies, the opportunities. Take advantage of it if it feels right and good to you. Please come join us for our live webinar. You can ask Gina questions. That, again, is on October 20th, 2022 from 1:00 to 2:30 PM Pacific Time.

If you’re coming in later, you’re reading this in a replay. That is also going to have a replay. You can go to BlissfulInvestor.com/TrustWebinar. When you go there, there are going to be a few things that you get to see. I was introduced to this whole concept by a podcast that Gina did with somebody else named Cassie. She had a huge stock capital gain that she was dealing with and was searching for some answers and she had a huge amount of experience with trust. She was able to ask good questions. The webinar or that particular podcast was to die for. It was good.

It’s 47 minutes but watch it. It’s amazing.

It’s good. It’s audio only. Anyway, when you go to this URL, on that page, it’s going to ask you to log in so they know who you are. With the Thank You page, you’re going to have a couple of things. You’re going to have Cassie’s podcast, Cassie’s Q&A webinar, so you’re going to get all of that information, and then you’ll get either the login information for our webinar that’s coming up or if you’re coming in later, you’ll get the replay of our webinar. You’ll also get information on how to contact Gina so you can move forward. Those are the things that you’re going to get if you go to BlissfulInvestor.com/TrustWebinar (https://abundancegroup.com/moneeka-trust-webinar/)  We’re trying to give you as much information as possible.

Don’t feel rushed. Take your time. Give yourself the time to listen and learn and ask questions in your own mind then see if you can find those answers and the information that we’re giving you. When you’re ready, set up some time with Gina. This has taken me a while. Don’t worry if it takes you a while. However, I will say there are some of you out there who are coming out of our stores end of the year. You have had huge capital gains in 2022 and you’re trying to figure out what to do.

That’s why I had Gina on now so that those of you that need her can take advantage of her services before the end of 2022. A lot of this stuff, for the mitigation of taxes, you have to do it in the year that you’re finally the taxes for. You can’t do this by April 15th, 2023. Did you want to comment a little more on that, Gina?

Especially with the foundation being a part of this, you have until the end of 2022 to donate money to your foundation. You can donate up to 30% of your adjusted gross income. For most clients, that means a reduction of their tax bracket. It can make as much as a 35% to 37% reduction of what you pay in taxes but only if you do it before the end of 2022. It’s crucial to Moneeka and I that we get this information into your hands ASAP so that if you need that help, you’ll have it and you won’t have to worry about it from now on.

That’s why we’re recording on a Saturday, ladies. We wanted to get this out to you while you could still think about it. It’s October and I don’t want you dealing with this during the holidays necessarily unless that’s your choice. At least, I’m giving you the information a little bit sooner so that you can take advantage of it. That’s what we’ve got going on. Gina, thank you so much for your time. I love hanging out with you.

Thank you, Moneeka, for having me. I am so looking forward to continuing the conversation and working with your ladies. As you know, you and I have had our hearts joined in helping these women for so long now. It will be wonderful to interact with them directly.

I’m looking forward to that too and to the ladies getting to meet you and me getting to share you. It’s going to be fun. For those of you that have missed, like you’re in January or February you’re reading this, it’s not the end of the world. You’ve got many more years ahead of you over earnings, taxes, and all of those things.

Still, go get the information and get the seeds in your mind so that you can move forward. It’s something whether you take advantage of it or not, ladies. Part of what wealthy people do is learn. We’re in constant learning because there are things that come up in life and you think, “I know about that because. I heard this once.” You know where your resources are to go back and find that information.

I’m trying to train you, ladies, into becoming those wealthy women, the independence, but also the mindset. Much of our mindset isn’t uplifting which we have to do. Part of bliss is having the resources inside of you and the knowledge or the constant learning that helps you to grow your life in the way that you want. Does that make sense?

It sure does.

I hope, ladies, this was super helpful for you. I’m looking forward to seeing those of you that can join us on the 20th. Remember to go to BlissfulInvestor.com/TrustWebinar (https://abundancegroup.com/moneeka-trust-webinar/)  and I will see you then. I’ll see you in the next episode. I appreciate you, ladies. Remember, goals without action are dreams, so get out there, take action and create the life your heart deeply desires. Love you. Bye.

 

Important Links

• Abundance Group Trust
• Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation
• BlissfulInvestor.com/TrustWebinar

 

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Why You Need To Start Investing In Residential Assisted Living With Isabelle Guarino-Smith

 

Have you looked into residential assisted living options for your loved ones? Did you know that rather than spending thousands, you could be the one earning and producing cashflow, all while having your senior relatives receive the best care? That’s what investing in residential assisted living is! Isabelle Guarino-Smith, COO of Residential Assisted Living Academy, is here to elaborate on this win-win-win approach to caring for your aging loved ones. She joins Moneeka Sawyer to share how she first started looking into assisted living after the need came up in her life. After learning more about the industry, she turned what could’ve been a financial crisis for the family into a massive opportunity. Tune in to this episode filled with incredible insight and information on how you can earn while helping seniors receive the best care possible.

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Watch the episode here

 

Listen to the podcast here

 

Why You Need To Start Investing In Residential Assisted Living With Isabelle Guarino-Smith

Real Estate Investing For Women

I am so excited to welcome to the show, Isabelle Guarino-Smith. She is a graduate of Arizona State University, a former flight attendant, a Walt Disney World intern, and now Residential Assisted Living Academy’s leading lady. She has been working as the COO of the company for several years, keeping everyone in line and on task. She’s been featured in many magazines and articles on the topic of senior housing and was given the title of one of the top influencers in senior housing. She also won Aging Media’s Future Leaders of Assisted Living Award in 2020. That’s pretty impressive, Isabelle, welcome to the show.

Thank you so much for having me. I’m excited to be here.

You had a varied career from flight attendant to Walt Disney World intern. I love that. How did you end up in assisted living?

It’s interesting. For us, it started with family. My grandmother fell, she broke her hip, and the doctor was like, “She can’t go home alone. She needs 24/7 care.” Many of your readers might have been in that same situation themselves with aging loved ones. This happens to almost everybody. This happened to us and it was like, “What do you do? Do you pay for in-home care?” That is incredibly expensive. “Do you quit your job and take care of your loved one full-time?” That’s your full-time thing. I’m not born to be a caregiver, so that didn’t make a lot of sense or you put them into a home.

As soon as you say it, you feel icky. “I can’t do this. This is my beloved grandmother, mom, dad,” or whatever the case may be. For us, it was like, “Let’s find an alternative option. Let’s find something that we are comfortable with.” When we realized it was going to cost $5,000 a month to have her stay in one of these homes, or we did quick math and we are like, “We could make $10,000 a month if we owned the real estate in the business and she could live for free.” It made a whole lot of sense to say, “Let’s get involved on the real estate side, give her the best of the best care, and we get two birds with one stone.” It started with something close to home for me and my family.

We have had to make this decision for my father-in-law. We did end up putting him in a home because he can’t move at all and he’s so big. We can’t lift him. We can’t clean him. It was impossible and there was nobody at home. We are not natural caretakers in the way that they are in these other places, lifting, cleaning, diapers, and all of that stuff. What’s fascinating is that they were originally going to charge us $5,300, but now that he’s in it, it’s costing close to $10,000 because there’s all the added care.

The $5,300 was base care. We had to up-level, ratchet it up because he can’t even get out of bed. We kept ratcheting it up. Now, we moved him to memory care, but then there were other things that are not covered. Sometimes Medicare covers some of this. In our case, it didn’t cover anything, but the other interesting thing was diapers. We are paying $1,000 a month on diapers or a physical trainer to come in so he could continue to move his hands.

He lost the use of his hands so we can no longer feed himself. Now he’s in memory care, but we were trying to have his hands continue to be used, and so we had someone coming in to train him with his hands. That was costing $1,000 a month. It’s amazing once we go down this path what it costs. What an interesting strategy you came up with to deal with that cost. That’s fascinating.

I tell that to people all the time. I say, “What’s the difference between a big box facility and a residential assisted living home?” I say, “One of the things is the cost of care.” When you move in, they tell you it’s going to be a certain dollar amount but you didn’t take the bath on Tuesday. You took it on Saturday and they are like an extra $500 or you tried to run away, an extra $1,000.

They knock things up. You get that first bill and it’s $8,000 and you are like, “What happened, dad? I signed up for $5,300.” I tell people this and they are like, “There’s no way.” I’m like, “Wait until it happens to you. You are going to look for an alternative to say, ‘How can I get this where it’s one flat rate?’ No matter what happens to them, they are getting the best of the best care. Low caregiver to resident ratio, and then if you can own it and be cash flowing and holding that real estate, it’s a win-win.” I say that story all the time. Now I’m going to have to shout you out and say, “For real, it’s happening.”

There were all these little things. They give them a little emergency button that they wear around their neck. As he can’t reach over and pull the cord, so he’s got this little thing around his neck where he kept pushing the cord. He’d like, “I need my cell phone plugged in.” He kept pushing the cord. They started charging us for every single push on that cord. They are like, “We are not supposed to get that push 200 times, but we can’t control him.”

He needs someone there.

That’s right. It was so fascinating. I’m like, “Thank goodness.” I talk all about how money is good. I keep taking such good care of my father-in-law and I’ve been like, “We are not going to yell at him. We are not going to yell at these people that are taking care of him. We are going to try to figure it out.” They were providing diapers for $1,500. We are now ordering them on Amazon with a subscription for $1,000.

We are finding ways to cut back our costs, but we are not so freaked out. It’s not like our budget is going to die because we are doing this thing. It’s interesting what good things money can do for us. That’s all I’m saying. We can take care of the people we love. I’m so excited Isabelle to talk to you because I’m in it.

I was having a conversation with my dad. He’s fallen three times. I’m trying to convince him to use a walker, which he will not do, but then I’m like, “Use a cane.” My dad says to me, “I have lived my life. If I die now, it’s okay.” I’m like, “I’m not worried about you dying even if I don’t want you to die. If you fall down and your quality of life disappears, what is that going to be like for you? Could you please start using a cane or something so you stop falling?” We talk about this for an hour. He says, “I will think about it.”

He takes a fall. What if he breaks something? They don’t heal. Now suddenly, they don’t get to be with their family because they are either stuck in a room. If we could afford care at home, we have got this $10,000 expense for another parent or they are in a home. It’s a difficult thing like what you described. I had this conversation with my dad, “Dad, you need to manage your quality of life. That’s the thing. If you are alive, we would rather you be happy.”

It’s real life. The thing is right now, your dad is in the Silent Generation, not Baby Boomers. In the Silent Generation, there are only 47 million of them. Baby Boomers are 76 million. We are about to double the need for care and we don’t have the systems to be prepared for the silver tsunami. Baby Boomers don’t need assisted living for another 20 to 30 years. It’s their parents who are in it. If we are already 1.3 million beds short, and there are only 43 million and we are expecting 76 million over the next several years, what’s going to happen?

No one is pumping these beds out that fast. It’s a massive crisis or mega opportunity, and it’s something that everyone is going to deal with. It’s either going to be your loved one or your own self lying in the bed, writing a check to somebody else, or you can play the ownership role and take care of your own loved ones and yourself and maybe even leave a blessing or leave a legacy to your own kids. It could be good.

Tell us what is assisted living as you are defining it because you said something about assisted living versus big box. Let’s talk a little bit about that and how you are defining it.

What we teach and train on what we do ourselves is residential assisted living. It’s senior housing but in a residential home, in a single-family neighborhood where there are only 6 to 16 seniors living in that one home usually in private bedrooms and private bathrooms. They have shared common spaces like a living room, dining room, and front room, maybe even a library or hair salon. These are more upscale homes in nice parts of town.

In the home, there’s 24/7 care help with activities of daily living, getting up, walking, bathing, taking medications, eating, or whatever they need. In some of these homes, there’s a private chef but there are always 24/7 caregivers and a licensed administrator who’s running the business. The role we play in that we teach other people to play is that owner’s box.

Owning the real estate and business, not working and living in the home, but owning and operating the business in that sense. It’s different from a big box because it’s not a big commercial facility with hundreds of beds. The resident-to-caregiver ratio is different. The big box facility oftentimes is 15 to 1. If they are telling you it’s lower, ask them if it’s staff or caregivers, because oftentimes they will include staff which means chefs, janitors, front desk, people, and landscapers.

A landscaper is not caring for your dad. They should not be included in the staff-to-resident ratio. It’s the caregiver-to-resident ratio and you can get fifteen people. I can’t take care of fifteen people at one time. I don’t think you can. That’s impossible, so we are setting up those caregivers for failure which is why they are saying, “We are going to charge you more when your dad dings this all the time,” because they don’t have the time and capacity to come to visit him that often.

That’s sad. That’s not okay. We need to give our seniors better quality of care and life. In our homes, it’s usually a 4 to 1 or 5 to 1 ratio. It’s also a much smaller environment, so you can have eyes on the residents at all times. That’s what we teach people to do. It’s still senior housing. It’s an alternative and a real estate investment opportunity for those who are in that world.

We need to give our seniors better quality of care, better quality of life. Share on X

How is this different than a nursing home? We have got the assisted living and the big box and then there’s also the nursing facilities.

A nursing home is typically where doctors, nurses, gurneys, and IVs are. It’s medical. In assisted living, you can be licensed to care for memory care. You can be licensed for respite and hospice, but you can’t be licensed in a physical home to do nursing care. That’s where they do have to transition on to that. Most people will stay in our homes until they pass on to the next life or they will move on to nursing care because their needs are too great for what we are licensed to care for.

It’s more medical. When would someone need that?

It’s when you have had assisted living for enough time and then maybe something happens right where you need to be hooked up to IVs and you need a 24/7 doctor watch on you. It could be health declining. It could be that you had a bad fall. Most people don’t leave our homes. They pass on from our homes. It’s a very small percentage who move to need that level of care, but it ranges. It’s person-to-person based on your health and your needs.

Talk to us a little bit about the business of this. How much money can be made? How is it set up? Tell me a little bit more about that. didn’t even see it as an option when I was doing research on these homes. What I saw were the places that had 55 to 100 rooms. We chose a place with 55. There are active living communities, where there are single-family homes and they are all around them.

There’s this big community area and so they have their party areas, their pool, maybe a golf course close by, maybe an on-campus store or something like that, but they are all living in their own single-family home. Those were the two that I was seeing. Tell me a little bit more about what you are talking about and how the money looks around that.

Where do you live?

At the time, I was living in Campbell, California.

That’s good to know because 61% of assisted living beds are in residential assisted living homes. We are the majority, but no one knows about us because there’s no big sign out front. You could drive by one of these homes and never know it was a care home. You never know that in California, you are allowed to have six residents in a home. Those homes could be a 4-bedroom, 3-bath. That could be a 5-bedroom, 4-bath. It’s not this massive, crazy, huge home. You could have driven right by and never known that it existed. Those solo owners don’t have the marketing dollars that Brookdale, Sunrise, and Atrium have. It’s different.

 

How do people even find it then?

We created a map called the RAL Home Locator and that’s the website, too, RALHomeLocator.com. There you can see all 30,000 of these homes that exist across the country right now. You would be what we consider a Daughter Judy, the person who’s in charge of their loved one’s care. They are the ones searching for the care, maybe paying for the care, checking in on the care, complaining about the care, praising the care, or whatever it might be.

Daughter Judy will start researching exactly like you did, trying to find homes in the area to see where we should put them. What options are available? There’s an entire industry of people called placement agents who will usually work with families like you to say, “What’s your budget and options?” and then they will pass out business cards. They get paid if you choose one of the homes they send you to. They will try to find a good option for you, but also, they are getting paid for it. It’s not free labor. They might be recommending smaller and bigger homes depending on the needs of your loved one.

There are organizations that will place your loved ones that can help you with that. That’s awesome because I couldn’t even find that when I was looking. I wonder, “Am I lame? Why couldn’t I find this stuff? Do you Google for this?”

Lots on Google. Lots online. This is starting to become a concern for everyone. We are like a baby industry. It’s growing in popularity. Back in the day, it used to be they would come live with you and now people are working two careers in one household and that doesn’t work a lot of times because you’ve got your own kids. It’s the Sandwich Generation.

You’re taking care of your kids. Now you’ve got to take care of them. It’s a lot and it’s not that you don’t want to. It’s not the same as it used to be. We are starting to see a lot more popularity in that. A lot more national and local placement agents are popping up a lot, more online marketing, and things of that nature. It’s going to be red corvette syndrome. Once you’ve been exposed, you start seeing it everywhere.

Tell us a little bit about how the money works with this stuff.

We were saying that the national average to live in one of these homes is $4,500 a month. That’s going to totally range depending on what city,-state, or county you are in. If you are in California, the California state average is $5,250 or something like that, but depending on your county or city, it could be different. Salinas is almost $7,100 on average and Stockton is $3,500. It ranges.

If we did national numbers and we said $4,500 a month per person, in every city or county, you are also allowed to have a different amount of maximum amount of residents. Six to sixteen are the rules in most cities or states, California is six. I’m in Arizona. Ours is ten. If you are in Texas, it’s sixteen. If you are in Florida, it’s twelve. If you are in Jersey, it’s fifteen. It ranges everywhere.

Let’s say we did ten since it’s right in the middle of 6 and 16. $4,500 a month times 10 residents in the home. That’s $45,000 coming in every single month, but you have your expenses, the food, the cable activities, and paying for your staff, all-in expenses, including liability insurance, maintenance, and everything.

Maybe on that home, it might be $30,000 a month, then your debt service. Are you going to lease this home or own this home? Your debt service, your mortgage, and your payment on the property. Let’s say it’s another $5,000. You can get a pretty nice home for $5,000 a month in most parts of the country. That means this one home is netting you as the owner $10,000 a month. That’s just an average home. There are a lot of markets where the average number is a lot higher than that so you are getting more per resident. That’s a quick, easy, or fast example of how to get to that $10,000 a month on one of these homes.

You are saying that you have one caretaker per 4 or 5 residents. When you were talking about all the costs of the staff, that includes everybody. That includes the chef, the activities director, and the gardener.

It includes all of it, but also think it’s a single-family home. You need one landscaper coming once a week, every other week. It’s not a crazy expense. In my own personal home, our landscaper comes every week and I pay them $100. It’s a line item. The chef is the same thing. In some of these homes, the caregivers do the cooking and that’s what they do and what they are responsible for caring for the residents and doing the cooking and cleaning.

In other more high-end homes, we talk about the different levels of homes based on where the home is, what amenities you have within the home, and things of that nature. A level 3 or level 4 home would not have a private chef. The caregivers would more than likely be doing the cooking, but a level five home probably would have a chef.

My nicest home, we have got a chef there who does made-to-order breakfast and fresh lunch for them and then cooks the dinner. He’s out the door by noon. The caregivers at night warm up whatever he prepared for dinner so that it’s ready to go, but they don’t have a chef there. There are different amenities for different homes. Because of those amenities, the residents are going to be charged different amounts.

The level of care also plays a heavy role in how much the resident is paying. When we say the average in the home is $4,500 a month, you might have someone like your dad who’s paying $9,000 or $10,000 in the home, and you might have someone who’s paying $3,000 in the home and other people in the 4 to 5 range, and so an average is out to about $4,500 a month.

You don’t necessarily want to fill your home with a bunch of high-need clients because that’s going to overwork your staff. A business doesn’t work unless you pay attention to the three legs of the stool, the residents, the staff, and the business. You can’t focus on the business and making money. No. You’ve got to care for the other people involved in this and make sure that all those components are there making sense and working well.

A business doesn't work unless you pay attention to the three legs of the stool: the residents, the staff and the business. Share on X

That’s a lot to think about.

It’s a whole business. If you have one, they could live for free, you could live for free, and you cashflow.

You own the real estate but someone else manages the whole thing and you pay that person.

That’s your licensed administrator. In the real estate world, you could call them your property manager but they are much more than that. They are licensed through the state as medical professionals who are able to care for the residents, but they also might do many other things. Hire and fire your staff. Tour and market your home. They might be in charge of all the other contractors like we were talking about, the chef and landscaper as someone to come over and do activities. They could have whole varied roles and responsibilities for them.

I like to find an administrator. My one administrator oversees all three of my homes. I have one phone call with her a week and I visit the homes every other month. The way we have set it up is passive. In the beginning, it wasn’t that way but we had to start to formulate that and make it become that way. That’s what I like to share with other real estate investors how to do. Most people don’t want to be hands-on in the home doing anything and it’s like, “Not what we do. Not what I want to show you how to do. I want to show you how to do this more passively.”

In the old days, we had real BnBs, not Airbnbs. We had real Bed and Breakfast. There were all these rules and regulations about you having to have a certain kitchen. You had to have a certain number of bathrooms. There were all these rules. I’m assuming that you can’t get a big house and turn it into a senior living without following all regulations. There’s got to be other stuff. Talk to us a little bit about that.

There are rules and regulations and I love that because you don’t want anybody getting into this industry. We want quality people who are willing to jump through hoops, have the right heart, have the right passion and are going to care for our seniors. These are people’s lives. I’m totally okay with rules and regs. In every state, these homes need to be licensed. The physical home has a license. It’s mostly based on senior safety.

 

The home does not have to be ADA-compliant, but it needs to be as close to that as possible. Meaning wider hallways and doorways ramps, and guardrails, maybe fire suppression or sprinklers, different things of that nature to make it safe for the seniors. If you have to be Tom Cruise to get out of the house, it’s not senior safe. We want to make sure they are safe. That’s a priority.

The physical home will have a license. The state requirements are a pretty bare minimum. Most states say 80 to 100 square feet per person. That is tiny. That’s not okay. Our rule of thumb is 300 to 500 square feet per person. If you are going to have ten people in the home minimum of 3,000 square foot home, upwards of 5,000 is much more comfortable.

Most of these seniors are going to want a private bedroom and a private bathroom. You are going to have a hard time finding a 10-bedroom, 10-bath home on the market, but you can buy a 5 or 6-bedroom home and convert it to become. There are four ways you could get into the industry, and one of them is buying a single-family home and converting it to become. All of our homes are 10-bedroom, 10-bath, but they didn’t start that way. They started 5 or 6 bedrooms and we converted them and now they have those ten bedrooms.

Using the space a little bit differently, but whatever the state says, we go above that. Make this nice and comfortable because the seniors deserve it. If they are going to be paying a pretty penny, they are going to be comparing you to the other homes where they are getting a private bedroom and private bath. You need to be able to supply that.

When you were talking about this, let’s say we buy a 5-bedroom, 4-bath single-family home. They are quite a lot of them here, but they all have lots of stairs. I was thinking of one that’s on the market close to my house here in Sacramento. It used to be San Jose. All of the houses are like these old, beautiful Victorians or craftsman.

I live in a craftsman which is fun, but there are so many stairs and the hallways are narrow. People were much smaller in those days. Talk to me about what does that look like? How do you find these places? What do you do if you are in a situation where the only houses that are coming on the market are heavy in the stairs, narrow hallways, and that type of thing?

You can add chairlifts and elevators. You are going to need something because the seniors typically cannot climb the stairs at that point. The thin hallways are tough because unless you are going to knock down the house and redo it, there’s sometimes not much you can do when you have a historic home like that, and you don’t want to take away the beauty of the way it was built. There’s some history in that and you don’t want to remove that.

Honestly, I would say that probably in those types of homes might not be the right fit because you would prefer ranch style. You would prefer a single level. We have a guy in Jersey who’s got a four-story home. On the East Coast, everyone’s got a basement. He is got a nice big built-out basement, two stories, and a full third story up there that’s stunning. He added in a residential elevator. It’s $30,000 but it’s a one-time fee that you pay. If you are going to be making that back, that home, he cashflows $40,000 a month because all his people are paying over $8,000 and he has 15 people in that home. All private bedrooms and private bathrooms, it’s stunning.

I would say it might not be the right fit because of the style of homes there unless you can add in a chairlift or an elevator and those stairs. I don’t know how well they do with the chairlift and the homes because they are so tight that sometimes an elevator might not work either unless it was the perfect property. Going a little bit outside of town where you have ranches, where you have more land, and where you have that capability, Daughter Judy only wants to drive a certain distance from where she lives.

Find out the demographic research on 50 to 70-year-olds who are in the upper middle class and own their home, where do they live, eat, work, sleep, and play. We want to put the residential assisted living home right near them because they don’t want to drive 45 minutes to go see mom or dad. They want to go right on their way home from work. Doing that demographic research is a great place to start, and then finding those properties that already lend themselves to this.

Doing that demographic research is a great place to start. Share on X

How far does Daughter Judy drive usually?

They say that usually, they want to be within a 5 to 10-minute radius of them. The 5 to 10-minute radius in Oklahoma is completely different than in LA. Depending on where they live, that could look very different but most Daughter Judys want to be close. Can I ask how far are you from your dad?

This is an interesting story. This is my father-in-law. We have lived down in the Bay Area for many years so we have been close to him. My parents were two and a half hours away in Sacramento. When we moved him into his home, he was 25 minutes away and it was a bear because we were so busy. I work at home, but still at the end of the day, driving down there, you are hitting all the traffic.

For twenty-five minutes, we thought, “This is nothing. It’s fine.” We did a bunch of research. We found three places that we liked and we let my father-in-law pick. He gets to have some say in this. We visited the different places and he picked this place and we were like, “He likes this place. Twenty-five minutes.” It was so hard for us to get down there more than once a week, and it felt terrible.

Now, we have moved to Sacramento to be close to my parents. Now I’m 15 minutes away from my parents, and 2.5 hours away from him. We are looking at moving him up to Sacramento with us, but he’s in hospice. That’s another whole long story. Now I live fifteen minutes away from my dad. When he was at his home, it was 25 minutes and you are right. We couldn’t figure it out, trying to get all of us there together. If I could go one day, my husband could go a different day, but getting the two of us there together with the traffic and all of that stuff was hard.

It’s a lot harder than people think. When we talk about a location for residential assisted living, I always tell people, “The first key is finding out the demographics of the area because they are the decision-makers more than likely. They want mom or dad near them.” It’s like, “I don’t care if you have the perfect house, if it is not near the right demographic, it won’t work.”

What they are looking for is always price, proximity, service amenities, and then the feel when they walk in. How do they feel in their heart, mind, and soul? Is my parent or my loved one going to be safe here? Are they going to be comfortable here? There’s a real feel to a lot of these and sometimes you walk in and you are like, “No.”

 

I did that. I was like, “No. This is not going to work.”

Sometimes you walk in and you are like, “I can live here. This is pretty nice. I could do this.” You want to have that wow factor and that feeling when they walk in. You want to make them feel comfortable, and that is one of the perks and benefits of residential assisted living. It’s a home. It’s not home-like. It’s a literal home. We grew up in homes. Who doesn’t want to stay in a home? This is pretty much the only option besides in-home care which is super expensive.

Tell us a little bit about how we can take advantage of this and how we can learn more.

We teach and train people how to do this because I do it myself, and then we teach people how to do this. We have three-day training events there in Phoenix, Arizona, but we also have online courses. If anybody wants to get started for free, check it out. We have got webinars and free books at RAL101.com where you can learn the four different ways you could get started in this.

You could learn the three smartest options for you to participate in. Maybe it’s as a lender. Maybe it’s owning the real estate or the real estate and the business. We go through all those options and then the five keys to success. You can learn and know all more about that on RAL 101. We are going to stick around for your special readers and dive deep. I’m excited to be able to share with them a little bit more too.

What would you like to share in EXTRA? We didn’t decide beforehand because she was like, “You are going to have questions,” but I have got so many questions. It’s hard to narrow them down. I like the four different ways to get started doing a deep dive on that. You’ve mentioned something. What did you say?

We said 4 smartest ways and 3 options to participate depending on what role they want to take, and then the 5 keys to success. I could do either on anyone.

I wish I could get your input on this. Let’s get the ways to get started. I hope I picked the right one. In EXTRA, we are going to talk about the ways to get started in this industry. It’s in her URL. You can go there for all of their trainings and all of that information also. In EXTRA, we will be talking about how to get started in this business. That was so amazing. Such great information. Is there anything else you want to add before we move into our three rapid-fire questions?

You are going to get involved with this one way or another. At this point, you have an option on how you want to participate because like me and you, a lot of times you get slapped upside the head with this and it hits you and you’ve got to deal with it right now and figure it out. It’s not like this, “My mom might need this in 20 or 30 years.” It happens and it happens quickly, and then all of a sudden you are like, “What do we do?”

You're going to get involved with this one way or another. At this point, you have an option on how you want to participate. Share on X

Les Brown always says, “Be prepared for opportunities.” I like to educate myself as much as I possibly can so that when the opportunity arises, I’m ready to take action. I encourage everybody reading, all the ladies, if this is ringing a bell to you, to be prepared for that opportunity. Start educating yourself. Start getting prepared. Whether it is you investing in someone else’s, owning your own, or learning about those options. If and when you are a loved one ever needs this, you know what to do, or else you are going to be scrambling and it’s a scary time of stressful time. There are so many emotions. Start educating yourself and getting prepared. That’s my best advice.

There were some thoughts that came to me as you were talking. It’s been hard for us to think about putting our parents in a home. I’m Indian. In our culture, in the Eastern cultures, we traditionally don’t do that. What’s also true is that in Eastern cultures, there was someone responsible to take care of the parent and the parent still did not always get the best care.

In our case, we couldn’t lift him. He’s 250 pounds. There was no way that any one of us that was dedicated to this could. My sister lives at home with my parents, but even living at home with my parents, if one of them were to go completely down, she can’t physically lift them to clean them, change diapers, change the bed, and do all of those things.

It’s not a matter of whether we don’t love them. I only work 5 to 10 hours a month. I tell people, “What are you doing with your time? Why are you not taking care of your parents?” I have felt guilt around that, and I know that a lot of women will and the truth is I am not capable of giving him the care a professional would.

I would rather have someone come in-house, but you talk about it being hugely expensive. When we were looking at the cost, even at the $10,000 a month that we are paying now, had we done the cheapest in-home care and we would not have hired the cheapest, the cheapest would have been $15,000 a month.

We were going to have to remodel parts of the house to make it possible because he needed to be able to get into the shower so we are talking about another $50,000 expense. If we were to get him the care we wanted, it was going to be closer to $20,000 to $25,000. That’s the care that he’s getting in the home. We have our hearts in the right place, but we don’t realize how difficult things can become.

The other thing that is a very difficult conversation to have with the elderly is long-term care. My parents have long-term care, but I’m very aware of the fact that my father-in-law thought he had long-term care. He thought he was going to be covered by Medicare. He thought all of these different things, but there are a whole series of rules where we get no help, not even a single dime. Nothing.

My parents have long-term care, but the long-term care will not cover things like diapers, physical therapy, or personal trainer. There are also big rules about that. There are going to be lots of out-of-pocket things that come up that you need to be prepared for even if they have got long-term care. I have got six parents that we are going to be looking at with this stuff. What have you set up for this situation? My father-in-law did think that he had enough cash to cover him, but nobody anticipated the cost, and so he did not. We ran out after the first year. Those are some things to think about.

The other thing that was interesting as you were talking is in these homes, one of the things that you can do that’s cool is to make it a cultural home. For instance, all of us Indians put our parents together because they have so much in common. They can do their pujas together. They can play teen patti together.

Certain cultures have things that they do and they want to do it with people that understand. They don’t want to have to be explaining their culture with every little thing that they do or say, their idioms, or the way they take their walks in the morning. We have got a Chinese home close by. I have been looking for an Indian one in case I need it.

You could also do cultural ones. It’s not segregating. It’s allowing them to feel a little bit more at home like they have got people that understand them in those later years of their lives. If you could do a home that’s only 6 or 10 people, you are much more likely to be able to build a community that’s more culturally sensitive. Would you agree with me on that?

100% and I always tell people that we have a home here in Arizona called Shalom Home. It focuses on the Jewish culture. They eat kosher food, they celebrate the Jewish holidays, and to me, that’s a beautiful thing. I always encourage our students, “Don’t be afraid of niching down. If you want to do a home that’s vegan, fantastic. Do you know how many Daughter Judys are going to be so excited to put their mom or dad in a vegan home?”

Whatever it is, it could be religion. It could be ethnicity. It could be all women or all men. Whatever you want to do, you can do that because you are going to appease someone’s need. Let’s be real. As people age, a lot of people who are aging right now in America maybe weren’t born here or maybe didn’t grow up here. There are a lot of times when you start having memory issues, you go back to your native tongue, your first language.

 

It’s hard when someone’s taking care of them who doesn’t understand that or doesn’t get it. Now they are getting frustrated with each other because I love niched homes. You can totally do it and a ton of our students do those specialty homes and it’s such a fun way to meet an important need in society and in culture. You would be happy to be paying what you are paying if he was in a home that had only five other residents, he had eyes on him at all times, and it was an Indian-centric focused home. You would be excited about that. You would be like, “I will write that check.”

They are all watching Indian movies and they are playing the Indian cable station. They are playing Indian music over dinner and all of those things. It makes them feel so much more at home. There are lots of red everywhere because Indians love their red. The china looks a certain way. My dad and I have talked a little bit about this. One or the other of them go, we are fully aware that there could be these possibilities. He has said over and over again, “I don’t know that being an elderly man, I want to restart full relationships in an environment where people don’t understand me at all.”

It’s a valid fear. It’s a beautiful thing to be able to provide that. One of the blessings about being in this industry is that there’s a lot of cashflow, but our company motto is to do good and do well because you can make a massive impact on people’s lives. When you have these families who are grateful and thankful for the services that you are offering because they truly know it’s better than what they are ever going to get anywhere else, you feel good about that.

To me, making an impact in the world is important and valid. Being able to provide that to your community is a beautiful thing even if it starts selfishly with, ”I want it for my family.” Who cares? It’s going to grow into something that you are going to bless other Indian families and Indian people as long as that home exists. You pass that home to your kids. They can have that. It’s a contribution to society and that’s a beautiful thing.

Thank you for that. Are you ready for three rapid-fire questions?

I’m ready.

Tell us the super tip on how to get started investing in real estate.

I would say the super tip would be is location. If you want to start this, it’s finding out that prime location so that then you can start getting excited about finding those homes, niching down on the rules and regs and what you are going to do there. Location is key. Find out where the Daughter Judys are who can afford the home and then move from there.

What would you say is one strategy for being successful as a real estate investor?

We have been teaching and training for many years, and the number one quality trait that I see, whether it’s men, women, young, or old, in real estate or not real estate, that they all have in common is grit. People who are willing to get hit in the face, get back up, and do it again. If you are going to be in the real estate world, you better believe that’s going to happen quite a few times if you are going to be in it for the long run. It’s important to have that in your heart and soul. If that’s not you, then that’s fine. For me, the biggest strategy is having a strong passion and sticking to that grit. Keep going and keep trying every single day. Never give up.

The one character trait that they all have in common is grit. People who are willing to get hit in the face and get back up and do it again. Share on X

What is one daily practice that you do that would contribute to your personal success?

I have learned about myself and this might be a little too woo-woo for anybody reading, but for me, I’m like a nature girl. If I don’t spend an hour outside, I go crazy. Especially like working from home or traveling or whatever, a lot of times you are indoors all day and you don’t realize, “Why do I feel icky? Why do I feel off?” I have to spend time outside, feeling the sun, and being outside. I will bring my computer out there and work. That’s fine, but I know what works for me.

I always tell people, “You have to find what works for you. If that’s starting the morning with a walk, then you’ve got to do it.” I learned that I don’t feel right if I don’t spend time outside. Now, it’s part of my daily routine and it helps me re-energize and live my best life. All that I ever want for anybody is to be able to show up 100% themselves.

Thank you for that. Ladies, stay tuned for EXTRA. We are going to be talking about the four different ways to get started in this business. If you are subscribed to EXTRA, stay tuned. If you are not, you can do that by going to RealEstateInvestingforWomenEXTRA.com. For those of you that are leaving us right now, thank you for joining Isabelle and me for this portion of the show. You know how much I appreciate you, and I look forward to seeing you next time until then remember, goals without action are dreams. Get out there, take action, and create the life your heart deeply desires. I will talk to you soon.

 

Important Links

• Residential Assisted Living Academy
• RAL Home Locator
• RAL101.com
• RealEstateInvestingforWomenEXTRA.com

 

About Isabelle Guarino-Smith

Isabelle Guarino is a vibrant young professional with experience beyond her years. Time spent working for Walt Disney World Company and US Airways shaped her professional development to her current role with AL Family. Isabelle is the COO of the AL Family of companies including the Residential Assisted Living Academy, Pitch Masters Academy, Residential Assisted Living National Association, Four Homes to Freedom, Family Legacy Homes and Residential Assisted Living National Convention.

With a degree in Human & Family Development and minors in Religious Studies and Communication, Isabelle’s skills are broad and far reaching. She enjoys all organizational tasks, planning and running corporate events, leading teams to reach their financial and personal goals. In college, Isabelle was Chi Omega’s elected Secretary but she also took on leadership roles in every job or club she has ever participated in.

Isabelle loves to volunteer her time and skills to missions work across the world, bringing donations, helping build different projects and sharing God’s Word. Isabelle runs her own charity trips to Jamaica bi-yearly to help donate time and money to Denham Town’s Gold Age Care Home. If you need something to get done quickly and properly, you know who to call! As of 2022 Isabelle has started taking the stage for RALAcademy as their leading lady and lead educator on the topic of senior housing. She is an excellent speaker carrying on her father’s legacy of “Doing Good & Doing Well” with RAL!

 

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