Being a single parent is no easy feat. You have to balance being a mother as well as providing for your family. If only there’s a career that could give you the lifestyle and flexibility to be a mom. Our guest in this episode found one in real estate! Real estate broker of Sotheby’s International Realty, D’Nette Wood, sits down with Moneeka Sawyer to share how her path shifted from being a single parent into a badass REI mom, finding a blissful hustle that is motivated by her passion. She then talks about the importance of outside-of-the-box thinking in real estate and overcoming the fear mentality. Join D’Nette in this conversation and get inspired by the ways she took action to create the life she desires!
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I am so excited to welcome the show, D’Nette Wood. D’Nette is a realtor and entrepreneur. She has had an incredible career with Sotheby’s International Albuquerque and luxury homes and income-generating properties, advising a range of clientele, from new home buyers to retirees. As a former loan officer, she understands the impact on clients’ long-term goals. She’s helped them navigate and manage life, investing, finances, divorce, death, downsizing, and empty nest. I was a loan officer too. I totally get this. When you are looking at their financials, you get everything. It’s this huge puzzle. She also has had that same approach to being a loan officer.
Prior to real estate, D’Nette sang in Nashville and is an actress with the Screen Actors Guild. This is one of her quotes, “One of the things I feel has helped me succeed is empathizing with my consumer base as a creative artist who utilizes that side of her brain. That connects us and gives them an experience they want to share with their friends and relatives.” As a mother of three, D’Nette is inspired to leave a legacy for her children. D’Nette, welcome to the show.
I am so happy to be here in Zoom person. I would be on your couch but I’m on my chair instead.
She looks gorgeous. She’s got all these beautiful jewel tones going on. I love that.
I lived in New Mexico and grew up here. We have Native American culture. I wear turquoise a lot. I love the colors and the feel of it. I wanted to represent you on your show. Thank you so much for having me.
Teal, if you know anything about chakras, is very close to the color of the throat. It also opens us up for communication. It’s a beautiful color, especially for this. Thank you for that.
Thank you for sharing that.
You have such an interesting story. I’ve shared a little bit in your bio but could you give us the two-minute high-level how you got here type of story?
I was very focused as a kid and goal-oriented, and I still am. I wanted to be a professional singer. My whole life was geared toward being a professional singer. I moved to Nashville, and then life shifted for me. I became a mom. I was faced with this real dilemma. I didn’t want to go on the road for 280 days a year as a professional singer. I wanted to be a mom and have a certain lifestyle as a mother. Being a mother is a nugget of who I am.
At that time, I needed to reinvent myself. I needed a different job. I wanted to create a career. I wrote it down, “What career is going to give me the lifestyle I want and give me the flexibility to be a mom?” Through that reinvention of myself, here I am on your show talking about the success of pivoting. I tell people, “All I do is to pivot. We are like a 360 sprinkler. Keep pivoting.”
Many of us had to pivot over the last couple of years with COVID and stuff like that. I myself have pivoted quite a lot. I’m going to have you talk more about this. What’s fun about pivoting, from my perspective, is that we get to discover the other sides of ourselves or other powerful assets that we may have forgotten about because we got stuck or whatever in what we were doing. We knew that skill base but we are all such full people with so many resources and skills. It’s fun to discover and apply some of those other things that we didn’t get to with what we were doing before. Would you agree with me on that?
I would. With age comes wisdom and experience. I appreciate being on this show because I want to mentor younger women. If I had the knowledge I do now, I wish I would’ve had all of that knowledge. I love to mentor and help younger women be successful in whatever they do. It’s all of those tools that we put in our tool belts as we grow, change, and mature.
With age comes wisdom comes experience. Share on XWhy I do, this show is that I want to mentor all women. We’ve got young women and older women than me. All of us have opportunities and things to share with one another. From younger women, I get new ideas about, “What’s going on in the work that I’m not fully aware of.” They bring energy, excitement, and lots of new ideas. The older women that are wiser than me bring even more experience that we can then plug into what we talk about on the show. As mentors of women, we all bring so much to one another.
A collaborative effort is what I love it. I love people that’s the bottom line. I hope to learn something from everybody I meet. If I’m not in front of people, I’m not making money. That’s getting back to the sales part of my business. People are my business.
You sent me your questions, and the very first one you talked about was learning how to hustle. I want to give you some context on this and how I see this. What you said is, “Achieving what you want takes energy and hard work. It’s not going to be handed to you.” I absolutely agree with that comment. I frequently call about living a blissful life as the anti-hustle. It’s like hustling without the stress that the word implies.
I will say that I’m a blissful millionaire. I talk about the anti-hustles, and yet many people could say that I hustle. I have a lot of energy, motivation, and passion for what I do. I do not stay lazy or whatever you want to call that. I don’t want to imply that not hustling is lazy. Ladies, don’t take that the wrong way. I’m saying that bliss does not mean that we are not working towards the things that we are passionate about. The word hustle has been an interesting thing on this show. We’ve talked about it in different ways. I would love to hear your perspective on that.
I love that you use the word bliss because when you are doing it all correctly, it is bliss. It doesn’t feel like a lot of work when you are hustling the right way. When about I think my earlier career, when I thought of the word hustle, I was like, “I got to get some sales in.” My kids would confirm that living with me is like a mix between Doris Day and Tony Robbins. I’m on fire. I was like, “Good morning. What are your goals now? Get your homework done.” I’m a tiger mom.
Now, if I feel like if I do all of the right things and be authentic, it all works. I let go of the stress of the hustle and was a little more mindful in my morning. That’s the biggest thing that has changed in the last few years for me is mindfulness in the morning. When I talk about hustle, you have to have some passion to drive the hustle. The passion is the motor that drives the hustle. What are you passionate about? Identifying what you want is the hardest thing. It’s like, “What do you want?” “I want to make a lot of money.” “Why do you want to make a lot of money?” “It gives me food on the table.” You can get to basics, then you get back to, “Do you want to survive or thrive?”
Surviving can be very motivating to a point. I see single moms who are so motivated to provide for their children. That can be a very high motivator but for many of us, it’s almost depleting. It drains us rather than inspires and lifts us. After you get past that strive to survive mentality, now you are living for passion and a motivator that will uplift you. There are also different stages of what it is that you are needing. The way that you hustle is going to change based on what that motivator is.
We get to the basics as I said, you make more money. If you are in that back against the wall time in your life, I’m raising my hand. I have been there.
I have, too.
I was a single mom for a long time. I couldn’t think outside of the basics. I need rent and gas for my car but you also have to have some joy behind that. I want to send my kids to college. For me, I didn’t have to have some great big business plan but by writing it down, I created a vision board for myself because that keeps me focused on what my passions are and what makes me happy. That fuels my hustle for the day or where perhaps I direct my energy. Am I directing it toward finding the people that I need to find to help me generate that? Am I researching all of those things?
The hustle is not getting on the phone and making 50 calls a day. It’s creating the process that gets you to where you want to go. You have to have a process to get from A to Z, which is the hustle. The process, to me, is the hustle. How do I get from here to there? Is it a new job? Is it my first investment property? It takes energy and passion for being a hustler. Some people send me memes of me as a hustler.
A thought that came to my mind. I don’t know if you know Leeza Gibbons. She’s a friend of mine. This is one of those pieces of advice that I hear in my head frequently, and she says, “Show up, do your best, and let go of the rest.” Look at the level of success that she’s achieved. What she doesn’t say in that is that you have to have the goal first and the passion. You’ve got to do that internal work first, your big why, what are your core values, and what is your goal.
Once you have that goal, now you are setting that into action and show up, do your best, and then allow the universe to take care of the rest. Don’t be so attached to the outcome as to being your very best self in everything that you are doing. To me, that’s a blissful hustle. We can get out there, do our very best, do what brings us joy, and then let go of the rest. How do you feel about that? Does that make sense? It feels like exactly what you said.
I’m going to make a request that Leeza Gibbons share with us a one-day snapshot of her calendar and how she’s time blocked her day. That process that we are talking about is partially how you schedule your day. If you schedule your day thoughtfully, you will achieve all of those items, and then you are going to have this blissful moment at the end of the day that says, “That was a productive day. That was a good day.” Taking a few notes at the end of the day, “Was that a good day? Why was it a good day? Was it a bad day?”
We all have bad days. I wish I could have a redo about one day a month but we learned from those redos. How could I have made that better? What could I have possibly done to have changed that outcome to be different? We don’t have to beat ourselves on the back but it’s okay to say, “I wish I had done that differently.”
I learned from it and then let it go. Tomorrow is a new day. One Day at a Time. I love that song. Marijohn Wilkins wrote it, and she was a mentor of mine too. She was an amazing older woman that took me under her wing in Nashville. She was a teacher as a younger woman and had those life lessons to learn as we learned from other women.
Here’s a nugget. Keep a daily calendar. Write down what you want to achieve for that day that will help you get to where you want to go. Maybe at the end of the week, and then reflect on that and say, “Am I getting to where I’m going?” We have Google Maps now, but even with Google maps, you’ve got to read the directions of where you are going, and that’s what having a plan does.
You have to have a destination to put in there, so it knows where to send you.
Otherwise, you can’t complain about where you are because you haven’t told yourself where you want to go.
Talk about thinking outside of the box. How does this relate to real estate? Everybody has a problem, and lots of people have a problem. Not everybody is able to come up with a good creative solution. We talk about finding off-market homes or even on-market homes. People have a problem that they are trying to solve. There’s a reason that this house isn’t working for them. Can you come in and be a demanding buyer or can you come in and solve their problem?
The house that I’m living in and moved into a couple of months ago, we got, after it left us, somebody else came in with a full cash offer with no contingencies but we ended up getting the house because we solved a problem for this seller. Not because we came in with the best offer. Let’s talk about that whole piece. Thinking outside of the box and making the negotiation all about solving problems for one another.
Thinking outside the box is one of my best skillsets. I call it specialized learning or expertise but you can learn how to do it and that is by reading the room. If you are a buyer and looking at a house or whatever investment A is, the best thing that you can do is to ask what are the seller’s motivations. If you can match that or get close to it, you’ve solved their problems.
In COVID, there were a lot of different needs. More so than any other time in my career. The sellers had a lot of different needs. The first-time home buyers had a lot of heartbreaks. They couldn’t compete but they are back now. We are all talking about the market shifting. Sellers now are living in the past. Buyers now are living in the future. We have two different points of view. We are not doing that old dance anymore. We were doing this fast.
West Coast Swing.
The passion is the motor that drives the hustle. Share on XI was spinning around many times, and then the music changed. We are in different music and dance. I hope analogies don’t drive you crazy but we are. I see sellers want this high price, and buyers say, “Your house has been on the market for twenty days now and hasn’t had an offer. It’s too high-priced, and it’s not updated.” If you are representing a seller, educating them on the front end is important because we have to be realistic.
As a buyer asking the questions up front, don’t just write an offer. That’s like going out with a person, and you don’t know anything about them. You got to get to know them. Do they need a lease back? Do they need a 60-day close? Would they prefer that you not get any repairs because they have been out of work for six months? Here’s something that’s coming up. We are in a period of deceleration. We are not this double 18%, 35% appreciation. It’s slowing down. Deceleration is the key term here.
I want to highlight this. Ladies, what we are reading out and about is the fear mentality of, “Interest rates are going up, housing prices are going down.” This is the fear that everybody is hearing on the news and from all of their friends. It’s a fear-driven idea. I want to clarify what D’Nette said. We are not seeing housing prices depreciate or go down. We are seeing a slowing down of those prices.
Prices are still appreciating if you look at the numbers. They are doing it much more slowly. They are doing it at a pace that’s much more similar to before we went into this gangbusters market. I want to warn people against this fear mentality that takes over everybody in the media. Understand that we are decelerating. We are not depreciating. Our appreciation is not going down. It’s not to the same levels that it was before. I’m so glad you mentioned that because this fear is driving many people and is important.
I’m happy that you took the time to talk about what deceleration is. I do not watch much news at all.
Nor do I.
I quit watching the news a few years ago. This is a very important thing to go to. If you want to learn about what’s going on, FHFA is the place to go. Federal Housing Finance Agency came out with its Q2 report. That’s where you need to get your news. It’s from the source, not the news agency, that does the shock value to get ratings up. FHFA doesn’t have that problem with sponsorships. They serve the data. They have graphs and little videos that tell you what’s going on in the market. It’s still a strong market. It’s just different.
We need to read the room. We need to ask the seller what’s going on with them. Every deal is different. That’s why I love real estate every house is different. Every seller or buyer’s motivation is different. As an investor, I thought I was going to sell one of my properties because I had unsolicited offers. I’ve got five. I said to myself, “Is this the time for me to sell this property? It’s an investment. I would need to do a 1031 exchange. There’s a time limit. Where am I going to find something?” I had to go and do the deep research myself to say, “Is it the best time for this particular property to be sold?” You have to do the work to understand what options are best for you, the investor or the buyer.
What I love that you said is getting to know what the seller is needing. It’s interesting that when I was moving back up to Sacramento from San Jose, I had a brand-new realtor. He was a broker and was very good. This is not anything against him. My realtor in San Jose would do the exact same thing, and I have been working with him for many years. This is to let you know what happens out there in the market. Realtors are also very used to a seller’s market.
What they are used to is that the seller is going to be very demanding. The buyer has to kowtow to them. The market is changing, and what’s happening is going back to what it was several years ago. I was making offers then too and asking the questions. Having the realtor go and say, for instance, what you said, “Could we use a lease back? What is the situation?” You want to know the story. “Would you like to not have to move for 60 days? We could include that as part of your bonus. Do you want a faster close?” That’s normal, “Do you want no contingencies? Do you want to not have to fix anything?”
In our case, they were moving across the country. They had a bunch of furniture they wanted to leave behind. “Can we take care of that for you and donate it all?” What are the things that you are needing?” They needed a certain date to close, and we offered that even if we don’t close on that day, we will start to pay them that day.
There are things that you can offer but what was so interesting about this is that every single realtor I’ve ever worked with has said, “Moneeka, you are asking so many questions. It’s not going to make a difference to them. They want money.” No. I have found that almost 100% of the time, every single one of my offers is accepted, and I’m not the highest financial offer.
The realtor that I have been working with for many years still argues with me on it. I’m like, “How many times have we been right on this?” Ask the questions, and don’t be afraid. The thing is, you have to make sure that your realtor will do it because a lot of time, they will be like, “Whatever,” and then they don’t say anything. You also have to train your realtor. They need to do these things. They don’t have to do it for everybody but if they want you as a client, they have to do it.
You want the answers back. That’s the other thing is to make sure that you get the answers back. I love my realtors. They are my best friends but you do see a little bit of this tug of war because of their mentality of what’s expected on the market. It’s not always true with their mentality. They bring a lot to the table. They are the professionals but you bring some of this stuff to the table, and that’s what helps you to win.
Thinking outside the box is so important as a listing agent during COVID. I had some pretty popular properties. One property had fifteen offers, which is a big deal in Albuquerque. I called my cousin up in Denver and said, “Do you have a good Excel spreadsheet that I could look at because this is getting pretty complex?” He shared it with me. Shout out, cousin. Thank you.
You can see the difference between a good realtor and a brand new or less competent realtor when you have fifteen offers in front of you. To your readers, you need to interview your realtor to see how good they are. What is their skillset? What is their background? You are relying on them to think outside the box. If they don’t have that skillset, find another realtor who does. The top 25% of the bulk of the offers are all pretty close because they’ve all called me. They’ve all said, “What does your seller need?”
They’ve done that work to think outside the box on behalf of their client. The middle quarter didn’t call. In the last quarter, at the very end, their contracts were crap. They might have been missing documents or it didn’t even make sense. They weren’t even in the game. I feel bad for those buyers who wasted a lot of time going after house after house and didn’t get a deal.
A lot of the realtors are like, “You are going to get a bit out of ten houses. Let’s start placing offers.” If you can’t do more than one at a time. If you get it, that’s great, just sign. We will start placing offers. It’s a numbers game,” but the reason it’s such a big numbers game for you is because you don’t win and don’t take the time. It’s like a balancing act for them too like, “How much time am I going to spend on each one of these offers?” If you spend the time, you will have to make fewer offers. You will be more likely to win.
That causes burnout on the buyer’s part.
Also, frustration.
Their heart is broken and is like, “Forget it. I’m going to go rent or something.” The good news is buyers, come on, back in. Get pre-qualified, interview some realtors, and get back in the game. You can think outside the box because reading this gives a lot of information to make them a more educated buyer the next time around. Taking some of these ideas and maybe you have to teach a realtor a thing or two. “I read in Moneeka’s show that we can do this.”
I feel like we could talk forever but we are going to have to wrap up the show. We are going to change EXTRA a little bit. If you don’t mind, I would like to talk on EXTRA about financial literacy and how you taught your children how to fish, would you be up for that?
Okay.
That’s a piece of what my ladies would love to know. Ladies, we are going to do that in EXTRA. We are going to talk about how to teach your children how to fish and give them financial literacy and how a mom of three has done that. I’m excited about that. Before we lead into the three rapid-fire questions, D’Nette, could you tell people how they can reach you?
Sellers right now are living in the past. Buyers right now are living in the future. Share on XDNetteWood.com, and I have a YouTube channel, DNette Wood Albuquerque Realtor, where I have little nuggets of helpful information that people can go and watch. You can find me there.
Thank you so much for that. Are you ready for three rapid-fire questions?
I am.
Tell us one super tip on getting investing in real estate.
I’m going to take this for the market that we are in. A tip for getting started in real estate investing, buy a house that someone else will feel comfortable renting. Think about it as, “Would I live here?” Do you want to be a slum lord or do you want to have pride of ownership? Do you need to do a little something to it? Can you get it rented, casting the wide net? When I look at a property, I say, “Would I want to live there?” That’s how I am.
We talk a lot about that on this show, buying a house in reverse order. Picking who you want to live in your house is first, and then buying a house to match that market. Most people do it where they buy the house first, and then they find somebody to rent it. I always say that your tenants are going to be the biggest factor and how blissful your life is. They are your biggest business partners. If you know who you want to be as business partners with, buy a house that they would enjoy living in. I love that. What is a strategy for being successful as a real estate investor?
As a successful investor, you have to know your numbers. It starts as a dream. “I want to own an investment property.” That’s the dream. You then have to get back into the process and go deeper into how do you be successful, “Am I going to make money on this investment?” I’m going to throw out the rule of 72, go look it up, “Am I going to make money on this property?”
Let’s say you need to do some remodeling to this property. You are walking through this property, and it needs some remodeling. You need to get educated in your mind when you are walking through that property. “This bathroom is $10,000. Hardware all throughout the house, $1,000.” You are adding up these gross numbers to say, “How much does this property need for me to fix it up to rent it to the avatar renter that I want to bring, and does it make sense?”
If you get those numbers, you need to make your offer price consistent with all those numbers. For your loan, you want to make sure it all fits into the budget that you feel is appropriate for the return on investment that you need to get over this property. You can’t control the economy but you can control your budget.
Be careful not to go over your budget because you fall in love with something. Would you agree?
I did this video on my YouTube channel called Decorating Faux Pas, which I love. You are going to go into a rental property. You are not going to put a gold-plated copper tub in there when your budget is $500 that you need to get on the Facebook marketplace to make it work. Facebook marketplace is a fabulous resource. I’m not even trying to plug them but to get some things like furnishings, if you need to furnish it, you don’t have to go and get expensive things. It’s an investment property. It’s not a dream house.
I love that you said that. Remember that it’s an investment property. It’s not your dream house. I’m going to use that one. Could you tell us one daily practice that you would say contributes to your personal success?
The one daily practice that contributes to my success is being authentic, being mindful, and being of service to people. My job is people. You never know where your business is going to come from. That’s the top, people are my business, and then underneath that big umbrella is follow-up. I went to a function and met 30 people. I come home, write down those names and something about them. I want to reach out and send a little note card in the next couple of days saying, “It was so great to see you again.” I mean it authentically.
You can see that grow exponentially in my sphere of influence and with the people that know me. I’m able to remember, “I need a good folk painter for this wall in my investment property. I bet I could call Debbie.” It’s your connections with people and resources that make me overall successful. Not only financially but emotionally, I’m not burned out. It’s an enjoyable lifestyle. I got past the hustle. I’m in the bliss hustle because I’m connecting with people, and I love to be of service, and it makes it fun. I’m having fun working. Am I working or am I having fun? I don’t know.
It looks like you are having fun.
I’m having fun now.
That’s awesome. Thank you for that. D’Nette, this has been an amazing conversation. Thank you so much for all that you’ve offered in this portion of the show.
Thank you for inviting me to be on your show and connecting with your readers. I hope they find something to help them move forward toward their goals and passions.
Thank you so much. You’ve offered plenty of nuggets that they can take with them. Ladies, we are going to be talking more in EXTRA. We are going to be talking about financial literacy for your children and how to teach them to fish. I don’t know if you know this saying, you probably do, “Teach someone to fish. They can live for a lifetime. Give them a fish. They only have it for a meal.”
We are going to be talking about that in EXTRA. If you are subscribed to EXTRA, stay tuned. We’ve got more. If not, go to RealEstateInvestingForWomenEXTRA.com, and you can sign up there. For those of you that are leaving us, thank you so much for joining D’Nette and I for this portion of the show. I look forward to seeing you next time. Until then, remember that goals without action are dreams. Get out there, take action, and create the life your heart deeply desires.
With a dynamic background anchored in creativity and lifelong learning, D’Nette Wood has established an incredible 20+ year career as a Sotheby’s International Realty agent in the city of Albuquerque. An expert in luxury home sales, income-generating properties, and investments, D’Nette advises a range of clientele from new home buyers to retirees with complex estates.
With a keen eye for strategic decision-making, D’Nette’s background as a loan officer provides her the ability to understand how real estate decisions can impact her client’s long-term goals. She uses this mindset to be a strong consultative ally and offer a long-term view for those looking to buy real estate.
In addition, her family’s four generations in New Mexico have driven her appreciation for the state and developed a connection to the area’s rich history. As a result, D’Nette has participated in many local initiatives, supported non-profit boards, and was appointed to the New Mexico State Investment Council.
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To listen to the EXTRA portion of this show go to RealEstateInvestingForWomenExtra.com
Learn how to create a consistent income stream by only working 5 hours a month the Blissful Investor Way.
Grab my FREE guide at http://www.BlissfulInvestor.com
Moneeka Sawyer is often described as one of the most blissful people you will ever meet. She has been investing in Real Estate for over 20 years, so has been through all the different cycles of the market. Still, she has turned $10,000 into over $5,000,000, working only 5-10 hours per MONTH with very little stress.
While building her multi-million dollar business, she has traveled to over 55 countries, dances every single day, supports causes that are important to her, and spends lots of time with her husband of over 20 years.
She is the international best-selling author of the multiple award-winning books “Choose Bliss: The Power and Practice of Joy and Contentment” and “Real Estate Investing for Women: Expert Conversations to Increase Wealth and Happiness the Blissful Way.”
Moneeka has been featured on stages including Carnegie Hall and Nasdaq, radio, podcasts such as Achieve Your Goals with Hal Elrod, and TV stations including ABC, CBS, FOX, and the CW, impacting over 150 million people.
What is the most common mistake beginners in real estate make? They try to figure things out on their own. Moneeka Sawyer’s guest today is Zack Boothe, the founder of Driving For Dollars Mastery. Zack shares with Moneeka how listening to podcasts and watching YouTube videos won’t give you a clear path as coaching can. Find a mentor you connect with to help you find a path that works for you. It’s only when you have massive belief in what you’re doing that you succeed. Tune in and learn how to find the right mentor for you!
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I am so excited to welcome to the show Zack Boothe. A few years ago, Zack was a window cleaner. You can even find his window cleaning tutorial videos on YouTube with millions of views. However, Zack always dreamt of being a real estate investor. Taking a leap of faith, he walked away from window cleaning. With a handful of years, he was making over $1 million per year from real estate investing. With his successful business, he now spends his time helping others see how simple it is to make money with real estate. Zack is here to share his insider secrets to finding massively discounted properties, regardless of your experience level. Zack, welcome to the show.
Thanks for having me. It’s good to be here.
I’m so glad that you’re able to make it. He told me before, Ladies, that he wasn’t feeling very well. I thought that this conversation was interesting. I didn’t want to put it off. We’re going to go ahead and go for it, Zack. I’m excited to have you here. Tell us a little bit more about your story, like the high-level two-minute version.
I was a window cleaner. It was good. I was providing for my family, but it wasn’t quite enough. It was a struggle. I wanted something different. I wanted to be able to provide a better life for my family. The day my son was born, I couldn’t help but be overwhelmed and stressed about how I was going to pay the medical bills. That pushed me to want to get into real estate investing. I did my first investment deal back in 2012. I bought a rental. It was a pre-foreclosure. My wife and I got dirty and cleaned it up ourselves and rented one side and lived in the other.
We had that experience and got the bug. We wanted to do more deals. We have so many roadblocks after that. Debt to income ratios, getting the loans, being self-employed, especially because I wasn’t making a lot of money as a window cleaner. I found out about real estate wholesaling. I got a mentor and it’s changed my life. Now I’m making six figures a month from this business. I have a team that does it for me. I do it in two different markets. I coach other people to do this, which is my passion and what I love doing. I create content. I have a podcast and YouTube channel around it. I love it. That’s the two-minute version of my journey and where I’m at.
Zack, how much time per week would you say that you spend on your business?
In coaching business, a lot. That’s where I spend all my time. If it’s a workweek and I work all week, 6, 7 days a week, it’s all day every day. As far as the wholesaling and investment business, I maybe spend four hours a week. I’ve been picking up about one property that I’m keeping for myself. I consider that my holding company. I’m spending a couple of hours a week on that business as well, but the wholesaling business that’s generating the majority of my money, I spend very little time at this point.
I look at what I do and people might be like, “That’s not true.” It is true, but where I spend my time is every Monday, I have a team meeting. I sit in on the Monday meeting. On Wednesdays, we do KPI reviews. What is that? I sit down with my two main people in my company, my marketing director and my lead acquisition manager. We sit down and look at our numbers. What our business did and where we’re at? Another thing, I’m going to lunch with a potential financial private money lender. Those are the kinds of things that I do. I meet with high-level people. I interview someone that’s going to be a project manager for a flip or whatever that might be, but I don’t spend much time in the business.
How long did it take you to get to this point where you’re only working about 4 to 6 hours a week?
I quit window cleaning and went full-time into real estate investing at the beginning of 2017. It’s not long. A few years ago, I transitioned out of the day-to-day. It took me about two years to build the company. The first year we did $118,000 in income. The second year, I did shy of $500,000. The next year we did $1.2 million, and that’s what I walked away from the business and put other people in place.
The cool thing is I cut a lot of expenses but also cut revenue and had some hiccups doing that. The next year, we only did $700,000, but my profit margins were better. In May 2021, we’re at $700,000 already. We’re fully expecting to have our best year ever because I increased our ad spend by 25%. We should end 2021 between $1.5 million and $2 million in sales with a 40% profit margin.
Ladies, this is why I’m having this conversation. The conversations that I’m most interested in, and I know so many of you ladies are interested in, is you’re successful, and this is what you’re doing right now, but how did you get here? I only worked 5 to 10 hours a month, and people were like, “Was it always this way?” No, there’s a ramp-up time. When you start your business, what is it that you’re doing to make that happen? For me, I’ve always worked those hours, but my business was a side hustle. I wasn’t paying attention to it.
I’ll admit openly that I probably would have reached wealth much faster if I had paid more attention. I loved this conversation with other successful real estate entrepreneurs to find out what the ramp-up looks like and where they’re at. That’s why I wanted to ask these questions, Zack. One of the pieces that I wanted to ask you is, in the first three years, how much time do you feel like you were spending in that business? Was it part-time, partial time, more than part-time? What did that look like?
It’s overtime hours. I still work more hours than most people, but I believe that this life is not made for sipping piña coladas on a beach. I believe that we find fulfillment in life by challenging ourselves and growing. Once I started finding success in real estate, I happened upon coaching. It wasn’t even planned. I started finding fulfillment helping other people find success. My mentor said something that stuck with me. He said, “When you win in the game of money, there’s no joy in running up the score.”
We find fulfillment in life by challenging ourselves and growing. Share on XPeople say all the time, as wealthy people, even though, “Money’s not important.” Someone hears that, and they go, “Yeah, because you already have money,” but they’re both right. There’s a certain amount of money that is very important. You’ve got to provide for your family. You’ve got to eat. There is a certain level of money once you hit that. More doesn’t equal that same level of comfort and peace. I started having a massive amount of financial success after hustling for two years, and I wanted something different.
I’m going off on a tangent here to answer your question. I worked very hard in my wholesaling business in those first two years. I walked away from my window cleaning business. I had two months until I was not going to be able to pay the mortgage. I hadn’t done a wholesale deal. I hired a mentor and I was going to do it. I know it’s a little crazy for most people. I had to put my coaching fees on a credit card. A lot of my marketing is on a credit card. I was going to make it happen.
I was working until 10:00, 11:00 every single night, seven days a week, until I did my first deal. I did my first deal. It was $10,000 and it was amazing. My biggest deal that first eight months was $30,000. That was the $100,000 that I made in that first year, the first eight months of wholesaling. I kept working my butt off. My mentor also said something that stuck with me. He said, “Hustle is a season, not a way of life.”
I feel like I hustled to work hard, but then it got to the point where I started working a little more strategically to build out the team. To get to that level of success, you have to start somewhere. Where do you start? Your goal is to get your first deal, your second deal, and then your third deal. It evolves from there. Don’t overcomplicate it. Don’t look at someone that’s had levels of success and has a team and says, “I only work five hours a week.” I was like, “How’s that possible?” They work their butts off in the beginning.
You and I have a little bit of a different point of view, but I love that each of us has how we define bliss and then that’s what we work for in our life. That’s what gives us fulfillment. Could you tell us the mistake that you see beginners make in real estate investing, the biggest mistake, the most common one?
The biggest mistake that people make is they try and figure it out on their own. They listened to a podcast. They watch a YouTube video and then they watch another podcast. They take some action steps, but it’s unorganized. It’s not clear. They don’t know exactly if it’s going to work. When they’re doing those action steps, they’re not super confident in them. One of the guys that I follow that I love, Tony Robbins. He talks about the cycle of success that people have.
To be able to tap into our full potential as people, we have to have a massive belief in whatever we’re doing. If we start wanting to do a wholesale deal and we watch a YouTube video and be like, “They said to go buy a list from PropStream and to send postcards. I’m going to try that.” You go do it. You’re not sure if it’s going to work. You’re not going to give a massive amount of effort. For example, you’re not going to drop $7,000 on postcards. You don’t have a massive belief.
If you know for a fact that if you spent $5,000 to $7,000 on postcards, you’re going to make $30,000. Would you do it? Yes, because you have a massive belief in it. What happens is if you have a belief, you’ll give massive action. If you give massive action, you’ll have massive results. You’re going to build your confidence. If you’re going to do another deal and another deal, and you’re going to grow, do more deals and add more marketing strategies or whatever that might be.
The problem is people don’t go at it with confidence because they’re going at it alone. They’re trying to figure it out from just a podcast. That’s why it was so important to get a mentor. That’s why I got a mentor in the beginning. I would not be successful without my mentor. Tom Krol was my mentor. He doesn’t coach anymore. I love him to death. He changed my life, got me out of window cleaning and into this business.
He’s out of Florida, but he gave me the action steps. There was no confusion of like, “What do I do next? If I do this, will it perform?” He said, “Zack, go do this and this.” I went and did it. I’m like, “Done, now what?” He said, “Do this and this.” I went and did it. I did it in mass. I took very uncomfortable steps, but he told me to do them. I knew that he was successful.
If I did what he did, I’d be successful. That’s how I had success. I feel like that’s the number one issue. People put a toe in instead of jumping in, but the problem is they don’t get a mentor. That’s jumping in. It was like getting a mentor that gives them the step-by-step action steps so they can implement them and do them. I also believe there are bad mentors.
I do, too. Yes, thank you for addressing that.
I’m not going to pay anybody, but I believe getting a mentor that’s going to get you there is very important.
How do you pick a mentor? What would you recommend?
There’s a handful of things that I would suggest. Some people might be hearing this and going, “You’re saying that because you are a mentor,” yes, but I’m not going to coach everyone that wants a coach. Find your mentor, first of all, that you connect with. Someone might have already heard some of the things I said and completely don’t vibe with me. First of all, don’t even think about working with me. Find someone that’s a mentor that you vibe with.
The type of person that you have, and also are living the types of lives, have the same core values, same core beliefs. They’re your port people. They would be your best friend in different circumstances. That’s the first thing I would look at. The second is that they are doing what you’re trying to accomplish. Don’t hire mentors that only teach but don’t do what they say. If you want to get into wholesaling, make sure they also wholesale and coach, not just coach.
Hustle is a season, not a way of life. Share on XThe next thing I would look at is do they have successful students. It’s one thing to say, “Yeah, I know how to do it.” It’s a whole another thing. I promise. Coaching and doing wholesaling are two different things. If that coach hasn’t been able to help lots of people become successful and you can’t talk to those successful students and have those successful students say, “Yes, that person changed my life.” Just like I talked about Tom Krol. If their students aren’t saying those kinds of things, don’t join the program. That would be my advice, those three things.
Thank you for that. I do get a lot of people who call me and they’re like, “Moneeka, you talk about getting a mentor. How should I get a mentor?” That’s great advice. Thank you for that. What would you say is the best strategy for finding deeply discounted properties? That’s what you do?
That’s what all of the real estate investing is. It’s finding discounted properties. I was reading a book called Multi-Family Millions, but it’s talking about doing giant multifamily deals, million-dollar projects. He said something that clicked. This was at the beginning of my real estate journey. He said that, “Real estate investing is marketing. Our product is real estate. If you can’t get that between your two ears, you won’t be in business for long.”
He has a couple of sections in there. We talked about how you find discounted properties. It doesn’t matter if you’re wholesaling or giant properties. Our business is marketing. We have to find discounted properties to do deals on. There’s the cliche saying, “You’ve got to buy low to sell high.” You have to start with a good deal. It doesn’t matter if you want a wholesale, buy and hold, flip, syndications, whatever it might be.
One of the things that I do and everything that I do is branded Driving For Dollars Mastery or DFD Mastery. My website is DrivingForDollarsMastery.com. Driving For Dollars is a strategy that I use to find discounted properties. It’s simple. You drive around neighborhoods and find the ugly properties, the ugly multifamily houses and single-family houses. You add it to a list. You find out who owns it, and then you see if they want to sell. That’s simple.
Obviously, there are things to be more efficient to do on a larger scale and to be able to be very profitable. I truly believe that is the best way to find off-market discounted properties. There are lots of ways, though. There are banded signs, radio, online marketing. There are lots of different things, but I truly believe that is by far the best, most profitable, and fastest way to deals.
Zack, where are you located?
I’m in Utah.
It’s a hot market there, too. It’s a hot market everywhere.
It is everywhere. I also live in Tampa. I do it in two different markets.
Talk to me a little bit about how you do this in a hot market. I live in San Jose, California. If someone wants to sell, if you send them a letter and you say, “Do you want to sell?” They’re very aware of what their property would be worth if they put it on the market, even if it was as-is. It’s hard in this area to get a discounted property because people can put it on, and bids will come in. Everything’s going for multiple offers. Things are going for several hundred thousand dollars over asking. Finding a discounted property is difficult in my experience. What would you say to that? What do you recommend?
It’s very important to understand that you have to be a deal finder, not necessarily a deal creator. Many people think that you have to be this swindler or dishonest, or shady to get discounted properties because everyone knows or understands that it’s a hot market and they can get a lot. What you need to understand is some people want convenience over the price. For example, we are real estate investors, wholesalers. We’re pawnshops for houses.
That’s the best explanation I can give. For example, if someone takes a piece of jewelry out of their house and they go, “I don’t want this piece of jewelry anymore. I want cash.” They could list it online. Put it on KSL, Craigslist, whatever online resources, eBay, and try and get as much as possible. You could drive down to the corner store and say, “Here’s my ring. Give me cash.” You’re going to make less at the pawnshop, but there’s a convenience factor, pawn shops to make money.
There are only a select few people that want to sell stuff at a pawnshop. There are people that and you might think that doesn’t exist, especially in a hot market. That’s not true at all. It’s not true because I’ve made $700,000 in five months doing this. It works. The funny thing is I have the same conversation with my neighbor, my cousin that calls me and says, “I need to sell my house. Will you buy it?” I say, “You might make more money listing it with an agent. Why don’t you do that?”
“I’m an investor. I can have it done quickly, but I might not be able to be your best offer.” They say, “Yeah, I’m not in a hurry. I’ll probably list it and fix it up myself.” It’s like, “Okay, best of luck. I can’t help you.” They say, “Yeah, I don’t necessarily care about getting out the money. I don’t want to fix it up. I don’t want to deal with an agent. I want to be done.” When they say that, that means it’s a deal. They want a pawnshop for a house. The biggest thing is you put out a net to the ugly houses in your neighborhood and ask them if they want to sell. You have that exact conversation.
Why don’t you listen, it sounds like it’s a decent property? It might need a little work. Why don’t you fix it up and list it? If they tell you, “No, I don’t want to,” then it’s a deal. I’ve captured those conversations. They’re on my YouTube channel. I straight up say, “You will make more money, listing it with an agent. Why don’t you do that?” They say, “I don’t care. I want it gone.” That’s who we’re trying to find. Are there very few people that want to sell their houses for speed and convenience? Yes. That’s why it’s so important to do marketing and to have a strategy to find off-market discounted properties.
Zack, I’ve never heard that analogy. Thank you.
You’re welcome. I stole that from Tom Krol as well. I’m not lying when I say, “Get a mentor. He changed my life.” I’m changing people’s lives by helping them. It’s going to snowball. There are going to be 2 or 3 people that I changed their life. They’re going to change more people’s lives. That’s fulfillment to me. I can go to the grave with all this money. It’s not going to make a difference, but what will make a difference is this content that we leave behind, the YouTube videos, the things that we talk about, the people that we helped. I will always have nothing but love and respect for Tom because of the action steps and the things that he did for me and the things that he gave me. I want to pass that on.
You talk a little bit about having different exit strategies. This is a hot topic for me that I talk about quite a lot. Could you talk a little bit about how you decide on your exit strategies to make the most money when you get a property?
When I first started, everything was wholesaling. I find a deal and a buyer that wanted to buy my contract and close on it. I didn’t have the money. I didn’t have the ability to do anything else. I was broke. I didn’t have debt to income. I didn’t have credit. I didn’t have private money investors. I didn’t have all those relationships I do now. What I do is we put together the deal. I don’t sign any of the contracts anymore, but the deals are presented to me. We’ll blast an email out to all of our cash buyers. We do a full inspection on the property.
Our agent goes to the real estate inspection. Our project manager goes to the inspection and all of our cash buyers. We get all of our cash offers in. We take the highest and best is what we tell our cash buyers. There’s no telling what our offers are and those kinds of things. I just want to get offers in. I don’t want to play the game of, “Tell me where I need to be. People are waiting to give me offers because they want to be last,” all that garbage.
I can assign it and say, “I’m going to sign a deal for $30,000. I can assign it for $30,000, or I can close on it with my cash. Keep it as a rental and refinance myself out or hard money and refinance myself out.” I evaluated it as a rental. I also have my project manager rough give me the numbers and present the Excel spreadsheet where we’ll be if we flipped it.
That’s why I have my agent there. What we could sell it for fixed up, what needs to be done as far as remodeled to get it there. The bids put together for that. I get to choose, “Do I keep it as a rental? Do I flip it? Do I wholesale it? Do I close on it and list it?” I have whatever strategy that I want to approach. During the acquisitions portion, we’re also talking to the seller. See if seller finance is taking over the mortgage is an option or if the cash offer is all they want. Depending on what they get it under contract for, then we’ll evaluate the deal from there.
I usually have three exit strategies, so it’s nice to see that you’ve got four. Ladies, this is an important thing to keep in mind. Zack, in the beginning, had to do it one way. Even me, I started in construction. This is the worst time on the planet to be in construction. Even when I got in, I had three exit strategies planned out. It wasn’t like I have to build this thing and sell it, or I’m going to die or go bankrupt or lose everything.
Even in the beginning, for me, if I get stuck with something, I know what I’m going to do with that. When you’re starting, even if it’s a wholesale thing, you had to make money. If you did end up getting stuck with a property, you would have a strategy to get out of that. Think through when you’re putting together your strategies, what could plan B be if things go bad? Wouldn’t you agree with me on that?
Find the mentor you connect with. Share on XYes. I also believe that’s the power of wholesaling. Why wholesaling is so amazing is there no risk. There is no getting stuck with the deal. That’s why I started with wholesaling because I saw it as a way to build a rental portfolio. I saw it as a way to build well because not only could I start my marketing and start finding off-market discounted deals there, step one, write good deals, but then I could get cash for them and not have to take any risk. As I built up more cash, then I can take that cash and maybe flip one and make a little bit more on the deal than just assigning it. The thing is, my average assignment deal in Utah is $30,000. In Florida, that’s $18,000 a deal. My profit margins are 40%.
That’s a lot of money. It’s a chunk of change. Eventually, getting into holding properties or flipping and taking those risks and having those other strategies is great. There’s nothing wrong with starting off at first with having wholesaling because if you do it right, we’ll have it under contract. In your contract, you’ll have a timeframe to inspect the property and to try and find a buyer for your purchase contract. If you can’t find a buyer within that time, you can cancel that agreement. You don’t put properties under contract. You don’t think that you can find a buyer for it. That’s the beauty of wholesaling. It’s a great place to start, and it’s way less risk-taking debt to flip a house.
Thank you for all that. Zack, tell everybody how they can reach you.
The best place to find me is my website, it’s DFDMastery.com. DFD stands for Driving For Dollars.
I know you don’t have a specific gift for people. I know that you’ve got a lot of content that you wanted to share with my audience. Tell us a little bit more about that.
I worked hard to help and to give back the content I create. I went down to Florida and the goal was to take $1,000 in a whole new market and turn it into $40,000 in 40 days. I opened up Florida. I’ve said, “I do deals in Florida. This is how it all started.” I flew to Florida. I had 40 days to make $40,000. I documented it all and had a film crew there and shared it for free on my YouTube channel. You guys can go see what it takes to get started in wholesaling with a very small budget and to see what kind of work that includes. You see the ups and downs.
I share the deals that fall apart. I share the frustrations, the exhaustion because it’s every day I share an episode. You get to see the entire process. It’s totally worth watching. We ended up with seven contracts. Two of them fell apart. We closed on the other five. Two of them, I kept as rentals with $100,000 in equity in both of them. Three of them, I ended up wholesaling. I sold the purchase contract. We made $93,000 on those three deals. Since I did everything myself, that’s pretty much all profits. It was a chunk of change. I don’t know very many people that could make $100,000 in a month. It’s not because they’re not smart enough or don’t have the work ethic.
They don’t know how. The whole point of that challenge is not to show off or anything, but it’s to show you guys that you guys can do it. I don’t feel like I’m anything special. I was a window cleaner. I didn’t go to college. I didn’t come from money. I had a good work ethic. You should see my spelling, it’s bad. I’m saying that I did that whole challenge to encourage you guys and to show you what’s possible. I don’t want to sugarcoat any of it, it’s hard. It’s a lot of hard work. The process is simple, but it’s not easy. That was the whole point of the challenge to show what it took to be a wholesaler and how to get started and what that initial hustle looks like.
Zack, that’s so generous that you did that. How do people find it on YouTube? What should they be looking for?
If you go to YouTube and search DFD Mastery. My YouTube channel is DFD Mastery. Everything I have is branded DFD Mastery, which stands for Driving For Dollars Mastery. You can find my YouTube channel. There’s a ton of awesome content in there. I’ve been producing three videos a week. We’re going to bump it up to four episodes a week. It’s a lot.
Ladies, go check that out. Thank you for that. Are you ready for the three Rapid-fire questions? Tell us one super tip on getting started investing in real estate.
Get a mentor, find a mentor.
What’s the strategy for being successful in real estate investing?
I believe that the most important thing is getting good at finding off-market discounted properties. If you can get good solid leads of people that want to pawnshop for their house, you will be successful. I believe that is a portion of investing, in general, is good deals.
What is one daily practice that you do that you would say contributes to your personal success?
I have a giant list of tasks. There is never a day that I don’t have a list that I can’t get to. I have a big list and what I do is I pick what’s going to move the needle towards my goals the most. I have a very clear direction, a 3-year goal, 1-year goal, and a 1-month goal outlined at all times. When I’m looking at my tasks and everything that I have to do, I pick what it is that I do it. Most people do the opposite. They do what sounds comfortable, like checking their emails. They skip the uncomfortable stuff, like cold calling to get a lead. I’ll even archive my entire email because I got 50 emails and it annoys me. I archive it all. I’m like, “If it’s important, they’ll call me.”
I get 3,000 emails a day. It’s funny.
My team will call me like, “Did you get my email?” I was like, “You know me. No.”
“Do you want to talk, give me a call?” I’m not that person, but that’s an interesting way to handle that.
I believe that’s a huge thing that I do is attack and it’s usually always the uncomfortable things. I believe what’s going to move the needle is what makes us uncomfortable. That’s why most people don’t ever move the needle in their lives is they’re like, “This is my giant task.” They’re like, “I’m working hard,” and it’s like, “Are you?” You’re not because you’re busy, but you’re not working on the right things. You know you’re not. You’re lying to yourself to make yourself feel proud of yourself when you know you’re not working on those hard things.
There is a difference between busy work and productivity, very definitively. Thank you for that. This has been amazing. I’m so excited. Thank you for all you’ve shared on this portion of the show, Zack.
You’re welcome. Thanks for having me. It’s fun.
You change people's lives by helping them. Share on XLadies, thank you for joining Zack and me for this portion of the show. If you are subscribed to EXTRA, we do have stuff for EXTRA, but I have to clear something with Zack first. I have a special topic I want to talk to him about, but I need a yes from him. I’m going to tease you guys this time and not tell you what we’re talking about, but do take a look at RealEstateInvestingForWomenExtra.com. You get your first seven days for free. Check it out.
For those of you that are leaving us now, thank you so much for joining Zack and me for this portion of the show. I love having you here. I look forward to seeing you next time and until then, remember, goals without action are just dreams. Get out there, take action, and create the life your heart deeply desires. I’ll see you soon. Bye.
Man, I remember what it was like when I first got started in real estate. I’d wake up every morning full of confidence and courage, ready to attack the day. I had a focused plan and I knew exactly how to find smoking hot real estate deals, and quickly turn those deals for huge profits.
Quite the opposite. In fact my reality was fear, doubt, overwhelm, and frustration. I worked my butt off but I was drowning in bad advice from gurus, and strategies that either didn’t work or just weren’t congruent with who I am.
Five years later and I’ve done over 300 real estate deals and have generated millions. Over the years I’ve made a lot of mistakes and have learned a lot of lessons (sometimes the hard way), and I’ve built a dream real estate business…and I’d love to show you how you can too.
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Moneeka Sawyer is often described as one of the most blissful people you will ever meet. She has been investing in Real Estate for over 20 years, so has been through all the different cycles of the market. Still, she has turned $10,000 into over $5,000,000, working only 5-10 hours per MONTH with very little stress.
While building her multi-million dollar business, she has traveled to over 55 countries, dances every single day, supports causes that are important to her, and spends lots of time with her husband of over 20 years.
She is the international best-selling author of the multiple award-winning books “Choose Bliss: The Power and Practice of Joy and Contentment” and “Real Estate Investing for Women: Expert Conversations to Increase Wealth and Happiness the Blissful Way.”
Moneeka has been featured on stages including Carnegie Hall and Nasdaq, radio, podcasts such as Achieve Your Goals with Hal Elrod, and TV stations including ABC, CBS, FOX, and the CW, impacting over 150 million people.