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REW 53 | Real Estate Investment Trust

Getting The Benefits Of Real Estate Without Being A Landlord With Matt Argersinger – Real Estate for Women

REW 53 | Real Estate Investment Trust

 

You can invest in real estate without being a landlord through real estate investment trusts (REITs). Today’s guest is Matt Argersinger, who joined the Motley Fool in 2008 as part of its analyst development program. In this episode, Matt discusses with Moneeka Sawyer why investing in real estate is much safer than investing in the stock market and why you don’t need to be a billionaire to start investing in real estate through REITs. It offers you the option of investing with as little as a hundred dollars! If you’re an income-seeking investor, you may want to know that REITs have a high dividend yield because it pays out 90% of the profits to investors in dividends. Excited to learn more? Join in the conversation and find out how you can start investing in REITs today!

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Listen to the podcast here

 

Getting The Benefits Of Real Estate Without Being A Landlord With Matt Argersinger – Real Estate for Women

Real Estate Investing For Women

I am excited to welcome to the show, Matt Argersinger. He is the Lead Advisor of Mogul. He joined The Motley Fool in 2008 as part of the company’s Analyst Development Program. He’s worked on numerous full-investing services including Stock Advisor, Rule Breakers, Million-Dollar Portfolio and Supernova. He helped establish The Motley Fool Germany and also appears regularly on The Motley Fool Podcasts including Market Foolery and Motley Fool Money. In addition to stocks, Matt and his wife, Jean, own and manage a few income properties in Washington DC and have an interest in several commercial real estate developments.

He’s excited to use that experience and his full-investing knowledge to help Mogul and Millionacres members find the best real estate opportunities. Matt earned a degree in Economics from Brandeis University. He lives in Washington DC with Jean and his beloved King Charles Spaniel, Daisy, who we’ve heard about before. Other than hunting for investing ideas, Matt enjoys traveling, skiing, mountain climbing and board games that take at least four hours to complete. Welcome to the show, Matt.

Thank you so much for having me, Moneeka. I’m happy to be here.

Ladies, you met Deidre Woollard with The Motley Fool. She was with Mogul. Is that true, Matt?

Yes, she’s with Mogul. She’s the editor at large for Millionacres.

You heard about the amazing thing that happened. It wasn’t amazing for them. It was amazing for me. I got rated in their top ten podcasts to listen to for real estate. I did a happy dance because I’ve had this long relationship with The Motley Fool since 1994 when their very first book came out. You guys started me on my journey in investing. That’s what started the whole path to the building wealth paradigm that my husband and I have followed. You’ve been a big part of my life. For you guys to reach out to me was like God reaching out down his hands saying, “You have won. You are awesome.” That sounds weird. I don’t know how to express it. Anyway, I’m excited to be talking to you, Matt. This is fun. I want to talk about you in a second, but I want to talk about the difference between what Deidre talked about and what you’re going to be talking about.

With Deidre, she spoke about our mobile service, which is a real estate service design for accredited investors. It’s looking for deals in the private market, oftentimes, deals where you need a substantial amount of capital to get started. What I’m excited to announce is that we launched a new service called Real Estate Winners, which is designed for more beginning investors or investors looking to gain a bigger exposure to real estate within their stock portfolio. It’s a service where you can get started quickly for hundreds of dollars or thousands of dollars, no matter how much you want to invest. All you need is a brokerage account and you can get started. It’s our way of reaching out and trying to broaden the number of people who can invest successfully in real estate. Overall, what we’re trying to do with Millionacres is to help people get happier, richer and smarter through real estate investing. Deidre probably said that many times. I’m going to say it a lot too. It’s our guiding light.

Each company has their mission. You want to make sure that everybody is consistent with that mission. Give us a high level of your story of how you got to where you are now working with Real Estate Winners.

I started with The Motley Fool in 2008. I’ve worked mostly on our stock investing services at The Motley Fool. I loved it. I had a great time. I worked closely with David Gardner, one of the Founders of The Motley Fool. Over that same time when I was doing that, my wife and I were investing in real estate. We bought our first property in 2009 in Washington DC. It was a house we lived in but it also had an income property attached to it. I love telling the story because one day we bought the house. We were figuring out how to rent the property, the income apartment. My wife read this article. It was the New York Times at the time and said, “There’s this new company called Air Bed and Breakfast. They’re expanding.” Now we know that as Airbnb.

At that point, there were three Airbnb listings in all of Washington DC. We thought, “This is interesting. Let’s try renting this income property through Airbnb. People like to come to DC for short periods of time. Let’s try it.” That was successful. We listed it on Airbnb. Within a week, we were booked for six months. It was amazing. That was the catalyst for us to invest in more properties and follow that same short-term rental approach. We did that several times. Now we own several income properties in DC.

Eventually, we also were able to invest in some commercial properties. For example, a self-storage facility out in Colorado and a big apartment building that’s being developed in DC. We expanded. As I’m working at The Motley Fool, I’ve got this sidetrack of real estate investing going on with myself and my wife. A few years ago, I sat down with a few colleagues at The Motley Fool and said, “Real estate is this big asset class. It’s three times the size of the stock market.” If you add in single-family homes and commercial real estate, it’s three times the size of the stock market. It’s a huge asset class.

Through crowdfunding or real estate investment trusts, there are so many ways to get involved in real estate investing. Click To Tweet

It’s not as volatile.

That’s right. It has all these great things. I met with some colleagues and said, “Let’s try to do something with real estate investing at The Motley Fool. We’ve been so focused on stocks. We got real estate out here. A lot of investors want to know how to invest in real estate.” That was the genesis of Millionacres. We launched the site a couple of years ago. We’ve been building new product since and trying to get more people to invest in real estate.

Thank you for that. I’m glad you guys did move into that asset class because it is huge. Deidre talked a little bit about when you look at the dynamics of how many women are investing in real estate as opposed to men, the percentages are low. There’s a huge asset class and huge opportunities on many different levels and women aren’t getting in. I’m proud to say that because of my show and several other leaders in the industry that are now women, we’re seeing a lot more women flooding in. I love it but still, we are the minority investors in real estate. I want to see that expand because of the potential.

The great thing is I feel like real estate now is more accessible than it’s ever been. It was that asset class that not just women but any individual investor who had never done real estate looked at it and said, “How do I get involved in real estate investing? Do I have to save for a down payment for years? If I ever wanted to buy a commercial property, I have to be a millionaire. There’s no way.” The beautiful thing about now is that through crowdfunding or Real Estate Investment Trust, there are many ways to get involved in investing in real estate and getting exposure to this asset class. It has a great track record over time. It’s less than half as volatile as the stock market. If you’re tired of the up-and-down swings in the stock market, real estate is certainly a great option.

I want to point something out. I had this conversation with my dad. He loves stocks and they’ve done phenomenally well. David, my husband, loves stocks and we’ve done phenomenally well. Thank you, Motley Fool. I’m not dissing on the stock market but I will say this. Unless you understand it, the volatility can get you. Let me tell you a little bit about what I mean by that. Let’s say you put in $50,000 in the stock market. It goes up to $100,000 in 3 or 4 years. It doubles, then there’s a huge crash. In 2008 and 2001, there have been some big crashes in the stock market because it was so volatile. It goes down. Let’s say it’s at $25,000. You’ve lost 50%. It feels bad because you lost $75,000. Let’s say it doubles again. Now you’re at $50,000 right where you begin, but it says that it’s doubled.

The volatility is what happens with it. The thing is the difference between the stock market volatility and the real estate market are two big ones. The first one is it’s liquid in the stock market. When that thing crashes and you have this emotional response, what do most people do? “Get me out of here. That was scary.” If the real estate market crashes, you can’t sell usually. You can file for foreclosure, which most people won’t do if they can avoid it. You’re forced to stay in for recovery. Here’s the thing. You don’t take a loss or a win until you sell. There’s forced longevity in real estate. The other thing is leverage. Let’s talk about what happened in 2006, 2007 and 2008. The stock market was going gangbusters. This happened in 2001 too just before the bust of the boom. Do I have those dates right?

Yes. Starting in 2001, the dot-com crash had started.

Before that, what happened was the stock market was going up. People were so excited and they were starting to margin their accounts. When you margin an account, what you do is you take the amount that you have and buy double the stock. You’re at 50% leverage. What happens is if you’re at 50% leverage and the market is going up, you’re making double the money. That’s exciting. What happened in the bust was that those accounts were leveraged and then the stocks dropped. The problem is when the stocks drop, all the brokerage firms need to come up with the money so they call your margin. People ended up owing hundreds of thousands of dollars on a stock they never owned fully. They owned 50%.

That’s what the problem was with the stock market. It’s not that you couldn’t hold on to good stocks. It was a lot of people were margined so they got called on that. The other thing was the freak out of, “Even though it was a good company, look at the way the stock market tanked.” Let’s compare that with what happens in real estate. In real estate, we put 20% down and we’re margined to 100%. We’re margined 4 or 5 times. What is that, Matt? Is that 4 or 5 times?

It’s 4 or 5 to 1. Usually, you keep 5% down.

If the value of the home drops, you don’t ever get called on that margin. You keep making payments. You get to hold on to that property. You get to watch it recover if you stay in. When we talk about the volatility of the stock market versus the real estate market, there are a lot of things involved in that. There are a lot of reasons that real estate is a much safer investment. I’m not dissing on the stock. We do a lot of it. We don’t margin on the stock. There are some things that we do to keep ourselves safe. Ladies, I just wanted to give you perspective because it was top of mind. My husband and I were talking about this. When you’re investing in real estate, that’s what happens. If you go with Millionacres and they’re talking about REITs and stuff like that, understand that you’re investing and somebody else who’s making those same decisions. How that works relative to volatility is still relevant.

REW 53 | Real Estate Investment Trust

Real Estate Investment Trust: Real estate is a big asset class; it’s actually three times the size of the stock market.

 

Your points are so spot on. We did a study once that looked at America’s billionaires. It turns out that none of us is a billionaire. Maybe some of your readers are billionaires. If you looked at the billionaire families that have sustained their wealth for decades, almost all of them are in real estate. They were never forced to sell and panic emotionally. They couldn’t offload their properties. They invested in properties. Oftentimes, they’d roll them over, put 1031 and save on taxes so you save on capital gains They kept rolling into real estate and holding on. That’s such a key point. If we talk about REITs for a moment, REITs are like stocks. They are traded in the public market. A lot of people will think, “What’s the difference between a REIT and a stock? It’s probably just as volatile.” They’re not.

If you look at the historical performance of Real Estate Investment Trust and the data that goes back over 50 years. Not only have they outperformed the stock market, but they’ve also done about 50% of the volatility of the average stock. You’re investing in a REIT. Most of the time, you’re getting a nice dividend out of that so you’re getting income. The stock doesn’t move nearly as sharply as your typical stock. It’s a lot easier to hold on. You’re building wealth over time and you’re getting income. I love that part of the stock market because it gives you exposure to dozens or hundreds of real estate properties. If you’re investing in a retail REIT, you’re getting exposure to hundreds of retail properties. If you invest in a multifamily REIT, you’re getting exposure to hundreds if not tens of thousands of apartment units around the country.

There are going to be downdrafts in certain markets or there’s going to be volatility in the overall market. Over time, that should build wealth. The volatility is so much less that you can sustain your investment in that and not get panicked out of it. It’s a great option for any investor. We know on the Millionacres side, a lot of people were thinking about retirement. They look at REITs as a way to generate a nice, steady income in a lower volatility part of the market. That’s one of the benefits of real estate investing.

Let’s define what a REIT is and how it works.

REIT stands for Real Estate Investment Trust. They were formed by Congress in the 1960s as a way for the average individual investor to buy into a pool of real estate. Nowadays, there are hundreds of REITs. They’re all structured so that they don’t pay taxes at the federal level. In order to qualify for that, they have to pay out 90% of their after-tax income in dividends. That’s why your typical REIT has a pretty high dividend yield. That’s because 90% of the profits from its real estate operations pay out to investors in dividends. It’s a great option for an income-seeking investor. Over time, the REIT category has grown. Now, it includes things like data centers, for example. There are data center REITs.

If you ever drive on a highway, you’ll often see a big tower that looks like it has dishes or rays on it. Those are often cellular towers. There are several REITs that only invest in cellular towers, wireless towers. As we roll out 5G and we use more data on our phones, those towers are being used. You can invest in those in Real Estate Investment Trusts. It’s expanding. There are self-storage REITs that only invest in self-storage facilities. There are all kinds of ways to get exposed to real estate. REITs are a very efficient and profitable way to do that.

The historical track record is so great. In fact, Moneeka, we look at this all the time. If you look at the last twenty years since 2000, the average REIT has returned twice the return of the S&P 500. It was remarkable. If you think about that, we had this massive financial crash in 2007, 2008, which a lot of us think was real-estate driven. It was to a certain extent but even through that, REITs have outperformed the stock market and with lower volatility. I’m biased but if you ask me where do I invest most of my money when it comes to the stock market, I tend to do it with REITs.

Give us some real and clear comparisons between investing in a REIT versus other real estate investing opportunities.

If I’m starting out as an investor and I’m thinking about where am I going to invest and I wanted to get exposure to real estate, I could invest in a rental property. That often takes a big down payment. Generally, your mortgage options on a rental property are not going to be as good as they are if you’re buying a primary home. That can be a big burden to take on. The commercial side of real estate is very big. You have to approach it with millions of dollars and it’s very expensive to get into. REITs offer you the option of investing as little as $100 or $1,000. All you need is a brokerage account. Instantly, you buy a basket of REITs and you got exposure to hundreds of real estate properties around the country.

It is probably the cheapest and most efficient way to get exposure. You can also invest in real estate stocks. Let’s think about Zillow, for example. Everyone knows Zillow. They’re publicly traded and you can say to yourself, “I can invest in Zillow. That’s a real estate company that’s publicly traded.” With that, you’re investing in a stock. Hopefully, you understand how Zillow’s business works. You’re going to face some serious volatility by doing that. I buy a REIT instead. A REIT that I’m familiar with is Mid-America Apartment Communities, which they’re the biggest apartment owner in the country. They own most of the apartment buildings in the Southeast and Southwest parts of the United States where a lot of people are moving these days. They’re a good performer over time and consistent. They pay a nice 3% dividend. That to me seems like a great way to play the real estate market rather than the high-flying or other expensive alternatives in the market.

You brought up a good point about one that you were interested in. How do we decide what kind of REITs to get into? With stocks, we all know there are a lot of different resources to get information. How do you do that with REITs?

By investing in REITs, you don’t have to be a hands-on landlord. All you need to do is sit home and collect a dividend check. Click To Tweet

There are a lot of ways. When I am learning about a REIT, I find what I’m interested in. Go to the company’s webpage. We’ll use the example I had, Mid-America Apartment Communities. You can Google Mid-America Apartment Communities Investor Relations. That’ll take you to their website where they have presentations. They’ve got press releases and filings. You can get to know the company a little bit, the history of the company and how many properties they own around the country. One of my favorite things and it’s easy to do is if you look at the long-term track record of the stock. The ticker for Mid-America is MAA. Look at how they performed over time. If you look at MAA, over the last twenty years, they’ve delivered a great return to investors. They’ve had the same leadership in place the entire time.

You can have confidence, “I’m getting a great return from this REIT. I know I have a management team there that’s been in place for over twenty years.” They’ve been through many economic cycles and yet the stock continues to outperform. It’s a good bet that Mid-America is probably going to continue to perform well in the future. My tip is always if you find a REIT that you’re interested in learning more about, go to the website, learn more about the REIT. See how that’s done over time for investors. If you have a REIT that’s been around for at least ten years and it’s performed well, it’s a good bet that REIT is going to continue to perform well for investors. Especially if you see it has raised its dividend over time, that’s another good indicator that it’s a well-managed REIT that’s raising the amount it’s paying to investors over time. You can use it as an opportunity to earn income and grow as the stock grows.

The other thing that happens is with the stock market, we’re hearing about stock all the time. It’s culturally something that people find interesting to talk about. You might say, “I’ve heard about this company called Google and they spun off ABC. I want to check that out or this weird company called Amazon.” You hear about this culturally out there in the world but we don’t hear about REIT. Where can we go to even start? I might be interested in a REIT to do research on, but how do I even find out what I should be looking at especially if there are thousands out there? It can be confusing.

One place to start, it’s a little boring but if you look up the National Association of REITs, Nareit, they have a website. It’s not the greatest website in the world but they have a lot of information about REITs on that website. You can go check it out. There’s a lot of great information. If you want to find out some great investment ideas in the REIT space, go to Millionacres.com. That’s our free website. We have dozens of articles we’re publishing every day, at least a few each day on REITs. We have several writers who focus full-time on finding great REIT ideas and stuff in a marketplace. They’re writing articles every day and putting reports out there.

The URL to go to would be Blissfulinvestor.com/millionacres.

Start there. Nareit is a great service out there. The links you put out for Millionacres, use that as well because I think you’ll find some great timely articles on REITs if you’re looking for ideas.

When you sent me the information, it says, “Real Estate Winners’ advisors identify a select group of real estate investments and REITs that are at the heart of some of the biggest demographic and technological trends shaping society today to generated returns of 15%, 18% and even 21% annually.” Could you talk a little bit about that?

If we think about real estate, it can seem quite boring. It’s rental properties, office buildings, retail, hospitality, hotels. Some interesting parts of the real estate market are seeing tremendous change. We’ve already talked about data centers and cell towers, for example. When we think about data usage and cloud computing, there’s real estate infrastructure behind those big trends that you can invest in. Industrial is an interesting one. When the average person thinks about industrial, they think of a factory, manufacturing plant or something like that.

In real estate, there are also some interesting facets of industrial if you think about warehouse space or logistics centers. Think about how much time people are spending at home and ordering online these days. There’s real estate out there that’s benefiting from that trend. The returns you threw out. We’ve identified companies with our Real Estate Winners service that we think are benefiting from these trends. We do our projections of those returns that we think investors can get with the dividend. Those are some of the returns we’re finding.

Real estate isn’t boring if you’re earning 15%, 18% or over 20%. That’s possible out there. You have to do your due diligence, get to know the company and the management a little bit, see how they’ve done over time, and if there are some tailwinds behind it. One of the reasons I like Mid-America and keep coming back to that name is because if you think about the country at large, there’s this big Sun Belt migration going on. A lot of people are moving to places like Florida, Texas, Arizona, away from the traditional Northeast or Coastal cities. I’m looking for companies that own a lot of real estate in these places where people are moving to. I like to say, “Real estate follows people. It follows capital.”

As people move to these places and income flows to these places, real estate is going to follow. A lot of these places are underserved in terms of how many apartments they have available or other types of properties. There are some big trends out there in real estate. In 2020, we accelerated a lot of them and we’re going to see those play out in 2021 and beyond. What we’re doing in Real Estate Winners is trying to identify those trends and put money behind them.

REW 53 | Real Estate Investment Trust

Real Estate Investment Trust: If you’re investing in REIT, you’re going to get exposure to hundreds of retail properties.

 

We’re going to be talking about that, ladies, more on EXTRA. He’s going to talk a little more in detail about those trends, where they’re going to be looking, and where we should probably look in 2021 to take advantage of the trends that already have some momentum. I’m excited to talk about that in EXTRA. Talk a little bit about the premium subscription service. There are Mogul and Real Estate Winners. You have a few different things. You started by talking about that. I want more information. I want to know all about it.

Under the Millionacres umbrella, we’ve got a service called Mogul. That was the first service we’ve launched. That is what we think about as our go-anywhere real estate service. We’re looking at REITs like we talked about. We’re looking at the stock market, but we’re also looking at private opportunities. There’s this whole world of crowdfunding now. Some of your readers might have heard of Fundrise, CrowdStreet or maybe some of the other big platforms out there. These platforms are coming out with private real estate deals all the time. We wanted to develop a service that would help investors navigate these platforms and figure out what the best deals are among those platforms. With those deals, you often have to be an accredited investor. You have to come to the table with a pretty high income or net worth.

It can be pretty prohibitive. That was one of the reasons why, in addition to Mogul, we launched Real Estate Winners. Real Estate Winners is geared toward the person who’s either new to investing, maybe new to the stock market or new to REITs, or wants more real estate exposure to their portfolio and wants to do it in a very cheap and cost-effective way. That’s the beauty of what we talked about as well. You don’t have to be that weekend landlord that my wife and I spent a lot of time at. With a small amount of money, you could get exposure to some great portfolios of real estate managed by professionals. All you need to do is sit home and collect a dividend check, hopefully. It’s great. That’s what we’re trying to do. Those are our two big services behind Millionacres.

Deidre talked a lot about Mogul and that was more of the crowdfunding piece. With Real Estate Winners, which is what your focus is, that’s more of this beginner investor, which is more for REITs and that sort of thing. Ladies, I want to tell you a little bit more about how to find out more about Millionacres. You know that I’m a huge fan. You can go to BlissfulInvestor.com/millionacres. There is a free gift there waiting for you. It’s the Ten Best Real Estate Investments. Go check it out at that website. Get your free gift and start studying. For me, when I talk about blissful investing, you know that a lot of it has to do with low stress and low-time commitment. That’s what bliss feels like. Everybody can define bliss how they want to. From my perspective, it is a hands-off, high-return thing that I focus on so much. This is another one of those ways to accomplish that. Go to that website and download the report. Matt, are you ready for our three rapid-fire questions?

Always. Let’s do it.

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

First and foremost, decide what kind of real estate investor you want to be. Do you want to be someone who’s hands-on, who likes to get their hands dirty, doesn’t mind dealing with tenants face-to-face and getting involved in real property, really challenging? If it has huge rewards, great. If you’re instead on the blissful side, you’re more of a hands-off and you want to identify some nice trends in the real estate market, decide on that. Maybe REITs or other options in the public markets are probably the places to go. That’s the first thing you do. Decide what kind of real estate investor you want to be. After that, you can find the right path to get started.

What is one strategy for being successful in real estate investing?

You touched on it earlier, which is being able to hold on. If we think about the stock market and REITs, we get excited about buying, investing and putting money into work. We get dividend checks. It feels great. What happens when volatility or the inevitable downturn comes? Being able to steel yourself against that and accept the fact that now and then the stock market is going to drop like it did last March 2020. It’s going to drop 20%, 30%. It’s going to drop fast. How you act in those kinds of moments determines how much wealth you’re going to be able to accumulate over time. If you can hold through, even take advantage of some of those downturns, you’re going to come out great. If you’re someone who can’t, panics and sells at those moments, you’re going to do some real disservice to your portfolio and returns. Emotion, I don’t know if it’s a skill or what, but it’s the hardest thing to maintain to be an investor. If you’ve got the right emotion and you can steel against those downturns, you’re going to be very successful.

I often say on this show I love Warren Buffett’s quote, “If you can’t control your emotions, you can’t control your money.” That’s what we talk about with Blissful Investing is learning how to manage your emotions so you can handle those challenging times. Even when the market has dropped and you freaked out, that you don’t live in that place. You’re able to bring yourself back to the bliss equilibrium where you can make rational decisions rather than emotional decisions. What would you say is one daily practice that contributes to your success?

Finding time to go for a walk, get fresh air and do a little exercise. My brain is always so full because I’m always thinking about things, reading about companies or working on a project. I’ve got so many things dancing in my head all the time and the idea of being able to shut it all down for a little while and go for a walk. It’s easier these days with the pandemic because here I am at home with my wife. We have a two-year-old son and being able to go spend a little time with him and clear the head, and then come back to work. A lot of us are stressed out even in non-COVID times. The ability to disconnect for a while, get some fresh air, exercise the brain and the body a little bit and come back to work. If you can do that and fit that in for at least 30 minutes a day, it has made a huge difference to me. It will make a huge difference to your readers as well.

This has been awesome. Thank you for all that you’ve offered in this portion of the show, Matt.

Thanks, Moneeka.

Ladies, we’ve got more coming in EXTRA. We’re going to be talking about the potential growth of investment classes that expanded in 2020 and have continuing potential in 2021. If you are not subscribed to EXTRA but would like to be, go to RealEstateInvestingForWomenExtra.com and you get the first seven days for free. You can take a look and see if you love it. If you don’t, no obligation at all. Thank you for joining us. 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 next time. Bye.

 

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REW 52 | Inner Wisdom

An Unclaimed Secret To Investing – Exploring The Power Of Your Body’s Inner Wisdom – With Tarnie Fulloon

REW 52 | Inner Wisdom

 

How do you use the power of your body’s inner wisdom to make wise decisions when investing in real estate? To answer that, Moneeka brings in Tarnie Fulloon, the creator of Body Centered Medicine®. Tarnie’s system is all about listening to your body so you can find your inner wisdom – that feminine energy system that guides you to make wise decisions. Tarnie and Moneeka discuss how ignoring your body’s inner wisdom generates doubt and fear that cripples you. It makes you too afraid to buy a house for yourself, making you think, “Can I do this as a woman?” In this episode, Tarnie gives you tips on how you can find your body’s inner wisdom so you can make bold and wise decisions when investing in real estate. Listen to this episode and unlock your feminine energy!

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Listen to the podcast here

 

An Unclaimed Secret To Investing – Exploring The Power Of Your Body’s Inner Wisdom – With Tarnie Fulloon

Real Estate Investing For Women

I am excited to welcome back to our show, Tarnie Fulloon. Tarnie is the creator of Body Centered Medicine, a somatic healing practice that uncovers the messages the physical body is holding about how you think, what you feel, and who you are. Tarnie’s expertise lies in transforming pain and anxiety at a cellular level by uncovering the inner landscape for answers to body pain and symptoms, anxieties, and stuck places one feels in life. She is a healer, mentor, speaker, TEDx presenter, and budding author. She was also an Australian-trained sports medicine physiotherapist for the Australian Olympics 2020. She enjoys partnering with those committed to their healing on all levels, physically, emotionally, mentally, and spiritually, to empowering them to be grounded in their body, and lead from the inside out

Tarnie is a close friend of mine. We’ve known each other for years. I’ve had her on the show before. Some of you would know what she’s about, but I want to share with you that it’s been years when we met. I was making a transition in my life about what was going to be my next career. I was looking for my sole purpose and feminine leadership inside of me because I had been in such a male-dominated world that my feminine side had been lost in a lot of ways. Tarnie and I worked together. She brought back blissful Moneeka. That’s why I love Tarnie, her work, and I wanted to share her with you. Welcome back to the show.

Thank you, Moneeka. It’s lovely to be with you again.

Can you talk to us about this unclaimed secret, which is our body wisdom and why you think it’s unclaimed?

Thank you for having me on the show again. It’s fabulous to be with you. It’s unclaimed because most of us live in our heads. Most of us try and think things through. I call it body wisdom, but our inner wisdom lives in our body. We’ve been taught how to operate and think things through to feel it and know it’s challenging. We don’t trust that inner feeling. It’s unclaimed because most of us have self-doubt. we’re self-critical, we don’t listen, and we don’t know how to listen. We haven’t got the skills to listen deeply into the body. As you are doing life, it’s like, “I’ve got to think that through, and I’ve got to work that out now. What if I just took time and felt into it?” How you’ve experienced this, what’s in there, and what’s more deeply in it. It’s very much unclaimed for many of us.

Even those of us that have claimed it in the past sometimes, we lose track of it. That’s what had happened to me as I got off the path and needed someone to bring me back. You did that beautifully and strongly. Ladies, whether you feel like you already had that experience and need it to be more powerful or you don’t have that experience, it has such a big impact on how we make decisions in life and keeping things blissful because then you’re not pushing so hard, you’re more with the flow.

You’re staying open to the information that’s coming often. There’s always information coming, but we don’t keep that little inner radar open or we don’t trust it. It comes but we don’t grab it. We’re unaware of it at all. We are busily externalizing or looking out there. We don’t listen inside.

Could you tell us your story, how your journey began, and how it influenced what you’re doing now?

REW 52 | Inner Wisdom

Inner Wisdom: We’re so busy externalizing and looking out there that we don’t listen to what’s inside of us.

 

I’m going to start with what I’m doing now. I created Body Centered Medicine. It’s been an evolution from starting out as a sports medicine physiotherapist, doing my Master’s in Psychology and somatic training. Body Centered Medicine is about listening or developing that relationship with our body so I can listen to it. The body reflects everything that’s going on. There’s always pain, anxiety, financial issues, decisions you have to make, relationship stuff, purpose, and work. It all is present in the body. I’ve been working for many years. I’ve been on this body centered exploration journey for many years, but it came out of my own health journey.

That started when I was a child. I had severe stomach aches and a lot of allergies. One thing led to another, I eventually ended up in my twenties in a doctor’s office, not excessively overweight but in a foggy brain and not feeling good. The work I did with starting to clean up my diet at that stage. That was the first step and then starting to explore. That started cleaning up and then I started to get much more interested in the physical body was reflecting.

People were starting to share with me emotional issues or deeper issues. I thought, “There’s something here,” so I then went on to do my Psychology training. It was my exploration of myself first, then starting to notice what was happening with my clients, and then took me to where I am. I’m deeply committed to people finding that in wisdom soul voice which is related to what you brought up, the feminine energy system that we want to activate. Most people that live in our heads don’t have access to that.

I know that you and your husband are successful real estate investors yourselves. I know that you do tap into your inner wisdom for that. Talk a little bit about how you utilize that. If you don’t utilize that or if you haven’t in the past or making investments, what might those consequences have been, give us a picture of what that looks like for your investing.

Don't beat yourself up. Be very kind to yourself. Click To Tweet

It was in 2009 or 2008 when the market was depressed, my husband was looking at what real estate was doing. He was aware of it and was very interested. He was looking, it went months, and he was talking about it. One day, I got this feeling. I said, “Why did I come with you and start looking at these properties?” I live in Los Angeles and this was outside of LA. “Why don’t I come with you?” I did. He was talking about everything. There was a house that he wanted to pay $40,000.

The bank said no. They’re offering it at $42,000. The house is now worth $300,000. We didn’t buy that house because he was looking at flipping. I went, “What happens if we buy rental properties?” At that moment, there’s something that came into my thought. I was like, “What if we buy rental properties?” It shifted. We bought six properties quickly because we turned it around. We didn’t have to have a lot of money then. Things were like $80,000. You didn’t have to put a lot down. It was 5 or 6.

We sold one property and we ended up buying three more. One day, I went, “This isn’t feeling right for the direction we’re going where we’re looking. It feels like we’re investing too much. We’re going to be out of pocket.” He started expanding his look. We ended up in Atlanta. We did take a plane flight in November 2020. We quickly flew over there. My intuition was like, “Let’s go there, have a look, and see what we’ve got.” We bought three houses. That’s from following this inner radar. He can do the math. He’s good at working out the logistics, which is not me, but it’s my intuition, and he uses me.

I go into an area, I feel into the area, and get a sense of what it’s like. We bought one house while we were there, but we looked around the area, then we had to come home. We have to buy the other two online. That’s because I’d already felt out the area where I didn’t trust myself. I have to be very kind to myself to not beat myself up about this. My father died when I was young. I was twenty and he left me some money. I invested in real estate in Australia. I bought a house. At that time, it was $300,000. It was expensive but we had a little bit of cash.

Most of our friends didn’t have that cash because we were all young and newly married, but I did. We were 28 when we bought that house and then I got divorced. Instead of buying him out, we sold the house. Now I know I could have taken a loan and bought him out. The $300,000 is now worth $4.5 million. The same old house when we bought the one we were living in, we could have kept it and rented out. We didn’t know. We were thinking. We were following that very logical simple, sell one house, buy the next. We didn’t know about the possibility that you could expand your other options.

What’s true is that all of us make the best decisions that we can with the information that we have. What you’re trying to say here or what I’m getting is we have knowledge. We’re limited by that knowledge unless we have other friends in this industry, doing what we are doing, or wanting to do. We don’t get the advice that might help us to expand. I do think that even if you don’t have the knowledge, if you keep yourself open, in the flow, and connected to your feminine wisdom, you also become very attractive to resources. The conversations may have come to you in those times or not. Maybe that was the best thing for you and the universe was taking care of you.

We don’t know but it’s possible that if you were a little bit more open, a little bit more connected to your feminine, or trusted it. I’m speaking for myself too because I’ve made similar mistakes. I know that knowledge is one thing, but being open to the flow and to the attraction of the resources is also a big part of success. Women have so much more access to that than men because we’re naturally the yin, which is naturally an attractor. When we look at the yin and the yang, the yang is the hunter, and the yin is the attractor. If we allow ourselves to be our natural default selves and we listen, we are the attractor, and things flow and come to us.

When I feel into what you’re saying, I realized I was in a lot of fear. I was getting a divorce, but the fear sits on. That dampens it. The fear of, “Can I do this?” The self-doubt, “I’m not sure.” I realized my fear, “I can’t do that.” I also was going to buy a house myself once I got divorced. I was too afraid to buy a house for myself. It would have been $200,000 or $300,000. Those houses are now $1 million, $2 million, and $3 million. It’s not far from here. Fear stopped me as well. Can I do it as a woman? Am I confident enough?

There’s a love that dampens that feminine natural flow. Much of it is what a picture that society has painted for us that we buy into. For years, things are opening up dramatically, but even now, if you look at the numbers for investing in real estate or investing in general, women are only about 30% to 40% of the investors. Still, many more men invest. It’s because of societal support around that. Not just in our network but also what we talk about. What’s considered interesting. I remember I was having a conversation with a cousin of mine. She and her husband want to buy a house.

They didn’t have a good down payment. We were talking about options and here mom was with us. She says, “Could we talk about something interesting, please?” I have to generalize it but I was horrified like, “Your daughter wants to do something wonderful for herself and her family and that’s not interesting to you.” Some of it is not knowing, not feeling smart enough, and not wanting to engage in something that feels out of your reach or out of your thought process. It’s the way that we have conversations. You hear men in a coffee shop and they’ll be talking about what the stock market is doing or real estate. You have women in a coffee shop and they’ll be talking about the most recent book they read, which is fiction. Not bad but it’s indicative of our focus.

My mother was very clear, “Tarnie, a man is going to look after you. He needs to make the money. He’s the one that’s going to lead.” In my first marriage, I made the money and I was the provider. I provided the house but that’s from my dad. I had the income but I somehow didn’t do that next step. It’s interesting. I hadn’t done the work.

I want to be clear. Talking about books, makeup, and fun stuff is not a bad thing. It keeps us well-rounded, feminine, and it’s great. We need to develop both sides of us. Somehow, women are in this male-dominated world but we are not taking on those male interests. We’re taking on the female interests, but we’re not plugging into the flow of the feminine. We’ve got to go deeper on both sides.

We all need support. We’re not solo. How do I have a little more support around my divorce? I was over here when I got divorced, and everything was in Australia. It might’ve been a little bit different because we all need support. This is not a solo game. That’s why your show is fabulous in creating some support around you. That’s very feminine. My husband did all the figures but he needed my support for us to do the purchases. I needed him to do the figures so I could use my intuition.

REW 52 | Inner Wisdom

Inner Wisdom: It’s very important to take time and slow down the mind. Take a deep breath and literally just find time to stay still.

 

Could you tell us three things that we can do to awaken, develop, and trust that feminine wisdom?

Slow Down The Mind

The very important one is to take time to slow down. It’s not just sitting down in the chair but slowing down the mind. The way to do that is to start to be aware of your breath in your body. Step number one is to slow down, take a breath, and find some still time. Some quiet. If we all took 30 seconds now to take a breath, sink into the chair, or wherever we are, stop what you’re doing for a minute, feel yourself, feel your breath in your body. As you do that, that starts awakening the sense of being in your body.

Deeper Listening

The second one is to develop deeper listening. As I take a moment to stop, I take my attention inside to a deeper listening inside. As I’m saying this, you might like to follow me. You take your awareness. A lot of us can take our awareness down into the heart but it’s dropping it down into the soft belly even to the lower belly. It’s sinking down or taking your breath and attention down into yourself. You want to develop that ability. What am I hearing? What am I listening inside to? As you develop that, when you get that gut reaction, contraction, or you get a little bit of a sharp jolt, you get a body signal or body reaction, you can feel the signal.

Building Takes Time

The third is building trust takes time. You don’t just trust something. Trust comes with time, practice, and positive reinforcement. By doing building trust every day, taking time to slow down, starting to feel and listen, and then getting a sense of, “Did I get a feeling about that? I could have said something else. I could have done something else. Did I get a feeling about that, and did I follow it?” You do a self-summary each day, or you might do something like, “What happened when I did follow that in guidance?” You’re looking for this inner guidance that lives inside the body.

It’s not just the emotional gut reaction because we can have that and that can belong to an inner child self or a protective self. There are all things that can happen in the body that are emotional. We’re talking about something a little bit deeper. They’re good indicators and they’ve got the information but where that inner wisdom is that deep knowing that lives through the core. They’re the three. Take time to slow down, develop the ability to slow down and breathe, be connected to your body, develop that sense of listening to the deepest self. Keep digging and, “What else is there? Is there something else?” Learning to trust that and doing a daily review of that.

A daily review will help you to feel that success and build the trust. I know that in EXTRA, we’re going to be talking about the actual elements of feminine wisdom and how to use them in real estate. Ladies, here are three tools that we can take forward. We’re going to talk more about how to utilize that feminine wisdom in real estate, specifically in EXTRA. I’m looking forward to that continued conversation, Tarnie.

This is not negating the masculine, the doing, and the thinking. Lots of us have got beautiful minds, well-developed, and we can think things through. I talk about my husband doing the figures but I’ve been in business for many years. I know how to hold things together. When we talk the unclaimed secret often is we’ve obviously got highly developed minds, beautiful hearts, and giving. This is about claiming another self that can help guide you, lead your life, and lead in investments in real estate.

Thank you so much for saying that because I’m hoping that the ladies didn’t get the impression that we’re negating, medializing, and minimizing the masculine energy. As women, we are lucky because we’ve been brought up in this masculine world. We’ve been taught how to do numbers, use our brains, be logical, reasonable, and all of those things. We’ve been taught all that. We have to live that way most of the time in the outside world but we also have the innate feminine.

Look at men, they have been taught to be masculine and their default is masculine. They have to struggle to get any access to the feminine. We get, by default and most is, masculine. We develop that, go to college, read, and do all of these things. We hear the conversations in the coffee shop but we also have this innate default feminine and all of those resources that we have access to that they don’t. If we can marry the two of them within us, we are powerful. Talk about limitless. Women are so powerful because we have access to so many resources easily.

Women should get together because we all need support. Click To Tweet

I do feel blessed because we have access to both. They do say women need women, and men need women.

I read something where they say, “Behind every successful man is a strong, good woman,” but also, behind every strong woman is a good woman. We need each other in the community.

That supports us in staying in this feminine conversation. We need our girlfriends. We can express emotions to them and that’s a way of accessing this deeper wisdom as well.

We’re going to head into my three rapid-fire questions. Before that, can you tell us a little bit about the free gift you’re offering my ladies?

It’s developing your unclaimed secret. You can get that at TarnieFulloon.com/ReGift.

Tell us about what it is.

It will be a meditation around developing your inner wisdom. It’ll be a meditation around being more body-centered. There’s also an offer for $100 off on either one of my workshops or a session with me. You get a gift certificate as well as you get this meditation instruction on how to develop this unclaimed secret.

Is there a way for them to connect with you or contact you?

You can either email me at [email protected]. On the website TarnieFulloon.com, there’s a little thing up on the right-hand corner on my banner that says Contact Me. You can either contact me through the website or send me a direct email.

If anything is not there, missing, or whatever, you can connect with Tarnie directly.

Call me up and I’m happy to get on the call with you for 10 or 15 minutes. Have a chat, see what you need, and how I might be able to support you. If there are some questions you have around this, I’ll be happy to talk to anyone.

Ladies, let Tarnie know that you came from me. It helps her marketing and everybody so we all stay in the community. Are you ready for three rapid-fire questions?

Yes.

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

Do your homework. Make sure you find out the cost whether you can afford it. What are your parameters? What’s the maximum amount that you’re willing to spend? If you’re going to buy, rent, or flip, you’ve got to do the homework, the math, and make it financially viable. To me, that is step number one. You might like the area, do this, have all feelings, and ideas but if you don’t do the math and financial, that’s one.

What would you say is one strategy on being successful in real estate investing?

Allow yourself to do the logical stuff and then move into the feeling state like, “Is this something that I want to do? Do I want to invest in this area? Is this going to be a flip or a rental?” It’s listening to the mind but then dropping deeply in and checking in with the feeling body.

What would you say is one daily practice that you personally do that contributes to your success?

Meditate. Do that daily breath connection. I do a movement practice, but something that brings me back into the grounded sense of my being into my body and it allows me to connect to that. I connect to that in and knowing every day.

This conversation has been so lovely. Thank you so much.

Thank you. I always feel privileged to talk to you and be with you. I love our conversations, whether on or off the screen.

Ladies, thank you for joining Tarnie and me for this portion of the show. Stay tuned for EXTRA. We’re going to be talking about the elements of feminine wisdom and how to utilize those in your real estate investing. That’s going to be an exciting conversation. Stay tuned for that if you’re subscribed. If you’re not subscribed but would like to be, go to RealEstateInvestingForWomenEXTRA.com. It’s free for the first seven days. Check it out. You’ll get this EXTRA as many as you can download in seven days, and then you can either stay subscribed or not. For those of you that are leaving us now, thank you so much for joining me for this portion of the show. I hope you enjoyed it. I super appreciate you. 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 next time. Bye.

 

Important Links

 

About Tarnie Fulloon

REW 52 | Inner WisdomTarnie Fulloon, transformational mentor, workshop facilitator, writer, and author, partners with professional women so they can make intimate relationships thrive.

For more than 25 years, Tarnie has mentored women and men to heal their intimate partnerships. She guides those who are ready to reignite their relationships by accessing the wisdom and intelligence of their bodies. Her work unleashes the magnificence of full embodiment so intimacy can flourish.

For those with physical pain, often caused by blocks in relational intimacy, Tarnie’s gentle guidance shifts them to deep relief, calm, confident vitality, and joyous aliveness. She shows women the secret of showing up for themselves first so they rekindle the sparks in their intimate partnerships.

Tarnie’s BodyFreedom™ Method helps nurture intimate relationships using her proven embodiment approach. It integrates her training as an Olympic level Sports Medicine Physiotherapist (Australia), her Master’s in Spiritual Psychology (USA), and her certificate in Movement Expression.

 

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REW 48 | Inner Feminine

Connect To Your Inner Feminine To Create Fulfilling Success With Stacy Bahrenfuss – Real Estate Women

REW 48 | Inner Feminine

 

Connection is the missing piece to whole life success. It can mean many things, but most importantly, it means connecting with your source, your inner state, your inner feminine. It’s not that hard to reconnect with it. It’s just the fact that so few among us have done it that it looks difficult when really, it’s not. Real estate investor and life coach, Stacy Bahrenfuss joins Moneeka Sawyer today to show you just how simple it can be. With just a few steps, Stacy can guide you to connect with your source, nurture a blissful inner state, and allow it to lead the way to success and fulfillment. Join in to learn how you can do this at home! And don’t forget to rejoin them on Extra, where Stacy throws in even more valuable wisdom!

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Listen to the podcast here

 

Connect To Your Inner Feminine To Create Fulfilling Success With Stacy Bahrenfuss – Real Estate Women

Real Estate Investing For Women

I am so excited to welcome to our show, Stacy Bahrenfuss. Stacy is the Founder of the Catalyst Group and creator of the Inside Out Success Method, a system at the core of her premier consulting program for female change-makers, the Limitless with Stacy B. Stacy started Catalyst Group, her real estate company, at the age of 19. She sustained her company through the housing crisis of 2007 to 2010. She continues to scale her business beyond the seven-figure mark to become one of the top-performing real estate teams in the state of Idaho. Stacy’s experience is vast. She has been a single agent, has run a large team, and has even operated as the designated broker for Catalyst Group as a brokerage. She has personally funded and sold a development project consisting of eleven upper-tier new luxury homes while still operating her real estate team at the Catalyst. Her success in the real estate world has given her a vehicle to share her mission, vision and purpose. Now she guides female global change-makers to discover inner freedom and fulfillment to create lasting success from a beautiful inner state to achieve the change and results they wish to see in the world. How are you?

I am great. Thank you so much for having me.

You’ve done a lot of stuff. It’s interesting when I looked at your bio or looked at your questions, I knew that so much of what you do is mindset stuff, which is key to success. I didn’t realize initially how involved in real estate you are. This is fantastic. I’m excited how relevant this is going to be. 

I’m very excited too. The merge between both is so vital for a successful real estate business.

Most of the people that come on board to talk on the show about mindset might have a little bit of investing experience, but not to the depth that you have. This is amazing. Why don’t you start by giving us a little bit of your story, the two-minute version? 

REW 48 | Inner Feminine

Inner Feminine: Succeeding without stress means going to the root of the issue internally and being willing to courageously look at whatever is there.

 

It all started when I was a senior in high school. I was joking around with a few of my friends and we had heard about a local real estate office near a resort town that I lived in that was going to be opening. I said, “I’m going to apply as a salesperson.” I was seventeen at the time. They ended up calling me and hiring me as the sales coordinator’s assistant. I worked part-time and did that, and finished high school at that time. I knew right away that this was my career path to get into real estate.

I saw a gap that I could fill, which was the consumer experience and the way that I was seeing agents at that time. It was 2004, 2005, things were booming and going crazy. I saw a gap that I could fill to improve the industry. I got started at that point and then got licensed when I was 19 because I knew I wanted to be the change. I started my career at that point and then started building my team five years later in 2011. Everything I’ve done, I’ve done it intentionally to be able to simplify things so that I can share with others, that they too can do whatever it is they want to do in the real estate business or beyond the real estate business.

I say the same thing in all of my stuff, but you say that you can have success without stress. Let’s talk a little bit about that. I’ll give you a little background on me too. I talk a lot about bliss, and bliss is about creating systems, a business or a life that has very little stress and is filled with joy through the whole process. I feel like we’re aligned with that. Talk to me a little bit about building success without stress. 

Your methodology and your mission are what I was very excited about, meeting you and coming on your show for all of those reasons you listed because we’re much in alignment. For me, succeeding without stress is different than taking an intense breathing exercise to raise the stress in the body, to be able to perform at a higher level. That’s a different type of stress. The stress I’m talking about is that inner state of suffering that no matter what’s going on externally, it could be a different situation. You’re still feeling that same thing, that same feeling.

Succeeding without stress means going to the root of whatever the issue is internally, and being willing to courageously look at things that may be whether it’s a pain or hurt or something that happened in your past. That is the trigger that keeps being activated by these external situations. When you do that and you start to clear things, it’s like the drain. Seeing your truth is like the drain pouring down to clear things. When you can do that, you’re able to succeed at such a different level because you’re clear and calm inside. You’re able to make more clear and powerful decisions. You don’t have to work as hard with so much push. It’s more of the flow.

You have a specific methodology for this. Is that true?

That is true.

Could you tell us a little about that?

The methodology is going to the root of whatever is going on as I explained briefly, identifying whatever that thing is. A key one is looking at relationships in your life that may be a soft spot or a pain point, and seeing how you contribute to that pain. It’s so easy for us to blame others. If we can start to look at situations, if we’re frustrated or feeling pain in some way, to ask ourselves, how are we contributing to that situation? The game changes at that point. That’s what that methodology is all about. It’s not only taking your power back, but taking your power back by taking responsibility for your life completely. In doing so, you’re able to look at things differently so that you can perform at a higher level.

That methodology is first to see the truth and to see that pain, but not to stop there. What you need to do then is build that vision for your life and understand what you’re seeking. Once you are successful at this level, then you’ll be happy. We’ve all heard that. To understand what the emotions are, I always say it’s like a vending machine in a way that is already within you. You just need to select. “I want to be happy. If I succeed at this level, I’ll be happy.” Changing that and seeing that you can get the happiness out of the vending machine now without going after that. Therefore that might change your pursuits and what you’re trying to achieve. The methodology breaks that down so that can come into focus.

I still love what you’re talking about around there’s a way that we are taught in the world to create our happiness. We pursue this. Once we achieve that, we will be happy. There are all these people out there saying, “Happiness is an inside job and you should be,” or whatever. We’re all trained to go after the things that are going to make us happy, whether it’s business success, a boyfriend, a girlfriend, a car, a house, or whatever it is. We’re going after those things that we think they’ll make us happy. What’s interesting is that for those people who have gone after those things and gotten those things, you realize that, “That didn’t make me happier.” Who you are on the inside is what you take to that final result. You’ll never be happy then if you can’t be happy now. There will always be a feeling of discontent. Turning our training in the way that we’ve been culturally brought up on its head, starting with the happy feeling, and then determining our pursuits from who we are on the inside, rather than what we think is going to make us happy, can completely change the trajectory of our life. 

You can either be fueled by a blissful inner state a fearful inner state. There isn't any other option. Click To Tweet

Also to your point of turning it on its head, a lot of people go, “If I start with happiness first inside, I’m truly discontent.” The response to that is, “Exactly, you need to see first that you’re discontent.” That is the truth. If you stop trying to escape that and see it for what it is, that is when you can make room for the formula to become happy first. You first have to see the truth instead of resisting the discontent.

I love that. I use the term bliss rather than happy. It’s a deeper emotional content. One of my coaches specifically said to me, “I don’t want to be blissful because then I’ll lose all my motivation.” I was completely shocked by that. I don’t know if you’ve ever heard this yourself, Stacy, “I don’t want to be happy because then, why would I work hard?” The thing is that when you’re content, you tend to work harder because your dreams are bigger. They’re based more on you rather than some outside force telling you what you should be. When it’s based on you, your drive is significantly bigger. Your passion is bigger. Your want to achieve becomes bigger. That’s also counterintuitive. When you’re happier, you will achieve more because of your capacity to dream. Would you agree with me on that? 

Absolutely 150%. It is stemming from you either can be fueled by a blissful inner state as you describe it or a fearful inner state. There isn’t another option. You can call it different things, those are the core options. When you are coming from a fearful state, it’s not going to be sustainable and you have to work extra hard to get the same result. When you’re fueled by bliss or that beautiful state, it’s a natural passion, a natural motivation that rises. It’s not a contrived motivation that you have to create if you’re coming from suffering.

You talk a lot about inner states. Bliss from my perspective is the ultimate inner state, but we have many of those. Your methodology is based on inner states, how to distinguish them, how to utilize your inner states, and distinguishing them for success. Talk to me a little bit about how that works in your methodology.  

As we were talking about, there are two options of the inner state. The first part is looking at resistance first, and any disconnect or discontent, any uncomfortable inner vibe or feeling that you’re experiencing. Although it may seem like something you have to overcome, it’s the biggest gift because it’s come to show you the way. What I mean by that is if you’re willing to dig into that to clear up at inner state, you’re going to see how to clear that at such a deep level that you no longer are struggling with that anymore. The importance of that is things you create will become more sustainable and your relationships are going to improve. It’s not only that but also your presence. We all want more confidence. We all want to play full out. All of these terms of let’s go to that next level. Truly what happens, and that’s why I call it limitless, is when you are willing to get in touch with the resistance, the disconnect, and the discontent within you, and dig into what that is and stop resisting it, your next level is limitless because you’re not bogged down by those negative emotions.

It’s so interesting because as humans, we only have so many hours in the day, and we only have so much energy to expend. If we’re expending our energy on trying to keep ourselves lifted up because we have to fight the anchors that are pulling us down, that’s an energy drain that we cannot use in other ways. We cannot use them to create freedom, success and love. We’re using them to fight anger and to carry that around. When we’re able to release those inner states of fear or whatever, then we release a lot of energy to focus on the things that we want. The one thing I strongly believe, I’d love to hear your feedback on this, is all of our emotions teach us something. They show us where the discontent is.

I believe that we have a right to all of those feelings. If we’re angry, in despair, having a bad day, or if someone died, we’re having a bad month, we have a right to all of those emotions, but we don’t have to live in those emotions. What I say is honor them, feel them, live in them for a little while, but don’t make them your home. You want to make your home those inner states that support your joy, success, and freedom. Do you agree with me on that? 

I do, and to go into a little more detail of my thoughts on it is especially as women, we are told what it means to be a good girl. We’re taught that a good girl doesn’t show if she’s upset. That’s part of the problem why both men and women have difficulty not making it their emotional home because we’re taught so much in society that, “You don’t feel it. Who has time for that? Put it in this file over here.” That is that heavy shackle on us that doesn’t allow us to create a new emotional home. If we can just see it, allow it, feel it, and sometimes you don’t even know how to feel it because we’re so ingrained to escape, distract ourselves, go over here. The problem is that the monster keeps getting bigger and bigger, and it starts to bring all of its friends. I agree with you.

Tell us a little bit about the Triple Threat System.  

REW 48 | Inner Feminine

Inner Feminine: Although discontent may look like something to overcome, it is actually the biggest gift because it has come to show you the way.

 

The Triple Threat System is something I use every day, and something that I contribute much of my success to because it’s given me that foundation. In many ways, a quick process to go through if time is short or if I have all the time in the world. It’s very versatile in that way. There are three steps, thus the name Triple Threat System. The first step is to take three conscious breaths. When I say conscious breaths, I mean to set a timer on your phone for three minutes and take deep inhalations, and try to make your exhalations longer. If you can, double the count of the first inhalation. It would be breathing in deep for two counts. You count in your mind and then exhale for four. That would be double. Do that for three minutes. That’s step one of the Triple Threat System. Once you do that, what you’ve done is you’ve created very calm soil to then plant what the contents are of step two, which is to write down three things you’re grateful for.

Sometimes it’s like, “I don’t know what I can come up with.” Think about the last 24 hours. Think about simple things that you’re grateful for like you could brush your teeth this morning, that you can walk down the hallway. Sometimes the simpler, the better to start because our mind is conditioned to look for what’s wrong. When you can start the day with that calm first step of a clear mind, that first batch of seeds that you plant are those of gratitude, then it’s a prime foundation to go into step three, which is focusing on your short and long-term goals. My three short three long-term goals. What that does is it sets you up for the day. It prepares you no matter what comes your way. It also keeps your short and long-term goals front of mind. What I love about that is, we need to constantly be asking ourselves if my vision is current.

When you’re that in touch with short and long-term goals, you’re able to adjust as life evolves. You could be in the middle of a pursuit of a goal and decide that, “This isn’t what I want anymore,” and change course. That’s the Triple Threat System. You can do it in ten minutes. You could also stretch it out to 30 if you want to do a little bit longer breathing. What I love about it is that no matter how much time you have, it’s very adaptable.

I love how simple it is. I want to say, ladies, so much of the time when I talk to you, one of the questions that I get, or one of the comments that I get a lot of is, “I don’t have a lot of time and I want easy systems to be able to fit into a little bit of a time that I’ve got.” If I give an easy system, something like the Triple Threat that’s very simplified. We’ve all heard a lot of these components in different shows and different places. You’re like, “That’s too simple. I’ve heard that before. I need something that’s going to be a little bit more effective than that.” You’re not alone, ladies, if you’ve had those thoughts. I’ve had those thoughts too. 

The thing is that until you try it and implement it for a significant period of time, and I’m talking like a month, you’re not going to know what the results are. Just because it’s simple does not mean that it’s not powerful. The simpler it is, the more implementable it is, the more powerful it is. You do need to do it. You have to take action. We talk about action all the time. You have to do it and give it a chance to work. I want to say that I love this. We’ve had a lot of people come onto the show and talk about morning routines. I’ve talked about morning routines, but Stacy is giving you something super easy and super implementable. 

You can do it in five minutes, or you can do it in 30 minutes, and just because it’s simple does not mean that it’s not powerful. I would encourage you to write down her three steps, and then implement them into your life for the next 30 days to see if they work for you. Everybody is different. Different things work for each of us in different ways. You might want to change your route. You might want to implement it a little bit differently but first, you try it her way. I love how simplified that says, so thank you for that, Stacy.  

One thing that I do too is I look at this as that foundation. I said that multiple times. What’s great about it is that it’s very easy to add an accessory to it. Maybe you want to work on another aspect. Keeping that in mind is something that I’ll do when time is allotted. I like to have that go-to. If I can find ten minutes anywhere, no matter how crazy the day is, it’s nice to have that go-to no matter what.

Inner connection is the missing ingredient to whole life success. Click To Tweet

We’re going to talk more about how she fits this into her life and the actual implementation of this into her life. I’m excited about that in EXTRA. Let’s talk a little bit about EXTRA. We’re going to talk more about the Triple Threat System. We’re also going to talk specifically more about real estate. One of the things that Stacy and I talked about before was when people see a property online, they think it looks like a good deal, but it’s important that we go through the numbers. We take a look at, is it a good deal on the balance sheet? I always say to you, ladies, that our business in real estate investing is a people business, but the numbers have to work for us to get to the people part. Stacy is going to go through in EXTRA how to validate a property if you think it’s a great deal, how do you go through and make sure that it is? Those are the couple of things we’re going to be talking about in EXTRA. Do you want to add anything, Stacy? 

I’m very excited about both of those. I didn’t talk about this in the pre-show, but I do have a special tool that I’m going to share with you to share with your EXTRA people that helps validate that investment at a deeper level. It’s a simple Excel spreadsheet that works every time. That’s my gift to you.

That’s for the EXTRA portion of the show. We’ve talked a lot about being limitless, inner states, and all of that stuff. What would you say is the missing ingredient for a whole life success?

Much of it is related to what we’ve talked about that we’ve lost that connection. The missing piece is connection. It sounds very simple, but it’s profound. We’re in a society, in a world that’s more connected than ever technology-wise, but leaving us feeling more disconnected than ever. The missing ingredient being connection, it means first and foremost, connecting to yourself and being able to utilize that not just in the personal development side of things. What we’ve talked about thus far, but also connecting to yourself when you have a gut feeling about something, analyzing your business. Connecting to your source is also what I mean. That is that missing ingredient to a whole life success. When you understand that you no longer have to rely on external feedback to justify how you’re feeling or your thoughts about something, the power goes from 5 to 50, as far as that. It’s an immediate increase in your ability to take action, follow through, and achieve your goals.

Thank you so much for that. It is true and even the client relationships or tenant relationships we fail, and I fall into this. I’m a little bit surprised to watch myself sometimes because I feel like the relationships in my life are everything. Those are the things that have been the reason for my success. Even then, there’s an awful lot of texting that happens. That could be a phone call that creates a connection or a visit to the house or something like that. Communication has become so easy that it’s allowing us to not make it a priority or not give it the attention it deserves. 

One thing that we’re implementing within the team is the rule that a connection is not an email or text. It’s only a phone call, and that it’s an adjustment. It’s a reminder to be more mindful of more than anything. People are craving for connection right now. That alone can be your differentiator, by reaching out instead of doing what everyone else is doing, which is relying on technology.

Could you tell everybody how they can meet you? 

Yes. Because my last name is so challenging to say, everyone calls me Stacy B. My website is the best way to get in touch with me. That is LimitlessWithStacyB.com.

Are you ready for the three rapid-fire questions?

Yes, I was born ready.

Could you tell us one super tip on getting started investing in real estate?

The biggest thing is to do the homework and the research. What I mean by that is go and connect with a lender because a lot of times, we let the lack of knowledge in something hold us back. We think that we need to wait until we do X, Y, or Z. I can’t tell you how many times I have experienced and clients might have experienced going and doing that research, getting different opinions on the lending side has opened up an opportunity to take action on an investment property. The biggest thing is if you are interested in real estate, get in touch with a professional, a mortgage professional, or a real estate professional that you know because you would be surprised at how empowered you can be so quickly. Let’s say you can’t get the loan, or it’s not a good time. You can make a very aggressive plan to prepare for whatever it is you need to complete to be able to qualify.

What would you say is one strategy on being successful in real estate investing? 

The biggest strategy is to go for it. The only thing that a seller or someone else can say is no if they don’t accept your offer. Don’t be afraid to make ten different offers. Throw that net out to see who bites, depending on the product. That’s one way, but another way is don’t be afraid to pursue a property. Although it doesn’t happen as much right now, it will happen again. If it is overpriced, going in $50,000, $100,000 low with the justification of how you arrived at those numbers. All they can say is no. I’ve had so many times where they came down to almost the price that we offered. The biggest thing is to pursue it and don’t be afraid of that rejection.

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

It’s my morning routine. With that though, it’s that Triple Threat System and it’s also incorporating at least ten minutes of reading my workouts, and my time with my Earl Grey tea, which is my favorite beverage.

REW 48 | Inner Feminine

Inner Feminine: We’re in a society that’s more connected than ever technology-wise, but it’s also leaving us feeling more disconnected than ever.

 

Stacy, this has been so much fun. Thank you so much for everything you’ve offered on this portion of the show.

Thank you so much for the opportunity. It’s been a pleasure.

Ladies, thank you for joining Stacy for this portion of the show. If you’re not subscribed to EXTRA but would like to be, you can go to RealEstateInvestingForWomenEXTRA.com, and you get the first seven days for free. You can get this EXTRA. You can get a ton of other EXTRAs. I’ve got more than 50 up there, so you can binge on those and see if it’s for you. If you want to stay subscribed, you can. If not, you’ve got a lot of good content so check it out. Thank you so much for joining us. You know how much I appreciate you. 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 a life your heart deeply desires. I’ll see you soon.

 

Important Links

 

About Stacy Bahrenfuss

REW 48 | Inner FeminineStacy is the owner of a 7-figure real estate company, and Founder of The Truth Teachers™ and Ultimate Breakthrough Accelerator™. Her programs consist of intuitive 1:1 consulting, group coaching, and an exclusive certification program.

Stacy began her entrepreneurial journey in the real estate industry at the early age of 19, sustained through the housing crisis of 2007-2010, and continued to build the business to be a 7-figure operation and one of the top real estate teams in the state of Idaho.

In 2018, Stacy personally funded and sold a development project consisting of 11 upper-tier luxury homes while still operating her real estate team. Her husband runs the operations of the real estate team today, while Stacy resides in an Advisory role.

Stacy is on a mission to smash the shackles of suffering by shining a light on the truth so that her clients can achieve everything they want. Her programs serve as a catalyst for deep inner transformation to create lasting whole life success, and how to do it all from a limitless, beautiful inner state.

Stacy is a recipient of a 2020 Gold Stevie Award in Consumer services with 10 or less employees.

 

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REW 34 | Choosing Bliss

[Customer Convo] Choosing Bliss, A New Giving Thanks Practice, And Real Estate With Chaitra Rai – Real Estate Women

REW 34 | Choosing Bliss

 

As host of the Real Estate Investing for Women podcast, we rarely hear what Moneeka Sawyer has to say about her experiences in real estate. In this episode, she sits on the hot seat as her customer, Chaitra Rai, asks some of the most curious questions that let us take a peek into her life, most especially with her real estate journey. Moneeka talks about her book, Choose Bliss, laying down what her typical workday looks like and how she inserts meditation and gratitude into her everyday life. She then goes to real estate and tells us some of her ways of finding a good investment deal, giving a loan, and applying for your second investment property.

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Listen to the podcast here

 

[Customer Convo] Choosing Bliss, A New Giving Thanks Practice, And Real Estate With Chaitra Rai – Real Estate Women

Real Estate Investing For Women

Chai, welcome to the show. How are you?

I am doing wonderful. It’s great to hear your beautiful voice again. How are you doing?

I’m doing great. I’m sorry, it’s taking long for us to finally get this together, but I am excited about this conversation. You’ve got good questions. Thanks for being patient with me.

It’s all worth it. It’s all for the greater good.

Some of the questions that you sent me, you had some stuff about my book, Choose Bliss and you also had some real estate questions. Shall we start with Choose Bliss? Does that sound good?

That sounds great. After reading your book, I have a lot of questions that I wanted to talk to you about. One of the biggest questions I had after reading your book, you seem somebody who has varied interests in addition to your business ventures. I was wondering if you could share with us how your typical workday looks like and how many hours you spend on different things like your business ventures, blog, writing and podcasts. Do you have time for hobbies after that?

The first thing that I want to say about that is we each design our lives based on what makes us feel the best. How I would define a blissful life is that we get to do the things that make us feel most fulfilled. There are a lot of people that are out there talking about having a balanced life. A balanced life is a farce because there is a lot of stuff in a balanced life that doesn’t make our hearts sing. I designed my life. The way that I designed my life is more about doing the things that make my heart sing, spending more time doing that and less time doing the things that don’t make my heart sing.

I do have a typical day, but it depends on what my main focus is. I’ll give you an example. I have a property that’s being turned over, which means we’re in transition. I had a tenant leave and I’m putting a new tenant in. When I talk on my show about, “I only spend 5 to 10 hours a month,” what that means is most months, I spend zero hours and then if I have a transition, I might spend closer to 20 to 40 hours on that transition. It takes a lot of time to do a transition and do it right.

I only might do a transition every two years. I don’t do that often. I don’t spend a lot of time on real estate. In the morning, I wake up and I have a morning routine. That morning routine includes my shower, meditation, a little bit of journaling, a walk with my dog and my husband, coffee at the coffee shop and a walk back home. I sit at my desk and I look at a library of things that make me feel good, whether it’s a YouTube video, clothes or it’s a sweet letter that someone sent me like good reviews on my books or on the podcast.

I have an arsenal of feel-good material that I start the day with. I might take three minutes for that unless I’m watching a longer video, but that’s what I do with the first thing that I sit down at my desk. After that is when I start dealing with email. That’s how my day starts. After that, there are other things that happen. I do my email and then it’s what’s the focus of the day. Now, the focus of the day is I’m calling references for employers and for past landlords. I’m doing credit checks. I have to go to the property every single day because there’s something going on. It’s either I’m meeting a contractor, I’m putting up a new sign, or I meeting a possible tenant.

We each design our lives based on what makes us feel the best. Click To Tweet

I’m spending a lot of times specifically on the real estate piece. However, I do think that I’m going to have a renter. It’s taken me about a week and then I will go back to my regular schedule. Once a week, I record shows and then the rest of the week, I might have a couple of hours set aside for writing. I do a lot of reading and a lot of background stuff that has to go on with running a business. I’ve got to keep my website and products going. Sometimes I’m dealing with technology all the time. It’s our best friend. It can also be a time thing for a lot of things. There are all of those things. I usually start work at about 10:30 or 11:00. My husband is at home because of COVID, so he and I take about 1.5-hour lunch.

That’s called work-day balance. Having a balance includes that.

I have a good solid amount of time that I work in the afternoon. It’s starting about 1:30 until 6:00. I take a break in the middle of the afternoon to do a twenty-minute meditation. There’s also something interesting now that David is home, we’ll often go for a twenty-minute walk in the middle of the day. He goes back to work and I do the meditation. I get a 40-minute break in the middle of that afternoon.

That’s super productive for the brain as well to break it up in chunks like that.

I get some good focus time, but I also get some nice breaks so I can rejuvenate. One of the things you asked me before the show is to talk a little bit about dance.

That’s the exciting part, your love for dance.

It’s such a big piece of my life and there’s an unfortunate truth. In the book, I talked about a one-car accident, but I’m recovering from another one. Most people don’t know, which is fortunate. I’m doing fine, but it was a highway pile-up about several years ago. My right arm has not been working very well since then. In the first two years after the accident, my legs were not badly damaged, but I was in a lot of pain. For whatever reason, my legs, arm and back got jammed in the accident. I’ve been in physical therapy, acupuncture and all of that stuff. I had surgery on my shoulder. There’s been a lot that’s going on. What that has meant is that I can’t dance every day.

If you read the book, you know that from my perspective, and we’ve heard this from many experts, exercise is a big factor in keeping happy. Our bodies need to move. I was a dancer. I didn’t even have to think about exercise and that was even better. Now, I’m not able to dance and I’m not moving. I have been able to move. I’m starting to be able to move my arm so I can start to dance again. Even before I would try to move and my arm would get torqued because it’s sympathetic movements in your whole body when you’re dancing.

That was painful, but in order to make sure that I am getting the exercise that my body is used to getting, I do four twenty-minute walks a day. I do one in the morning with my husband, one in the afternoon and one after dinner. That’s three and then somewhere in between. For instance, in the morning, we might do twenty minutes before coffee and twenty minutes after. It ends up being a full hour or we’re out with a dog and having some coffee. It’s 3 or 4 twenty-minute walks a day.

REW 34 | Choosing Bliss

Choose Bliss: The Power and Practice of Joy and Contentment

You found an alternative to getting your dance practice. You’re doing more walks now.

That’s one thing that I want to emphasize to people is we get so busy in our lives that we forget that our bodies were built to move. If we don’t move, the body cramps up, so we physically don’t feel well. If we physically don’t feel well, it impacts us emotionally. The other thing is that exercise releases all these endorphins in your body that are natural mood enhancers. This makes you feel better in general. Exercise is such a big piece of creating a blissful life. It’s the piece that people tend to overlook the most because it feels like a time sink, but it’s such an important part of staying blissful. Does that make sense?

I totally agree with you. It’s this principle of contraction versus expansion. I feel like when you go out and have your walks, you’re expanding your mind and your consciousness. As opposed to staying inside the house and your body is not getting any movement, and you’re contracting in some sense. You get the blood flowing too when you’re out and about.

Get some air and your creativity flows a little bit more because you’re not so focused on one thing. You open and expand, and more can come in. It’s having peripheral vision rather than tunnel vision. You can take in so much more.

When you’re out in nature too, you get all these creative ideas and thoughts, which would not have come if you had been stuck in the house.

Did you have any other questions about the book?

In your book, you have mentioned your gratitude habit and I thought that was fascinating. You mentioned that as you wake up first thing in the morning, you write out three things that you’re grateful for. I’m wondering if you could expand a little bit about that. Do you do a gratitude habit in the morning? Is it something you practice throughout the day? Do you write more than three things that you’re grateful for? Anything you could tell us about that would be helpful.

I’ve created a whole new practice that nobody knows about yet. I’ll let the secret out for you. I even don’t get up. My alarm goes off and I push the snooze. It’s during that snooze period that I do the gratitudes in my mind. The way that I do it is I feel into the emotion. Any gratitude practice is good, but there is a right way to do a gratitude practice. That is to get into the emotions of feeling gratitude. I find this in my own life. I was in a car accident years ago and woke up every single morning in pain. When you do a gratitude practice and when you’re feeling pain or you’re feeling bad, it feels uncomfortable to be feeling that level of gratitude and joy. I don’t know if you’ve ever had this experience.

You’re lying to yourself in some sense until you believe it.

When you start to believe that you’re afraid, it will run away. That’s been my experience. There are a lot of times that I’m like, “I don’t want to get too happy because it’s not feeling real and comfortable.” The first thing to realize is that our most natural way of being is to be in bliss. Let me explain to my readers why I’m saying this. When we were born, we were born as these little bundles of bliss. We’re filled with joy, excitement, awe and wonder. We’re newly alive and we want to learn. There’s no fear and we’re going to try everything. That’s who we’re born as and somehow through life, we learn about fear, shame and we’re bad. We learn all of these things and it chips away at that bliss that is deep at our core.

A blissful life is when we get to do the things that make us feel most fulfilled. Click To Tweet

That bliss is that light that’s talked about inside our core. It shines bright as always.

Gratitude is the quickest access we have to that little light of bliss deep down inside of us that wants to shine through our entire bodies.

It’s a gateway that do that special vision in us.

It’s okay that as you move into gratitude, sometimes you’ll get flushed with this feeling of joy and it’s uncomfortable because we’re not used to it. The more that you do it, the more natural it becomes and the more willing you are to go there. What’s even more delightful is that you start to stay there longer. Your body gets in the habit of being able to sustain that level of emotion on that vibration. Everything that happens inside of our bodies, whether it’s endorphins from exercise or being on a diet, whatever it is that we’re doing, our body needs to adjust to accommodate the level of bliss that we’re capable of.

The more that we practice, the more our capacity expands and the more comfortable we are with that. That also means that when we fall or things go bad, we’re more quickly able to move back into that place of bliss rather than staying in those distracted emotional states like depression, sadness, anger. Even ecstasy can be a huge distraction because it doesn’t support what you want in your life. It’s a good feeling, which is great. I’m not saying I don’t feel that. I’m saying that we want to live in this place that it’s expansive and supportive of our sustainable joy.

It’s like you’re attuning your body to the frequency that is emitted by that inner vibration. Your body needs to get acclimatized to that.

I do it first thing in the morning and that gets me started. I have an alarm on my phone. When it goes off on my screen, on my phone, it says, “I am so grateful for.” During the day, 2 or 3 times, I might be reminded to do a little bit of gratitude. The other thing that happens is I get in these moments when I’m working and I want to throw my computer across the room. At that moment is when I take some deep breaths and I say a couple of gratitudes because that calms me down. It clears my mind as a fog that happens in us when we get frustrated so that I can then think more expansively. If that doesn’t work, that’s when I go for my walk.

Gratitude can also help put you back in a rational place, so you can be more creative and more productive. That’s all the stuff that was covered in the book and what I’ve been doing for many years. Now, there’s a new piece and this is a piece that I do in the evening. I started to do a new I love you practice. At night, I write a little love letter to myself and what the love letter says is, “Dear Moneeka, I feel so lucky to be you and to be able to live my life through you,” and then I put gratitudes about myself and my life.

I might say something like, “I am grateful for your spirit and your willingness to share your point of view with the world. I know sometimes that’s hard for you and I appreciate that you do that,” or “I so appreciate your commitment to getting the word out there that bliss is a priority. I know that people sometimes look at you like you’re a crazy person, but thank you so much for being tenacious and committed.” I’ll say things like that. At the end of it, I’ll say, “Thank you for being you. I love you so much,” and then I sign it, Moneeka. You have no idea how good that feels.

After you write a love letter like that to yourself, and you go to sleep, you wake up in the morning wide open. It’s almost like an emptiness. There’s a space where it’s completely open that you can fill it with the good stuff. Most people, when they wake up in the morning, the first thing they think of is, “It’s another day, I want to sleep a little longer, or I’m late.” There are all these other things. Those are all negative things. Instead, if you do a gratitude practice, you’re filling yourself up with good things. The other thing that’s important to make sure that you’re not distracted from the gratitude piece is to be careful about what you’re waking up to.

REW 34 | Choosing Bliss

Choosing Bliss: Gratitude is the quickest access we have to that little light of bliss deep down inside of us that wants to shine through our entire bodies.

 

You want to wake up to a sound that’s pleasant to you and that does not feed your subconscious mind negative information. For instance, do not wake up to an uncontrolled music or news station. Don’t listen to the news. The second that you wake up, don’t wake up to that because most of that is negative stuff. You don’t want to put that negative energy in you when you first wake up. The other thing you don’t want to do is have advertising because advertising is designed to make you feel like you are not enough of a person, because of that, you need this product to be a better person. You don’t ever want that to be fed into your mind when you’re first waking up.

You don’t want sad songs. If you can control it, you don’t want things that are going to make you feel bad, hurt, or have bad memories. This sounds controlling, but you do want those first moments that you wake up, that you open to the world, that’s going to set up your entire day. You’ll make it a lot easier for yourself if you wake up to something beautiful, some beautiful tinkling, soft nature sounds, and birds chirping or crickets chirping is something I know one of my clients likes to listen to. My husband wakes up to Mexican music. He speaks Spanish, I don’t speak Spanish, but I love the way mariachi sound. It’s wonderful to hear that in the morning. Controlling what you wake up to is also going to help to support that gratitude practice.

It’s like you’re controlling your mentality on some level so that you can put your best foot forward as you start your day. Another thing I loved about what you share with us is your love letter the previous night because they say what you sleep with at night is what goes forward. It’s important to have positive things, not only when you get up, but when you sleep as well. That’s why I love your new practice that is incorporated into your routine. Thank you for sharing it.

One of the things that I love talking about more than anything else is how people can live a blissful life, and I feel that we can keep talking, but I think we should move on to the real estate piece.

You’re taking your first loan, venture into your first real estate investment and you go to the bank and because of the period we’re in, there are certain downturns in some areas, banks are asking for a higher down payment. Once you do buy your first property and you go ahead with the process, how do you know that this is a good deal? How do you find a good investment deal when you’re doing this for the first time?

There are a lot of different pieces to that. First is finding the right property, the right loan and what happens next after that? It’s a three-step question I heard. We’re going to talk about the economy later. There’s no such thing as a perfect property, but there is a perfect property for you personally. I teach this in my coursework. The short version of this is that you want to look at your resources and your tolerances before you pick a property. My bank is offering a loan at 3.25% interest with a down payment of 30%, is this good?

Every bank is going to be offering different things. Most of the banks are requiring a down payment between 25% and 35%. Yours is right there in the middle. A rate of 3.25% is fantastic. It’s fluctuating about an eighth of a point. You might be able to go down to eighth, but you also might end up at 3.75%. I got quoted at 3.875%. For our readers, understand that we’re talking during COVID. I want to give you an overview of what I look at when I’m looking for a loan.

What is the market bearing right now? The market is asking for between 25% to 35% down. A rate of 3.25 % is right in the middle of what I’m seeing. You’re going to find out more about that by calling a broker and getting an idea because a broker has access to many different products. He will have access to a product that’s only 5% down, but he’ll tell you the rate is higher and you’re going to have to put five points down, which is 5% down in fees. Brokers are going to be able to tell you the range of what rates are looking at and what down payments are looking like. That’s the first thing.

The other thing is going to be, can you put that 30% down? If you can’t put it in your area, how much do you have to put down? What is that 30% of? If you have $30,000, 30% means that you can only buy $100,000 price. That’s going to also determine if this is the right time for you to buy or not and what to buy. The next thing that I always look for is the perfect property for you is the property that is in a neighborhood where you’re going to find tenants that you like doing business with and it’s a property that you enjoy maintaining.

Let me give you an example of what that looks like. I have a property that is vacant. When I bought that property, it is walking distance to Starbucks and the Sprouts and to a bunch of cute walking area. The property is only a three-bedroom, one bath. It’s fairly small. The tenants that I was looking for at that time, and I predetermined this, was a small or a new family, husband, wife and 1 or 2 kids with no pets. You’ve got your customer avatar. My tenant is my customer.

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They’re starting their life. They’re involved with their work, helping the kids with homework and family time. They don’t have time for all the maintenance of a house and all the gardening. They’re looking for something that’s a little bit lower maintenance. A condo might be a good idea. They’re making about this much money. These are the tenants that I want to work with. The other thing is where does that tenant want to live?

If they’ve got young children, they’re going to want a safer neighborhood. Ideally, for me, I wanted a safer neighborhood and here is why. Every evening, I’m going over to the property after my workday to do something, not every evening, but frequently. If I’m going over there in the evening when it’s dark, I need to feel safe as a woman. Men are going to have different considerations. They want to feel safe too, but it’s going to feel different to them what’s appropriate and what’s not. I need to feel safe in the neighborhood, in the home and with my tenants. That’s another thing that I consider.

When you’re looking at the perfect first investment property, you want to take all of that into consideration and you want to look for the property that is perfect for you. Does that mean you might have to wait to get the right property? It does, but you don’t want to wait for the perfect property. The first property that I bought was a smaller property, a three-bedroom and two baths. Now, much of what I own is executive homes.

The ideal property was an A-class neighborhood and executive home. That was perfect for me, but I couldn’t do that at first. In the beginning, I had to do something that was a perfect fit for the first investment. That means I needed to feel safe, I needed to be able to deal with the kinds of tenants that I wanted to do business with and how much money I have to put down. You might have to wait to get in because you may not have the money to buy into that neighborhood. Make sure that the second you can buy into a neighborhood that fits your parameters, that you do that because sooner is always better than later.

Those are great points about the safety aspect. I wouldn’t have thought of that.

Most people don’t, but for women, it’s a big deal especially if you are managing. My husband is not managing my properties. He helps me out every once in a while when I’m desperate, but that happens rarely. The other thing you asked about is the loan piece. You get your first loan, your first property, and now you’re like, “How do I get the next one?” It depends on what area of the country you’re in. Fannie and Freddie, which are the government-backed loans, in most areas, they will allow you to go up to ten conforming loans without rates going up. That’s pretty easy. Conforming is different in different parts of the country. In some place it’s 149, in California it’s 510. In California, our parameter is five loans. After five loans, we can still get the next five loans, but the rate will be about one percentage point higher. The rates on the first loans are all at 3.25%. The next one would be at 4.25% or 4.75%. It’s going to go up a point to a point and a half after the fifth loan. That’s when you go to loan number six. That’s in California.

If you’re talking to a mortgage broker, they’d be able to give you their parameters. When you’re talking to a mortgage broker, find one who is well-versed in investment properties. You want to find out, do they have investors? How many investment loans do they do per year? Is that their main business or they’ve got 1 or 2 clients that they do or they might do 1 or 2 a year. They’re not going to know enough. You want somebody who can answer all these questions like, “How many loans can I do? What are the different investment property products? How is my primary residence loan going to be affected by those other products and vice versa? How many points can and how much more down payment?”

You want them to know all of that stuff. Some of those loans will have restrictions based on the CC&Rs, which is all the HOA rules for condominiums, townhouses and PUDs. If you have a mortgage broker who understands investing, they’ll know the right questions to ask, and they’ll also know how to guide you as far as what kinds of properties to look for. My loan officer asked me for all of the information that then he’ll say to me, “Moneeka, what’s going on out there? What would you expect those to be?”

Let’s say my HOA dues are $650, that’s going to take down the price of my house that I can buy by about $100,000. That’s calculated into the debt-to-income ratio. I have to pay that additional amount. If it’s only $200, it’s going to be a different thing. He knows to ask me that so that we don’t have an ugly surprise when we send it to the underwriter and they’re like, “There are these HOA dues that we did not calculate into the debt-to-income ratio. You don’t qualify for as much.” That’s one example.

When you talk about your loan officer, do you normally take loans from the bank or private investment companies are an option as well?

REW 34 | Choosing Bliss

Choosing Bliss: Advertising is designed to make you feel like you are not enough of a person; because of that, you need this product to be a better person.

 

You can do either one. I’ve done everything through the bank right now because it’s super easy. It’s streamlined, but I have a lot of different options as far as private money and other investment options too. I just haven’t taken advantage of them. That was all of that. Did you have any other questions on that stuff? I know I covered quite a lot there.

You answered all of those three. We covered finding the perfect property, getting that loan and the third one was applying for your second investment property. You told us about the conforming loans. That was very useful. The loan officer would be able to give us that information too.

If you’ve got a loan officer that is used to dealing with investors, then they’ll be able to give you all that information.

Thank you. That was super helpful, especially in the location, how important it is when you’re selecting your first property. Real estate investing is known as hassle-free, once you have the perfect property and things are going well. How do the ups and downs of the economy change that? Would it change in case the economy has some major changes?

The economy is a big question that people want to hear a lot about. I’ve done several shows on this. Here’s the thing that I always say about predicting the economy and predicting real estate’s movement. Someone out there is going to be right on their predictions, but we don’t know who that person is going to be. I talk about my experience of many years in real estate of what that looks like. I’ll talk to you a little bit about what my experience has been and what I have gleaned from that. It was either ‘87 or ‘89, my dad was paying for my college education through real estate and then the tax laws changed. Prop 13 came in California and they removed some of the tax benefits of being an investor.

The real estate property values plummeted. There were a lot of us that were in school at the time whose parents were paying through real estate. There was a lot of stress about money during that time. Things recovered and then the market started to march up. It was going up. It was doing phenomenally well because people adjusted and property values all recovered. In 2001, it was when we had our next crash. When I graduated from college and got married, my husband and I bought our first home with 5% down. Our property was going up. We took an equity line on that first property and we bought our second property, the beautiful home that we bought. We bought that in January of 2001. Right after that, the whole market crashed again.

We went along. We stayed in that property. I took another equity line. I bought a few more properties. In 2008, I bought my dream home. It was a million-dollar condominium on the top floor. In 2009, the market completely crashed again. My timing was not good. I wish my timing was better. I do think that it is wise if you can time the market. I’ve never been able to do it with any level of success, even so, we started our real estate investing journey with about $10,000. By twenty years later, I would have been able to retire, in spite of the fact that the market crashed twice during my journey in real estate.

The California market is volatile. We count completely on the appreciation. You’ll see that the properties are volatile. What we see mostly is properties in the very low-end and high-end tend to crash most often. In 2001, if it was below $200,000 and above $700,000, you would see a lot of volatility. If it was between that $200,000 and $700,000, it stayed fairly stable. It might have lost 5% or 10%. In 2008, it was a completely different thing because the crash was caused by a real estate-specific problem, which was the loan industry.

We saw all houses dropped fast. That particular phenomenon will hopefully never happen again. That was something that was real estate-specific. There was a problem with the banking system and we fixed that in many ways. That kind of crash is not likely to happen. Are we at the top of our economy? We’re pretty close. Real estate is going gangbusters here in California or Northern California in the Bay area. However, I don’t know how it’s doing in the rest of the country. I don’t think it’s going gangbusters the same way. One of the things that I’ve been giving advice to people and I have been given advice also is to look at markets like what you talked about where in Central Texas, for instance, the pricing stays stable even in 2008. When you are looking at that, what’s also going to be true is have the market values appreciated significantly since 2008?

They have, especially in areas like San Antonio and Houston. They’ve appreciated. There’s a lot of demand.

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If you can find a magic area like that, where it’s fairly stable, but then you’ve also seen a lot of appreciation, you’re going to have a good chance of not being heavily affected by the economy. Most areas that are not going to be affected by the economy as much are going to be places that are more cashflow places. What will happen is you’ll get a property that is going to cashflow right out of the gate, which you can never find in California. If the economy takes a turn, that cashflow will stay stagnant or will continue because people still need to rent homes. People are not flooding into those areas so the property is not going to necessarily go up high, but it’s also not going to go down very low. It’s going to stay fairly stable.

When you’re looking at an economy, you want to look more for those safer markets where you’re going to get some cashflow and that cashflow then offsets any loss that you could make or you could endure. Those markets are also likely to recover after if they take a 10% drop. If you’re investing in a place like California or an appreciation-focused market, you’re going to see a lot more volatility. What’s important then is to have the wherewithal. What I mean by that is liquidity. You want to have some cash, the emotional wherewithal and the mental mindset to hold on for the long-term. You want to make sure that if things go wrong, you have time to recover so that you can become right again. You need about a ten-year cycle to recover from a hard hit.

What you’re saying is location matters very much, especially if we’re seeing some uncertainties in the economy. Keep in mind that if you’re in an area that has substantial cashflow, that’s probably a better area to invest in.

I still want to buy property in California. This is the market that I love. I need to have a ten-year timeframe on that. I need to make sure that I don’t need to make money on that property right away. I want to make sure that I’m covering my mortgage and my expenses. If the market turns and I lose a significant amount on the property, if I’m upside down, then I can continue to pay that mortgage either through rents or by selling something that I have liquid. For instance, stocks or there might be other things that we have that are liquid, that we can then put into our real estate to sustain ourselves. I’ve been known to do that. When things go bad, I make sure that I can cover myself.

That’s great planning.

I tell people don’t put all of your money into real estate. It’s very solid. It’s the most secure investment on the planet, but there are times when it cycles also. It’s good to make sure that you’ve got some cash and some different things so that if you need liquidity, you’ve got that. The other thing I always say is always have an equity line taken out on your primary residence. You can’t get them on rental properties. That can also serve as an emergency fund if you need to pay mortgages or stuff on your rental properties. Don’t use it for things like vacations, buying a car and consumer debt. Use it to make sure that you’re sustaining your investment business so that you don’t end up losing properties if things turn and you need a little bit of help during that time.

I can’t believe how much information has value that I’ve been able to get out of your show and your readers too. You explained everything so beautifully and easy to understand. We could have asked for a better mentor than you.

Did you have any other questions before we close?

This is coming back to your book, your new habit, the beautiful letters to yourself. I wanted to know if you were planning to come up with a book on affirmation.

I’m not. Many people asked me that. There are many out there that are good. I’m a co-author of a book called Experts & Influencers: Women’s Empowerment Edition. It came out and we are doing their little quote cards. Each of us ladies that were in the book wrote six quotes and you can get a card deck with all of these quotes. If anybody is interested in a card deck, please email me and I can send that to you. It’s $20 per card deck, but you get 52 cards in any case. However many that you get, you get all of these quotes by powerful women that help you to empower yourself and live your best life.

REW 34 | Choosing Bliss

Experts & Influencers: Women’s Empowerment Edition

That sounds like an amazing deal. I wouldn’t want to miss that.

You can go to BlissfulInvestor.com. You’ll see my email address there. Let me know if you want some cards. This is a good conversation. Thank you so much for asking your questions. This can benefit my entire readers and all the ladies out there. Thank you for being willing to do that.

Thank you for being a great mentor to all of us ladies who tune in to your show regularly. I’ve got so much value from it. I’m coming from your knowledge in real estate investing to feeling like I’m learning so much and I’m ready to move ahead. Thank you for everything that you do.

It’s my pleasure. It’s comments like that that lets me know people are reading, and I love that. Thank you. It makes it all worthwhile.

I look forward to catching up with you soon. Thank you for this opportunity to ask you questions. I love your book and I’ve been recommending it to all in Sundry.

Ladies who are reading, I love doing this show and having the conversations that I get to have with these amazing experts. The reality is that I am doing this to be in service of you. If you have any questions, email me and maybe you can be on real estate investing for women as one of the guests. We can have another conversation like I had with Chai. It can help all the other readers too. There’s never a dumb question. All the questions that you’ve had, all the other people have had before you. Feel free, and other people have after you. Many readers have the same questions. Please let me know if you have any questions, and we can record a call and help all the ladies out there.

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When I read your book, every chapter touched something in me and the chapter that you mentioned about giving also touched a deep chord in me. You found a school in India that you donate and you help run. It’s been a dream of mine to do something like that to provide education and school. You found a school that makes your heart happy and you’re donating. How did you find your calling to serve this particular organization or this particular school? How did you know that this was the right fit?

There’s no real right answer. I want to mention how my husband found his, because he didn’t have a heart calling. One of the things he does is he goes online when he’s looking at an organization that feels like it resonates with something that he wants to donate towards. One of the things that he looks up is how much of the funds go to administration and charitable services. He’s always looking for organizations where most of the money goes to services rather than to the administration. That’s a tip-off the top of my head that he has always done.

I went to India when I was sixteen. I was a foreign exchange student. I was out and about and I was meeting people. One of the things that struck me was how the women in India were being treated as opposed to what I was used to in the United States. I would hear these horror stories about Sufi, about these arranged marriages of these girls that were very young and how girls didn’t get any education. There was all this stuff that horrified me. At a young age, I decided that I was not going to be like that. I was going to be the captain of my own life. Nobody was going to determine who I married, how and when. I was going to get an education. I determined those things for myself, but I also realized I had the freedom to do that in the US and that in India, women didn’t always have those options.

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I became committed early on to the education of women in India. One of the things that I was convinced of was that the more educated a woman is, the more likely she is to be able to make choices that are more supportive of her than if her life is completely run by her father and by people that were “more educated than her.” The other thing that I realized is that women can fight for their rights, but if we are constantly fighting against men who do not believe the same things, we can never win. It’s important that the education of men also supports the equality of women. Women need to know what is possible for them. Men need to understand and believe that women are equal to them.

I started donating to schools in India at the age of sixteen. I would do $5 a month. I started to donate to different schools in India that supported the education of women and the upbringing of women as equals. In the United States, we used to go to a temple. When I moved to California in 1976 or ‘77, my parents plugged into a Hindu temple that was up in Oakland. That particular Swami, we became close to. It was in 1987, he started this school in India. When we started talking about what the philosophy of the school was, I knew I had to get behind it.

That’s why I started donating quite a lot of money to help to support the school and those sorts of things. Because of that, I was able to impact also some of the direction of the school, the way that the approach was for the education of both girls and boys for the uplifting of women in India. I’m close to the Swami. I’ve gone to India and I did a little movie in the school. I’m involved. The thing that I loved most about it was that I knew the people that were running the organization and I knew what the accounts were.

They didn’t have a huge amount of administration. Most of the money was going towards the school or in the United States. It depends on where you donate. You can donate to the school or you can donate to the temple here in the United States for the upkeep of the building and the temple here. You can designate those funds. I see and I watch every single year more buildings go up. They get more computers, they’ve got more students, and there’s a new farm. It’s becoming a little bit more sustainable. They had to build a bunch of wells because their water levels went way down because their wells weren’t producing.

This is a thing that happens in many of the villages in India. We know that that’s another problem. I’ve been watching the whole thing and where the money goes, and that’s why I feel so committed to it because I know that it’s going to essential services. That’s how I made that choice. It happened as a process throughout my whole life. For David, he will find something that he wants to donate to and he’ll find an organization where most of the money goes to the essential services.

It sounded like it almost happened in a natural way for you. It unfolded naturally.

It did. It’s in my book. It’s one of my pillars of Bliss. It has defined so much of who I am because when you’re looking at the world for a way that you can help and that you can make it better when you’re making an impact, there’s something that happens inside of you. You’re not as a mercy of the world. You’re able to create impact and affect change. It feels empowering. It feels good on so many levels and it’s also helping the world. It’s that thing that we’re giving back. When you feel grateful for everything that you have, if you’re truly grateful, you want others to experience having some of the benefits that you have. Having the opportunity to do that makes you feel even more grateful. It also fills you up with this feeling of empowerment and feeling like you’re doing good things in the world. It’s always been integrated.

You’re making a difference.

In the book, one of the things that I talk about is making an impact is not about giving money to a school in India or Africa, or helping with a water system somewhere. It’s also holding a door for somebody. It’s giving somebody a smile if they seem to be having a bad day. It’s being kind. All of that is creating an impact in the world. It creates a ripple effect of kindness and bliss everywhere you go. That in itself is making an impact. It doesn’t have to be something big. It doesn’t have to be something monetary. It can be who you are being in the world when you’re out there with people.

It’s being aware of our behavior when we’re out there with people.

Practicing kindness and giving back in that way.

Thank you. I have a lot to write in my journal from our conversation.

Thank you for asking that question. That’s not anything I’ve talked about on this show. I’m sure the ladies will get a lot out of that. Ladies, thank you for taking this extra step towards your future, bliss, and financial freedom. Always remember, you do have control over your success. I’ll see you soon.

 

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