How To Pick The Strategy That Is Right For You! Journal #7 Real Estate for Women
How are you going to choose the real estate strategy that is best for you? Our strategies can change over time as our needs change. That’s what’s going on for Moneeka Sawyer right now, which is why she’s trying something new. In this journal entry, she shares how and why she picked the strategy she is focusing on. How about you? Have you chosen your strategy, and did it work for you? Per your request, Moneeka is doing a “starting something new” video journal. This is entry #7 where you can learn real-time what goes through her mind when she’s starting a new project – how she makes decisions, how she deals with her fears, what factors she considers. Perhaps this will give you some ideas on how you can approach starting something new. Please email Moneeka with your thoughts, feedback, and insights. If you would like a replay of the webinar I mention in this episode, just go to https://blissfulinvestor.com/borwebinarreplay.
—
Listen to the podcast here
How To Pick The Strategy That Is Right For You! Journal #7 Real Estate for Women
Real Estate Investing For Women
We’re doing another journal entry. I’d like to talk a little bit about how to pick the exact right strategy for you. This is such an interesting topic. We talk about this a lot whenever I teach a course or we did this in the summit that happened earlier in 2020. I have gone on a completely what might look like a tangent. One of the questions that I got from one of you was, “Everything that we’ve heard, you focus on executive properties. You like to have very few doors.” That’s been my strategy. It keeps me blissful. “Why all of a sudden, have you decided to move to the BOR method with Roger?”
I want to talk about why I’m doing it and hopefully, that’ll give you an insight into how I chose to pursue this strategy. Here’s the truth. Every single week, I talk to another amazing expert on my show and I can’t help but get shiny object syndrome. There are many opportunities and cool things that we can do. One of my highest values is to learn more and to do new things and to have it venture. I’m tempted by all the different opportunities that come across my desk when I’m talking to people on my show. I can’t pursue all of them so I have to pick. You have to pick which ones you’re going to pursue.
I’m sure you go through the same things like, “This is another amazing idea,” but there’s only so much money that you have. There’s only so much time. How do you know if that strategy is for you? I have jumped both feet in with Roger. Let me tell you exactly how and why I chose to do that. When I look at a strategy, first of all, I look at, “Does it make sense financially? Am I excited about it?” In this particular case, I know you ladies have heard that I’m in an appreciation market. I have a ton of equity in the homes here in California, and now I’m looking to change to a cashflow strategy. Cashflow is not something that I’m good at. It’s not something that I focused on.
I made quite a lot of cashflow, but it’s happened because I’ve owned properties for a very long time. So much of my success has been because I’ve given myself the time to be right. A lot of the cashflow has come because I’ve owned these properties for a long time. The rents have gone significantly higher than what I pay in my mortgages and my expenses. I made cashflow, but I don’t make the kind of cashflow I could make if I better utilize the equity in these homes. This is a learning curve for me. I’m taking a look at what kind of strategy can I do to retire David? I’m looking at retiring in 2 or 3 years. For me, retirement is being able to retire David, so we can travel more, replace his income.
There are many opportunities and cool things that we can do. You have to pick which ones you're going to pursue. Click To TweetI feel like I’m already retired. I’m already doing exactly what I want with my time. I’m cool with it. To be able to free up my husband and release us from the need of his income so that when we feel like taking vacation, we can. When we feel like taking a day off, we can. When we feel like there’s a different priority, like my parents or his parents, we can make that a priority. That’s what I’m talking about is trying to replace my husband’s income. If we’re going to do that, what am I going to do? On this show, we’ve had a lot of people talk about how to buy property. Here’s one thing that’s also interesting. Because we’re in COVID, lending practices have changed dramatically. I’m not able to get loans at all. Even before COVID, I was having trouble because I already have five loans in California. The way the laws work, when you have more than five loans, things become very expensive.
Those loans, I don’t qualify for it. It’s a roundabout way of saying that getting loans is not an option for me now. That will hopefully change and I’m okay with it. I was looking for ways to invest that did not require regular traditional lending. I’ve looked at some things, there are courses that you can take on private money. You’ve read that on my show. There are courses that we can take on no money down. You’ve read that on my show. There are a lot of different things that we can do. I’ve taken some courses. They’re all good. One of the things that I found is that I take the course and it’s good, but I’m not inspired enough to take action. This is a Moneeka problem.
I’m not inspired enough to take action. One of the things that I know for sure is that if I’m not inspired to take action, there’s something in that strategy that goes against my core values. One of my core values is freedom. I feel like I’ve spent the last many years paying my dues. I’ve done a lot of learning. I’ve done a lot of calling. I’ve done a lot of putting together systems. I’ve done a lot of stuff. I’m not particularly excited about taking on a full-time job again to create a new system, to make another strategy work for me. This is a Moneeka problem and not all of you, ladies, are in that same place, but I’m trying to show you that I’m recognizing my faults and the places where I fall down.
I need to find a strategy that allows for that. I am not one to fight myself because the more I fight myself, there’s another part of me that digs in my heels and says, “I don’t want to do that.” I’m spoiled. I needed to find a strategy that aligned with my lifestyle that I like and my core values. When I talked to Roger initially about the Buyer’s Club, there were a couple of things that he said that allowed me to consider this as a possibility. First of all, it required very little money. I had some money put aside that I could invest. I couldn’t buy anything here in California. I needed to get loans if I was going to do that, but I did have this cash that I could use.
The Right Investing Strategy: There’s only so much money and time that you have. How do you know if that strategy is for you?
One of the things that was amazing was that the full price of the house, I could buy several of them with the money that I had put aside. We’re taking a look at sort of the specifics of the strategy. That was good. The other thing that I loved is that basically, I could buy the property for very little money and then I would carry a note. We sell it as a seller carryback. I carry the note of the loan for the person that buys it. They’re purchasing it with a seller financing deal contract. The nice thing about notes is that they’re very low risk. I have this property, I carry a note, that’s a very low risk. It makes me less vulnerable, which I love.
The other thing is I don’t like having to manage my properties. Up until now, I’ve always had executive properties because I don’t like having to manage the properties. I like the tenant to manage the property. If someone is buying the house and I carry the note, now I’m the bank. They are responsible to manage the property and fix it up and do all of those things. Here’s an example of what I mean. If you buy a home and you get a loan, somebody carries the loan. Let’s say one of the banks, Bank of America carries the loan. If something goes wrong in the house, like a light bulb goes out or you need a new kitchen appliance or the tub gets all blocked up or the toilet starts to overflow, you don’t call Bank of America and say, “Come out here and fix this. This is a problem in the house.”
Bank of America is going to say, “Why are you calling me?” They are carrying the note. They’re just the lender. In this particular strategy, that’s exactly what’s happening. I become the lender and not responsible for all of those things in that house. That’s also amazing. It’s low maintenance. It’s aligned with the way that I like to own properties and make cashflow. I don’t have to manage the property. I love that. It’s very low risk and it’s a high return on investment between 33% and 52% or something like that, depending on the property and how you structure the deal. That’s all stuff that Roger will teach. Anybody who’s doing this with me, don’t worry about all of that languaging. Those are the things that I love.
The key here is that it’s a cashflow property. I can take the equity from a home, invest it and then I get a huge amount of cashflow relative to what I’ve invested. I can do that. I can scale it so I can make the income that I need to make to replace my husband’s income as a software programmer. There are many amazing things. There are a lot of good reasons to do it, but those reasons are reasons. That’s all intellectual. The reason that will more than anything else keep me moving forward in a strategy and keep me motivated and help me when times get rough, because no matter what business you’re doing, no matter how good it looks, there are going to be things that go wrong, challenges, rough spots and bad days.
No matter what business you're doing, no matter how good it looks, there are going to be challenges, rough spots, and bad days. Click To TweetThe thing that helps me to move forward on that, first of all, is I have a lot of confidence because I use my bliss strategies regularly. I’m well practice of those and you should get there too so that when challenges happen, I have strategies that will help me to keep myself low stress and calm so that I’m resourceful and I can find ways to fix problems in a way that doesn’t make me crazy or make me lose sleep at night. That’s one of the things. The other thing is to know how this fit into my core values. I’ve said this many times before and I want you to see how this works in my own life. Your core values are going to be the things that determine whether something is aligned with you or not, whether you’re going to feel pulled or whether you’re going to feel aligned.
When something goes wrong, are you going to want to dig your feet in because you’re stressed out or are you going to be pulled forward because it’s a beautiful alignment with who you are and what you want? The best way to do that is to look at your core value. Let’s do that. Some of my top three core values are learning, adventure and trying new things, and giving back. How does this strategy fit into that? First of all, it’s new. There’s a lot of learning that needs to happen. I love that. It’s not complicated, but there is learning and there is expansion. This is the very first time I’m looking at investing out of state. I’ve looked at it a couple of different times with turnkey and stuff like that. I probably will pursue that when I have more cash.
For me, the turnkey thing is not viable because I can’t get loans and that’s what I would need to do. For now, that’s not an option for me, but what I can do is this. I’m going to learn about investing out of state. I’m going to learn about a cashflow strategy, which I’ve never focused on before. There’s a lot of learning for me that I’m excited about, and it’s not going to take a huge amount of time. That’s the other thing is I like to learn. I like to have adventure, but I don’t want it to consume my life and stress me out. It’s not so much that it’s going to consume my life, stress me out, make me feel stupid, but there’s enough that it engages my mind, my heart and my excitement. That’s the other thing about adventure. I like to try new things. This is something new for me.
The other thing is giving back. Everything that I’ve invested in, with one exception, is in a redevelopment area. I like to invest in areas where I’m uplifting the community, where I’m creating something fabulous for a neighborhood that needs that new energy. Most of my homes are executive homes. I put somebody in there, uplift a neighborhood, buy a place, fix it up, put in people that are going to love the home as if it’s their own. I uplift the community. In this particular case, I’m creating housing for people that are on the opposite side of the spectrum. In one place, I’m doing executives and on the other side, this is people that are in trade jobs.
The Right Investing Strategy: Your core values are going to be the things that determine whether something is aligned with you or not
They’re in the trades. They’re doing a lot of the manual labor. They’re in construction. They’re doing things with their hands. How is it possible that I can use one strategy with executives and that this works? Here’s the thing. This plugs into my desire to uplift communities and to give back and to help people. I’m buying a place that has been auctioned off. It’s boarded up. It’s often an eyesore in the neighborhood and that’s true with my executive properties. That’s the kind of properties I often buy there too. I don’t usually buy them from auctions. I buy them as REOs from banks. Here, I’m buying it from an auction house. When I purchase that place and I sell it to somebody, they’re going to go in and fix it up because they purchase it.
I sell it as is. They purchase it. I carry the note. Now, they’re responsible to fix it up. They take down the boards, fix it up, make it livable for them and their family. That then uplifts the neighborhood. Here’s the other piece. Roger told me in one of our conversations, and I think he said it in our webinar. He said he once sold one of these places to a husband and wife of an adorable little family in Florida. When they went over to sign the contract and turn over the keys, the woman started crying. She had a tiny little baby in her hands and she was pregnant with the next child. She was standing in the driveway and she started to cry and Roger was like, “What’s wrong? What happened?”
She says, “These are tears of joy.” When her first baby was born, there were many medical problems, they didn’t have the right coverage, and they were buried in medical bills. After that, they’re paying off their medical bills. She couldn’t even fathom ever being able to own a home for her beautiful little family. Now, here she is, signing a contract and getting keys to her very own home. Roger has 5 or 6 of these stories that he can rattle off the top of his head. I’m sure there are more. His thing was, “I want to be a part of more of those stories,” and I’m with him. I want to be a part of those stories. I want to give back to communities and I want to uplift people’s lives.
This is an opportunity to create housing for people that normally wouldn’t be able to get housing. It’s amazing to me. After taking a look at all the different opportunities that are out there for me and narrowing it down to a few, and then looking at this one with Roger, I was able to dive all in, into this strategy because it aligns with who I am, what I need in my business, whether the numbers work. What do I need? What are my goals? What are my resources? What’s my emotional desire around this and what are my core values? What’s my big why? This particular strategy aligns with all of those things. Of course, I’m all in. No matter what level of frustration there is, no matter how much I have to learn, this feels like a full body, “Yes.”
That may not be true for you. You’ve read a lot of our strategies on my show and out there in the world. This strategy may not be good for you, but when you’re looking at a strategy for yourself, when you’re looking for a way to invest in real estate, take these things into consideration. What is your goal? What do you need? What’s your big why? What’s your emotional desire? What are your resources, time, and money, and ability to get loans in my case, your relationships? What are your core values and how does this line up? That’s why I needed the choices that I’ve made about choosing this new strategy to create the cashflow that I’m looking for in my life. How are you going to do it in the future when you’re looking at a strategy for yourself? Think about that.
I hope this was helpful. I hope this gave you an idea of what’s going on for me and how you can utilize that in your own life. If you happen to be interested in joining me in the Buyer’s Club with Roger so that you can do this same thing, you can listen to our webinar that we have a replay of. To do that, go to BlissfulInvestor.com/borwebinarreplay. Whenever you have any questions, please email me and then either Roger or I will respond. The other thing is I do teach a lot of this stuff about how to determine what strategy is best for you. I’m talking about core values, resources, your big why, all of those things. I do teach that stuff because it’s such a big piece of what my coaching has always been, whether it was with executives or with coaches or with you, ladies.
Real estate investors in my coaching for the last many years, I’ve always used that as a very first jumping off place for people. It’s the foundation. If you’re interested in that, email me and I can send you some links to some coursework you can take a look or you can go to BlissfulInvestor.com, go to courses or events is also another place to look. You can take a look at the coursework that’s available and see if that might be interesting to you. No pressure. You can go with what I’ve talked about. I pretty much summed it up. I hope that was super helpful, ladies. Please let me know if you have any questions. Always remember, goals without action are dreams. Get out there, take action and create the life your heart deeply desires. I’ll see you soon.
Important Links
Love the show? Subscribe, rate, review, and share!
Join the Real Estate Investing for Women Community today:
Moneeka Sawyer is often described as one of the most blissful people you will ever meet. She has been investing in Real Estate for over 20 years, so has been through all the different cycles of the market. Still, she has turned $10,000 into over $5,000,000, working only 5-10 hours per MONTH with very little stress.
While building her multi-million dollar business, she has traveled to over 55 countries, dances every single day, supports causes that are important to her, and spends lots of time with her husband of over 20 years.
She is the international best-selling author of the multiple award-winning books “Choose Bliss: The Power and Practice of Joy and Contentment” and “Real Estate Investing for Women: Expert Conversations to Increase Wealth and Happiness the Blissful Way.”
Moneeka has been featured on stages including Carnegie Hall and Nasdaq, radio, podcasts such as Achieve Your Goals with Hal Elrod, and TV stations including ABC, CBS, FOX, and the CW, impacting over 150 million people.