Krista: Are you ready to get fired up? Because I sure am. I've got Liz Phair class with me. And she is actually has her own podcast and has written a book on mother tell you all about her. So if you're interested in anything entrepreneurial, you are absolutely in the right place. Hi, Liz. Welcome.
Liz: Hi, Krista is so excited to be here. Thank you so much for having me on your show. I really appreciate it. Oh, so
Krista: you have your own podcast tell us a little bit about us. I was like people do their own kind of introductions. And I know sometimes it's kind of like you're afraid to brag, but I want you to this is your bragging says you need to brag about all your great accomplishments.
Liz: Do some bragging… well, professionally, I went to school to be a psychologist wanted to get my master's degree in social work. So I really wanted to open my own practice. And during my social work experience, my brother in law, who's the only entrepreneur I ever met, or knew growing up, not growing up, but even in my life, he started dating my sister. And he said, You got to read this book called Rich Dad, Poor Dad. And I like personal growth books. I was always like a, I don't know, my early 20s I was reading Awaken the Giant Within like, like most 20 year olds, right. And, um, and I say a lot of bad jokes. But um, he gave it to me. And it really got me thinking about my trajectory in my life. And I although I loved helping people, and I think I'm still a social worker by background. I'm like, maybe me I really like this thing called passive income. How do I how do I get that? And being a bit naive, start taking courses, my then boyfriend and I started taking courses at the local RIA meetings and start learning about investing and had no had no one in our family didn't have much, you know, money to even invest with my dad loaned us 30,000 On our first duplex that we bought those 16 years ago.
Krista: You started young, good for you.
Liz: Yeah. You know, I, my husband and I, when we were meeting, I was a little too focused. In some ways, Krista, I think I relaxed over the years in some ways, but I was really focused on, you know, him and I both wanted a bigger life. And we really wanted to contribute a lot. And we sit How can we do that? Well, we need to have create some financial freedom for ourselves and not just work for others. And we got really clear on that early on. Now, our path wasn't so like, Do this, do that do that. Are you financially free, that was not our path. It was a lot of twists and turns a lot of, you know, tough decisions, and, you know, mistakes along the way. But we both had that yearning early on. And then we basically built our business on multifamily. And we buy large, larger buildings. So we have about 60 million under management. And we are partners with a lot of people we raise money to buy larger buildings. But we we have over 200 investors now we work with and we own buildings in four states. And so we have a lot of different experience. But we've kind of went all in on that about eight years ago. Then along the way met my my now partner as well on dresser, her and I and the two couples were partnering together, doing flips doing a bunch of different things in real estate. And we'd always get together and say, “where are the other women in this business?” Because it can get a little lonely. So long story short, that was about I met her about six years ago, we started partnering. And about three years ago, we said let's let's really focus on supporting women and empowering women in this business. And we started the podcast called The Real Estate Investor show, which is now published by bigger pockets, which is the number one real estate investing podcast in the world in and that that grew into other things, from a membership to you know, doing a lot of different things to serve women. I'm still an active investor, but but my heart and passion is really serving women and helping them build their wealth. So we never have to rely on anyone else.
Krista: Yeah, so just you know, it's the real estate invest in her HER. So the real estate invest her HER … in case you're wanting to listen to her podcast, I was actually on it. We had a great time with it. And you also wrote the book, right? The woman in the room?
Liz: Yeah, so we just published a book called The only woman in the room. And it's 20 stories of women from different walks of life, different challenges they've had to work through some women focus on single family, some focused on multifamily. But a lot of them were went through a lot of really tough things. And so they share their journey and they share kind of how not just the tactics, right, because we can all learn how to flip a house or buy a rental property, but it's the journey, right? It's the journey, understanding how women prevailed, so to speak over some really, really tough things, you know, and so it kind of highlights 20 Women in you know, in the investing world, and their stories, and that kind of launched our publishing arm. So we're going to be publishing a book once a year, one book a year. And the goal is to give give women a voice and from a woman's perspective, and shine a light on their journey and speaking about something when it comes to investing.
Krista: Ah, that's it's that's, that's a lot of work. That's a big goal. You have a lot of code written for it. I'm just like, oh my gosh, look, he's like what you're gonna have three in the morning typing any notes Like he just looked over, I'm like, sorry, man. So, you know, for somebody that's maybe listening, you know, obviously, we have a lot of real estate agents and a lot of people in the real estate industry that are here, here, what are some tips and tricks you can give them when you know dealing with investors? Tip two is I remember when I was selling real estate, and if somebody would call, and it was an investor, I would be like, so turned off by it, because it was one of the these amazing good deals, and it was like all this work, and it wasn't even worth my time to do it. So I would never take them. Is there. Is there any advice or feedback you have on that?
Liz: Yeah, you know, it's interesting, because we talk on the other side to investors how to find investor friendly agents, right. And, and it is a it is a dance a little bit, because some of the agents are like, I don't want to get wasted. To your point, I don't want to get my time wasted by people who want things cheaply, because a lot of investors want a deal. And on the other hand, the investor doesn't really want the agent who doesn't really know, you know, can't serve them the way they need to be served. I think that that connection could be really powerful. Because number one, where I think the advantage of actually working with investors is that they're repeat customers, if they're serious investors, they can be repeat customers. So you're really developing, even if you help them in a market that's growing, they're going to tell all their investor friends, so so that one, one client can really become like an exponential referral agent to you. So I see the benefit of looking for now. Now, having said that, a lot of a lot of investors will call agents and the way to vet an investor, because this someone I could take seriously, if you ask them if the agent asked them, what your buying criteria, and they don't know how to answer that. They're like, Well, I'm looking for a good deal. And, you know, I'm looking in a few different markets, these seven markets, and you know, I'm looking for a single family, multifamily self storage facility, whatever works, like those are all really bad signs. So the more focused and the more they're really clear on their criteria, the more serious they're going to be, and they're not going to, you know, kick tires.
Krista: Give me some examples of criteria.
Liz: Yeah. So I would say, you know, how much how much are you looking to, you know, put to work, you know, so what's your what's your, you know, men of money you want to actually spend and or what type of value of property you're looking for. So, I'm looking for a vacation rental, and I call an agent, which is something that, you know, is one of my goals. We're very heavily in multifamily, but I really want to buy vacation rentals, so I can selfishly use maybe once or twice a week a year. So if I called them and they said, What's your buying criteria? I'd say, you know, I really want to be close to an airport, I want to be close I don't want to be in a major city I want to be in like an area that's a little more drivable all you know, drivable vacation areas, stable, close to like a park, but love to have a vacation or close to a park close to a number of, like, you know, I want to say amusements, but things that people want to go to that there's tons of people going to every year, the fourth would be the money part would be to say, Okay, I have 100 grand to put to work between downpayment and, you know, repairs. So I'm, I'm really looking for a house, that's probably 300,000, would be my comfort zone, in terms of, of price tag, if you and that's when value because I'd love to buy something and then actually be valued at 400 or something. So, you know, that undervalued property. So I think people who have a grasp of how much the you know, the property should be worth, or I'm sorry, how much do you want to spend and, you know, the ARD, so to speak, and also just the other criteria. And sometimes you don't know all those things, but if at least you have some, because I don't know vacation rentals, so I can't say I want this return or I because I'm learning right? That's a multi but so for me to have like 19 things in an area that I don't know, it'd be weird, but at least the generalities because now I've thought about the money part, I've thought about the implementation.
Krista: Now what about okay, that sounds awesome. I was like, No, these are kind of questions that agents are thinking right. So you know, the kind of things that investors are thinking and worried about. Yeah. Now what about somebody that's, that's listening and whether it be a man or woman, obviously, your, your, your client avatars as women, but they're nervous about investing because of the crash, right? We had the crash in obviously, you know, and some people, I heard the statistic that 60% of people who went to foreclosure have not re entered the market. And which is crazy. It seems so high to me, but what about people that are afraid of the market crashing or, you know them? You know, it? Something happening with there's a fear behind investing?
Liz: Yeah, absolutely. And, you know, I think when when you talk to friends, you talk to people, everyone's going to have an opinion. So my first recommendation is always always be talking to like active investors are what are they doing? Are they buying are they selling, are they you know, and I think that's something Always good advice. Like, if I wanted to start a business, am I gonna talk to my uncle or aunt that never start a business? I don't think so I'm gonna feel discouraged. So just watch the advice we get from people, you know, even if they're in the real estate industry, they if they're not actually active investors, I would be, just be mindful of that. But more importantly, to it's like, I often say, you always want to look at a market, what happened in 2008. So you have the COVID, you know, pandemic, which was something none of us ever expected, and even didn't have our heads around multifamily actually remained extremely, you know, stable and actually grew, a lot of our a lot of our portfolio grew during COVID, where people thought the opposite. So it has so much to do with the market, right? It has so much to do, if it's struggling before COVID, we were going to have challenges during COVID. Obviously, people not paying their rent, depending on where the buildings located, you know, all the different things happening. So, but I'm always a big fan of looking at what happened, if I'm looking at a particular market, Sam, looking at Alabama, or, you know, wherever I want to look at what happened in that market. During the last crash, last crash, like what really happened in that particular market, some markets kind of stayed the same, you know, stable, some took a really big dip, some maybe grew steadily. We were doing looking at a development in the town, I actually live in a little town called New Hope, Pennsylvania. And it actually, it actually not only stabilized, but actually went up like by 5% during the last crash. So made us feel a lot more. Okay, you know, so, so I think this has been before COVID Whenever when he kept talking about the crash coming, another crash coming. And we're like, that's really that's real, we're going to be building new, you know, townhomes, and there's so much talk in terms of economic, you know, you know, people, you know, economics sort of speak saying that there's gonna be a crash. But you do want to look at every markets different, you know that best. So you want to know what happened in that market. And not just in that market, but with your particular asset class. So if it's single family homes versus multifamily, they're different. And yours, there's a different there's a different results. So just be mindful of that and actually look at the past, to dictate some of the future because if it remains stable, then and again, COVID has such a uniqueness to it. But you know, if you can get a good price right now, and you're not getting taken and not spending too much, then this is a great time. And that's just the thing you need to be mindful of is know your know, your price points, because you don't want to overspend because I see that happening so much right now.
Krista: And plus you're in it for the long haul, right? So it's like, even when when the crash hit people that kept their properties and just paid off the mortgage, you know, then they still have that asset. Now the property is gone, obviously backup and they're using it, you know, to make it pencil. Absolutely, yeah, so that's good. I wait, gosh, we we crashed 75% In my area 75%. We It was insane. You know, and and as we both know, all the reasons why the crash happened, you know, those those variables aren't happening anymore. You know, all the reasons people are always asking, when's the crashing like, versus tick tock video, just just like, what is the crash could be three months, and I'm like, Oh, really, it could be six months could be two years, it was just super funny tick tock, because nobody really knows. And it may never, you know, I don't personally think it'll ever happen like it did before when it was just so so bad. But
Liz: I guess and I would say to one of our biggest purchases to date, which was a 334 unit. And again, we do this with investors, we work with a lot of other people. So by no means just me, my husband taking these projects down, but we bought it during COVID. And the first buyer, you know, fell out. And just because so when there's a lot of, I don't wanna say like a lot of fear. But there's a lot of uncertainty is sometimes the best times to buy to because, I mean, you can observe the masses and do the opposite. I mean, because most people are going, why don't want to do that. And then meanwhile, there's so many opportunities to be had, if you're smart, if you're conservative, you know, all those things.
Krista: It's so surprising how well it's done during recovery. There's just no inventory. So I mean, gosh, we were selling properties for $100,000 over list price, and it's it's starting to kind of slow down and we learn a bit more normal, still under a month, amount of inventory under one month, so it doesn't it still appears to be a super crazy seller's market, but people are getting nervous that it's not selling with, you know, 15 offers and 87 showings in the first hour. So, um, so let's talk a little bit about like, your journey and your path and sort of, you know, right now, people look at you and they say you have your own podcasts, and you have all these rentals, and you're, you're doing so well. And you're leading these women and talk a little bit about, you know, you know, the entrepreneurial journey because I think people they forget that, you know, with every hardship is an opportunity. Right. And so we can talk a little bit about that.
Liz: Yeah, absolutely. So so when I want to just reverse engineer when, when my husband I decided to really focus on real estate He ended up quitting his job. So it was right when we got married. And 2005. And so one of us needed to pay the bills and all those important things as adults, right. And so I took a consulting job in sales and consulting, and really just helping companies with their employees. And it was like team building, most like, you know, kind of management consulting, if you will. So I did that for over a decade, as I helped my husband, and we worked in real estate, I was the full, I was kind of the consultant on one hand, and he was, you know, the full time investor. So I learned how to, like be a consultant, you know, and moving from a consultant to an entrepreneur, full time entrepreneur, was a really big transition for me. I mean, you think about your, as a consultant, the more you worked, more clients I had, the more I traveled, the more money I made. So literally, I traded my time for money to the tee, right. And the whole point of becoming, you know, an investor and an entrepreneur and really moving from from not to have to do, yeah, as the opposite. So I had to really look in the mirror and say, you know, I really need to, and quite honestly, when I, when I started working my husband, I worked with him. And we knew that just long term him and I day to day working together wasn't the best fit for our marriage to be perfectly frank, I love him dearly. And I've always been totally get it, I love my husband, you know, want to work with him, you know, every day. Day in and day out, you know, so, the last several years, I had my son, and I've been doing a lot of soul searching, and then coming together with Andressa. You know, stepping into this, you know, real leadership role, right? A real startup, we started this as a passion. We started this with a podcast, like, if women, you know, even wanted something like this, and it's proved to okay, there's women who want need different things, and we're, we're here to serve them. So, you know, it's really allowed me it's quite honestly confronted me on where I need to grow. For example, you know, even partnering with someone, I mean, you cannot, if you're partnering with anyone, and it's for the long term, you have to look at yourself in the mirror.
Krista: It's a marriage. In fact, you spend time to spend more time with your partner to do with your husband.
Liz: And so like, I realized things about myself were, how am I with more direct people call my with less direct people? Where am I quieter? Or do I need to step up and really speak my truth? Where do I second guess myself, you know, and really kind of owning my own power? I know that sounds really like, wow, didn't you figure that out? 15 years ago, but I think as we evolve, I've really in the last several months have come to like, some peace and some constant like working on my own, like emotional health. I work out a Bose workout, meditate, and I you know, growing young children and like, but I honestly, now I'm in my 40s I'm like, you know, mid 40s I'm like, I got to I got to really work on myself as a leader. And and what does that look like to live, whether that means everyone's different, some people have to speak up, some people have to speak a little differently, and everyone has different things to work on. But myself as a leader is what I'm really constantly working on, and how I can adapt and shift and quite honestly, oh, my own power. And I think a lot of women, especially women, I think, you know, men, sure, I'm certainly but I can only speak because I know I work with a lot of women. But owning our power is really important, especially for the role that we're in, versus like, I'm not an order taker, I'm not taking orders from anyone, we're literally creating things out of nothing, right? Totally different than me serving a company. So that's been a journey for me, and I don't, it's not over. And I do a lot of work on myself. I see a therapist, you know, honestly, and I'm very open about that. Because my mental health and emotional health will only be allow me to be a better servant to the women in our community. And I want to impact a lot of people. So I need to be a bigger person and a bigger person, I need to be a better version of myself. And I'm a great person, I kind of like myself, but there's days I'm like, I I need to work on this. I got to step up here. Oh,
Krista: So we're always evolving in trying to be is never stopping right like to be. We're never going to be the best version of ourselves. Because we're always trying to continue to do more. It's funny a lot of things you say we have so much in common because I have a master's degree in industrial psychology. I was gonna be a psychologist as well. And I thought I don't want to do this, right. So I am I actually used to work in a pharmacy and I dealt with people that would come in and I was like, I don't want to deal with those kind of people on a daily basis. So I changed my my career altogether and became a teacher. And it's just it's just funny to hear you and I totally agree. I mean, for me, I'm constantly trying to, you know, work on leadership and leadership. A year and a half ago, I had to really look in the mirror and say, Krista, you need to improve your leadership skills. I had two people leave my company. And I looked in the mirror and I said you need to be a better leader. You're You're, you're you're treating your team members, like you're expecting too much out of them and they have families and they have lives and they're not You and they don't work like you. And this isn't their company. And so my word for the year was refinement, and leadership. And I will tell you by making by looking at myself and saying, you know, you lost these people, and this happened because of your own leadership and really, truly looking in the mirror and owning that I needed to improve. We have like, just completely just crushed the past year and a half during a worldwide pandemic, and it's because of the leadership. So I really, really appreciate that you say that, and that you said that it is a constant work. And, um, gosh, I've been going to counselors forever, you know, it's like, and I bought a medicine about it's like, we're human. And we have we have problems. I always tell people in my communities, like, Hey, I'm a coach, and I'm really great at inspiring and motivating and helping, but I'm also a human, and I make mistakes. And sometimes I yell at my husband, I do things that I shouldn't do to my kids, I'm like, Oh my gosh, you know, it's like, it's called being human. And I love the fact that you're so open about that, because, you know, I think vulnerability and transparency is just so so important. So thank you so much for that. Yeah. Um, yeah. So what else would you like? I mean, I know you, you know, we had a great conversation when I was on your podcast. Again, her podcast is the real estate, invest HER. All one word, so you can look that up? And, you know, just what are some of the things that you some of the episodes that you've recorded that you found, people have gotten the most, like they've just their most?
Liz: That's a good question. You know, it's funny, because so many times in the podcast world, you know, people, you know, you're like, oh, this this person has an amazing following or their they have a really, you know, well recognized name. But honestly, the, the episodes that resonate with a lot of women, or women of the what we're interviewing get really real, and vulnerable, and just share about their journey. Because it's like anything, why we create what we did, you know, in terms of a community and why we want to see more women keynoting at conferences, which is really important to us versus them being on a panel. Just noise me I want women to be keynoting is because when we see someone like us, whatever that means to you. There's more possibility and us that's get gets kind of, you know, to your to your amazing title of your podcast gets fired up. But until you see that person, it was like Oprah Winfrey, right? Who Oprah Winfrey saw Barbara Walters, when Oprah Winfrey was, was a young child, and she saw Barbara Walters, interviewing someone else, which is a big deal, right for women, you know, to be prominent on TV, and that created this spark in Oprah Winfrey, right. You know, so what if that didn't happen, we wouldn't have Oprah Winfrey. So my point saying that is I think the women that women can relate to, and that are just normal people that quite honestly deal with everything we all deal with, but have overcome those things, and have created really amazing things in their life, I think, really inspire other women. There was a woman, I'm thinking of Gertrude, on our podcast early on, and I love having a community and a tip for anyone that wants to build something. We started a Facebook community the same time we did a podcast, because think about a podcast, right? We're talking to people, but we wanted to be in conversation with people. So we started a Facebook community simultaneously. And there was a woman that that applied to be in, you know, just answered a few questions that we have for the Facebook group. And she said, Oh, I, I bought 72 doors in 13 months. And I'm not even from this country. And I'm like, I got to interview her for the podcast, of course, you know, and that was my first podcast, and I'm so grateful for it. And she's the most humble, like, but but strong lady, no question like she has, everyone has their strength in different ways. And she's just, she's great. She figured out how to do it and just her ability to come to this country and then you know, she's not even from here, I'm going to be able to create that kind of wealth for her and her family and is really inspiring. And that's the kind of things that I think we're all about is like, it's not, you know, this perfect thing. It's like a journey, and there's ups and downs, but people figure it out and you can do you know, and this is how you can figure it out.
Krista: Authenticity is so so true. It's just people really appreciate just being authentic especially now with all the social media that we have. And people are you know, just always trying to be so perfect and I I always try to impress that like let's be perfectly imperfect and just take action just go and just be yourself and you'll resonate with the right with the right people you know, so it's super super, super, super powerful. So um, I just I so you teach people actually how to actually find the homes and the type of deals to get in what to look for and the type of return on investment teach them from A to Z all of that and yeah, because you're buying all over the place.
Liz: Yeah, we we buy mostly on the east coast but you know, the kind of community We are interested I have built from because we have meetups across the country. We just we wanted to develop a way that women online and offline can connect with each other and give and get. So we have over 50 meetups literally for free women can go to across the country. And there's this local circles of women coming together to support each other. And why people are like wise, and it's a safe space. And you know what I mean by that, where women don't always feel like they can ask the questions they want not to made feel like they're morons. Or it's the old boys club, quite honestly.
Krista: Still how much of that exists, you know, it's just there's, there's still so much of it that I just spoke on the stage. And I was one of the few women and I'm, I can't say any women were like, it was so nice to see you up there. There wasn't really any women. I was like, I noticed that too, you know, but then and then certain people are really conscious of in trying to, you know, be so I really appreciate that when, when it's not I just I was on Russell Brunson saying she was very, very, you know, aware of different ethnicities and female and male was so so great. What he had done it was really, really nice.
Liz: As an example of that, like we have a we have a property in North Carolina. Now North Carolina is pi more the south come from the northeast, yes. But regardless, we have an all female team there, our property management team. And, and I'm not going to all of our property managers are great. We work with a few. But this team is particularly all women. So the woman who runs the runs the whole property is a woman, the property maintenance director. Normally a man is a woman, young woman. And then there's two, I think there's two guys who report to her. So it's very interesting. I was like, so I went down there we're visiting and doing a walkthrough. There's a lot of units being turned. And so I say, Can I interview the maintenance director, I love to interview her. I got to interview her. I don't see that all the time. And it's just so awesome. You know, so she was so cute. Like, I'm a little nervous about this. She was so nervous. So I said, um, tell me about your journey. Like how did you she'd like knows everything you want to know about back like, I've never heard anyone talk about HVAC systems the way I've hurt. And then me mom, like, tuned in? I don't understand it. Yeah. And it's like, wow. But she was so eloquent and knew what she was doing and so competent. I said, what? I didn't lead her here. But I said, all of the residents here received your leadership. I'm just I was just curious. I didn't know what what that was gonna turn into. I was curious. She does. A lot of them have totally welcomed me there one day, they love me. And I'm very competent in my team's competence. I've gotten a few residents who have refused me to come into their apartment because I'm a woman. And they told me that they said, Please don't come in, I will only see a man because a woman doesn't know much about maintenance. This was like a few months ago, this wasn't a 1970 1960s. This is literally a few months ago. And she's like, I don't get it a lot. But it's a handful of residents here. And I said, wow, you know, and when people say they don't see that or hear that anymore? And what's the even purpose? What's the purpose of having a woman's community? Is that even necessary? Yeah, it is. Because it's not about why I'm so why we're so passionate, what we do is that it's not about, like circling all these women, and then having women only talk to women only in the world. It's about building everyone's confidence, giving and getting having a safe space, so that they can work with wherever they want to work with whomever they want to work, but there's a level of confidence and camaraderie and support that you're getting that is really amazing. You know, that's what it's about. To me. It's not about like, a secret society that women only work with women.
Krista: Yeah, you know, so, gosh, it's like, we just, I love it. But we I have majority of my company is is women. And it's not even, I don't mean it to be that way. You know, it's just it just tends to be and so I I'm trying to hire men, you know, but at times, but women are this awesome workers. So I have to say. Okay, so I always end the podcast by just asking you, you know, if you were to give any piece of advice, but whether it be personal, or whether it be business, you know, what would that advice be to people?
Liz: I would say Never give up. I know, that's very cliche. But there's been so many times, I didn't even get get into this interview of, you know, money, like a mini Bernie Madoff situation happening to us. And our investors were like that hundreds of 1000s of dollars were still stolen from us getting sued like really tough things that are not pleasant things. And there's so many moments that you're like, these things happen, and you constantly look at yourself and say, I'm the right person to be doing this. And I think you are first off into it just can't give up and learn from it. You know, and get up that next day and figure it out. Because there's a lot of people that need you. And so that's been a big learning for me. It's just never give up. And that's the key to our success and all the ups and downs, especially my husband I had early on in our business because a lot of them.
Krista: Yeah, I love it. You say that? I mean, that's that's so true. It is. It might sound cliché, but it's the truth, right? I mean, everyone experiences hardship, just matter of how you go under, over through and around them and how you deal with him. Liz, thank you so much. I just really enjoyed interviewing you. And I know that our listeners have and I again, I want to encourage you to go listen to Liz, the real estate, investher show on podcast and listen this this will be really great. And just thank you and anything you want to leave us with?
Liz: No, thank you so much for having me, Krista. I hope with anything we do. That we inspire to inspire one more woman to create financial freedom for themselves. So yeah, go for it. Take some steps. We have a lot of free resources and we have some other neat resources in our membership but we have a lot of free things you could just jump into and start taking action
Krista: I love it. Okay, everyone remember, listening is great. I want to thank you so much for your time. It means the world to me that you gave us your time. So thank you for that. But implementation is key listening won't help you got to actually take action. So thank you so much and I hope you are just as fired up as I am.
