Closing the “Investing Gap” and Getting Started

Mindy:
Welcome to the BiggerPockets Money Podcast, where we interview Liz and Andresa from the Real Estate InvestHER podcast, and talk about why women should be investing in real estate. Hello, hello, hello. My name is Mindy Jensen and with me, as always, is my punny co-host Scott Trench

Scott:
Pun. I don’t know how to make a pun about punny, Mindy, that’s not helpful.

Mindy:
Wow, I finally stumped Scott. Woohoo.

Scott:
Ugh.

Mindy:
Well, Scott and I are here to make financial independence less scary, less just for somebody else, to introduce you to every money story because we truly believe financial freedom is attainable for everyone, no matter when or where you are starting.

Scott:
That’s right. Whether you want to retire early and travel the world, go on to make big time investments in assets like real estate, start your own business or learn about massive multi-trillion dollar opportunities and challenges and problems in the market. We’ll help you reach your financial goals and get money out of the way so you can launch yourself towards those dreams.

Mindy:
Scott, I’m super excited to bring in Liz and Andresa from our sister show, our truly sister show, The Real Estate InvestHER podcast. I love their name, I love them, I love their vision. I love their… What is the word I’m looking for? Their business. They really truly want to encourage women to start investing in real estate. And every time I think about women investing in real estate, I’m reminded of this race car quote from one of the first women race car drivers who was getting a lot of hassle about being a woman race car driver. And she’s like, “What? I don’t carry the car around the track. I just drive it.” And women aren’t carrying the houses, they’re just buying them. They’re just investing in them. You could do anything a man can do. And I think that brings up a good point, Scott. We are not here… The purpose of the show is not to like trash men as investors. It is to just encourage women to say, you can do it too.

Scott:
Yeah. I don’t think there’s anything in here that speaks against men participating in the market. It’s just, I think the theme today is women have a lot of wealth to invest and that is going to increase over time. And on average women have very low confidence in their ability to invest that wealth. And that is, I think, the crux of the problem, and I think Liz and Andresa have a great plan or great frameworks for how to combat that at large scale over the coming decade or two. So I think that’s the major theme and I think it’s really interesting and really important and I think you’re going to learn a lot today.

Mindy:
Absolutely. We have a new segment of the Money Show called The Money Moments where we share a money hack, tip or trick to help you on your financial journey. Today’s money moment is, do you know that you can negotiate your bills? While bill negotiation doesn’t have a 100% success rate, it’s a lot more common than you would think. Many people have been able to successfully lower their bills simply by calling and asking. And if you don’t have the time or energy to call yourself, you can even hire a bill negotiation service to do it for you. Some of the bills that are open for negotiation are credit card interest, internet, cell phone and insurance. I know I have personally been able to negotiate my insurance and my cable internet bill when the price jacked up after the initial teaser rate was over. So definitely a great tip. If you don’t like your bill, call them up and see if they’re willing to negotiate.

Scott:
Great call, Mindy. Great call.

Mindy:
There you go, you. You’ve redeemed yourself from the beginning. Liz Faircloth and then Andresa Guidelli met in 2014 through biggerpockets.com. They started meeting to support each other’s businesses and eventually founded the Real Estate InvestHER podcast, which supports women who are interested in getting into the world of investing. Liz and Andresa, welcome to the BiggerPockets Money Podcast. We are so excited to talk to you today.

Andresa:
Yes, we’re so excited to be here. Hey Scott. Hey Mindy.

Elizabeth:
Thanks so much for having us. It’s a pleasure.

Mindy:
It’s always fun to talk to you ladies. Let’s start off with a little bit of background. Liz, let’s look at you first. Can you tell us a little bit about yourself and what you are investing in?

Elizabeth:
Sure. We’re in terms of just my background in real estate investing and how I got going 18 years ago when I was 10 years old. Now, Matt and I actually invested in our first deal, a duplex. I was going to school for social work, Matt was an engineer and we read Rich Dad, Poor Dad, and it really shifted our thinking in our ways of just looking at the world quite honestly. So we got our start by going to the local REA meetings for over a year. We went to courses and workshops and bootcamps at the time, that was well before BiggerPockets was around, and we bought our first duplex.
My father loaned us 30 grand and got our start. We met a contractor through the local REA meeting and got going, which then led us to really building a portfolio in New Jersey. And we got our start mostly in Trenton, New Jersey and started buying multis, getting involved in a lot of different focuses and then many years later finally got that we have to get focused and really went all in on multi-family and grew a multi-family business.
So we have properties in four states, about 2000 units of multi-family assets, mostly large multi and class C neighborhoods, up and coming neighborhoods. And that’s what we’re mostly focused on now. We’re doing some on the DeRosa side, we’re doing some pivots because the multi-family space and how just still overpriced multi-family is. And so we’re actually pivoting, we’re still raising money, we’re still building a fund, but we’re going to be diversifying in what we’re putting that money into, which is going to be more of a lending arm where we’re lending that money out as hard money loans versus multifamily. Because it’s just overpriced and it just fiscally doesn’t make sense. And so we don’t want to ever put our investors in deals that don’t make sense. So anyway, that’s one of the current projects of where we’re pivoting in today’s market.

Scott:
That’s awesome. We got to talk after this because I’m very interested in that space and I think that’s a very wise approach in the current market conditions. So Andresa, can you tell us a little bit about your background and what you invest in?

Andresa:
Yes, absolutely. I am an immigrant from Brazil, I moved to the US without knowing what real estate, the words real estate, really meant. It was during a one-on-one meeting with my manager, I was doing door-to-door sales for Verizon, one of the best things I’ve ever done in my life and one of the hardest. And I asked him for a book that will support, increase my sales. And he gave me this purple book called Rich Dad, Poor Dad. I was like, what is this about? And he’s like, “Don’t worry, read it and we’ll come back to it.”
And then I was like, what’s happening here? Why I don’t know about this entire world about real estate? Started getting a lot of knowledge and got started in 2011. Rehab my first house was a primary pull, a HELOC out, got a lower appraisal. For those of you that are getting lower appraisal, appeal, it, appeal it. I appeal already so many appraisers in my life. If I didn’t have the gut to appeal that appraisal report, I would not have got the money to invest on other deals that I started doing. Got to rehab properties, scale to doing 15 properties at the same time. Met Liz. We started doing new construction. I have experience in commercial development as well, on the [inaudible 00:07:46] side of investing in apartment complexes. And now from the Real Estate InvestHER company, we are looking to Italy, actually, to invest overseas. That’s where we are right now.

Scott:
One of the reasons why I was so excited to chat with both you guys is you had shared in a previous conversation some really interesting stats about really, not the emergence but the growth, the scale, a shift in capital in this country into the hands of women and how there’s a need there to develop women, in many cases, as investors. Could you kind of share the magnitude of this challenge, this opportunity, this transition that’s happening?

Andresa:
Right now, just in the US alone, we have 10 trillion of dollars investible assets in the hands of women. In the next seven years that’s going to triple according to Morgan Stanley resource into 2021. So just that alone, we know that that shift is going to happen. Right now we have a confidence gap. The women are not as confident to make investments, therefore they’re going to have a lot of capital in their hands. But I think the most important thing for the audience, the audience that is listening. They might be women, they might not be women. So if they’re not, if they’re men, it’s like what do I have to do with this? I think there is a potential for really understanding what are the needs of this demographic, what they’re looking to do, so you can partner up with that.

Scott:
So we got 10 trillion in household wealth that is controlled by women and invested by women today. And that’s going to change dramatically over the next 10 years. What is driving that change? What is the shift that’s happening?

Elizabeth:
One of the biggest things is that there’s going to be aging men, men are dying. So statistically women outlive men by 6 to 8 years. We know that already. So the shift, and we’ve see this in our community in real life, and I just want to speak to, women are incredibly confident as the CFO of their household. They have this confidence where they are managing everything like a CFO would. And then when it comes to investing, that confidence goes from 69% to 19%. It’s like, boom, like down.
So what is the difference? What is the difference? And so I just want to speak to that because women actually have the skills and knowledge. I think one of the reasons is obviously what we just said about that there’s actually a demographic, men, in terms of aging and dying off.
I also see though, and I also see this, and again I don’t have the statistic in front of me, but women are kind of coming into their own, meaning whether they’re in the 35, 45, 55, 60 age range, you’re seeing women not reliant on a partner anymore. They’re making decisions based on their own life and their own sort of goals. You see that shift happening and some of that generational baggage of spouse or not being a spouse or I can be complete by myself. That’s a shift and that’s a recent shift. That’s not something that was 40 years ago. So I think that’s part of it, just the societal shift as well.

Scott:
So we’re not saying that the wage gap or any of these other fundamental long-term problems have been solved here, that men are dying and the wealth is transferring to women is really a big catalyst for this $30 trillion shift of household wealth into the hands of women who by and large feel incapable of investing it, or not comfortable investing it. 68% are confident managing household budgets, only 19% are comfortable investing those things. Why do you think that is? Why you think these folks are uncomfortable with investing?

Elizabeth:
I would personally… I mean there’s probably a lot of reasons for it. I think one of the biggest things is when you think of investor, what do you think of? You think of a white man on Wall Street. I mean, it’s a stereotype, but it’s still what people think of when they think investor. So I think shifting that stereotype, shifting that gender role where the traditional, what women do in a household and what men do in a household in a very traditional sense, is still apparent. It’s not like that went away and that’s not existing in our society today.
So I think there’s a generational, I like to call it a baggage, in a sense, where women are really letting go of some of that, Scott, and I think that’s going to be opening up this, I don’t want to say freedom, but this sense of, I can do this. They have it in them, the skills, the experience, but it’s a matter of community. Whether they’re talking to their neighbors, they’re talking to women in the school board. Not every woman’s investing in stocks or real estate or gold. We all know that because we all have neighborhoods. So how do we surround ourselves with other like-minded women, and there are a lot of them that are doing it. I think that’s the big difference. I always like to say, women don’t go to the bathroom by themselves. They usually go with a friend. So if we’re going to go and invest, they’re going to invest with a friend, they’re going to do it together. That’s just the nature of a lot of women. They feel comfortable in community.

Andresa:
I just want to add that the psychology behind… We interviewed a woman this week, she’s a doctor in neuroscience, and there is a lot of thought patterns that have been passed from generation to generation. And when it comes down to safety, it’s really crucial that we have a safe place for women to come, raise their hand, ask their questions, and that goes from anything that we do.
But I had a conversation this morning with a woman from Columbus, Ohio, that is opening up a bank geared towards women. And we had this conversation and her thought process is not just for the service and products that they’re building for women, it has to do even with the layout of the banking, on making sure that women don’t feel intimidated by going to a bank and having a simple conversation about a loan. We start with really 101. So little by little, when all the women start seeing themselves in others and being able to have a conversation and feel safe about it, I think that it is just going to grow the amount of women that confidently feel that they’re able to invest in real estate and take control of their financial future.

Mindy:
So women, I feel like we are generalizing, but we’re not generalizing. I mean, 75% of us on this show are women. And I have experienced this talking to other women, I have seen them experience this as well. When they feel intimidated, they’re just not going to, they’re stand back, they’re going to sit back. I think education, information is so key. I don’t want to feel stupid. I don’t want somebody to think I’m stupid, so I’m not going to open my mouth. I don’t want somebody to judge me by the fact that I said something wrong or the fact that I got a fact incorrect. I mean, nobody listening to this show is like, Mindy’s not like that at all. I’ll jump in with both feet.
But how can we, the confident, jump in with both feed people, help educate women and help encourage women to ask these questions? Because I have found, for the most part, when I ask a question in a truly, I don’t know, and I want to know setting, I get a great answer. How can we help people get more comfortable asking these questions, and women specifically?

Elizabeth:
Yeah, I wrote down the word perfectionism. Because I think in asking a question, you already feel like you’re less than. And I think that comes up for a lot of women. Again, I’m being general, but there is a lot of women who find intimidated ask the question. I had this level of I got to know the answer, almost. And it’s that feeling.
So it starts back even in school, Mindy, when women and men are getting trained in what? To know all the answers. They get an A if they know all the answers. They can’t ask their friend, because that’s called cheating, right? So there’s a lot of societal pressure and even the statistics in MBA programs when they say who raises their hand quicker, a man or a woman, there’s statistics that show men do versus women, because they don’t want to say it until they’re right.
So that has to get broken up. Even just the way we school our kids, educate our children, that failure is actually just, you’re fact-finding, it’s not failure. There’s a freedom in it. So I think it starts there in how we actually get accolades and pats on the back because it’s creating these perfectionism in, especially for, it could be men too, but it’s certainly for women. And that prevents us from asking the questions because we feel stupid. We feel like we need to have the answers. So I think it starts there. And it also, to your point, Mindy, us asking the questions and us being able to put ourselves out there when we don’t know the answers is helpful because then women see themselves, oh, okay, yeah, she doesn’t even know the answer. She’s being vulnerable. Wow, she doesn’t have all her you know what together. Okay, I don’t either, type of thing and I can ask the question.

Mindy:
Okay, so women tend to have less confidence, but are they actually worse than men at investing?

Elizabeth:
It’s the opposite, right? I love the leading question, Mindy. I love the question.

Mindy:
Objection, leading the witness.

Elizabeth:
Yeah, exactly. No, there’s a lot of research that shows that women outperform men by 40 basis points. Meaning there’s a level of… Because there’s a level of conservative, if I’m going to be conservative and I’m going to be cautious and I’m going to make sure I know what I’m doing, you better know I’m going to make the right call. So I think there’s a level of the cautiousness serves your decision making, and thus it’s usually steering in the right way. So I think when women really act in their power, the outcomes can actually be there for them. In terms of higher results.

Mindy:
Yeah, I don’t think there’s anything wrong with being cautious. You can make great investments cautiously, and I would encourage you, especially if you’re just starting out, be cautious. Don’t aim for the home run, grand slam home run, aim for the base hit, aim for the break even, aim for the I’m learning ,because you can read all the books you want, but you learn so much more by doing and even just breaking even, that is a college level course in real estate investing just by breaking even.

Andresa:
What we have found also is that small action steps for men and for women, for everybody that is listening, the more that you take action steps towards your goal, you move the needle forward, more confident you are. So when we talk about, I’ll give you an example. People say, oh, you need to call realtors and call one, have the courage to call one person. You get that feeling, your brain does not know how big or how small the action is. It doesn’t really matter. So the more that you take small steps towards achieving your goal, more confident people get.

Scott:
So we talked about, again, this market of $30 trillion, and we talked about how women are very unconfident buying large, and you lack of confidence in investing buying large. Just to extrapolate this out, how much wealth… What do we think the impacts at a high level is going to happen here if women don’t become more confident and invest these assets on themselves? What does that mean for the women who control this wealth and what does it mean for the global economy if we’re not able to solve this problem?

Elizabeth:
Yeah, absolutely, Scott. I mean what ends up happening is that, you think about this, that by increasing the economic participation, women really going in and not just managing the money but investing the money. This actually could add $12 trillion to global growth. And now this is probably by 2025, this is going to happen. So that’s enormous.
I want to back that up too, that so many companies think women are a niche. And they’re not a niche. They’re not a niche at all. And we got that, just a quick story, we got that a lot from… We had our investor in May and we had 35 companies represented and the companies that were there came up to us and said, we have never gotten so many leads, qualified leads, and these women are following up with us quickly and they actually want to talk to us and do deals with us. They said that’s very unique in most of the conferences they go to.
So there’s this, not only is it a, again, $12 trillion getting added to this global economy, but the seriousness, I think what’s backing that up is the seriousness of women. When they’re ready to go, they’re ready to go. There’s no like, “Oh, I’m going to think about this for 10 more years.” We don’t have that kind of time. And we literally heard this from so many different sponsors saying, “oh my gosh, I didn’t even know this could exist. That people actually, A, want to talk to us, want to do deals with us, and we actually generate the most amount of leads we ever have at any other conference.” That’s a testament of the quality of what women are coming into.

Mindy:
Okay, so besides the ready to hit the ground running, what mindset and skills do women have that benefit them as investors over their male counterparts?

Andresa:
Wow, how many minutes do we have?

Mindy:
We’ve got all the time in the world.

Andresa:
I think women has an incredible ability to build report, and that how you translate that to real estate. You talk to sellers, to buyers, you raise money for your deals, the trustworthiness, it’s there, and then can back it up by your confidence on how you’re presenting the numbers, the deals, and your vision. I think what also, good or bad, we know how to multitask. We are able to build multimillion-dollar companies under the radar.

Mindy:
Yeah. And I wasn’t phrasing that like, let’s rip men apart. This is more like, let’s encourage women. What other skills do they have? Women, you think that you’re not ready, you are ready. Here are things that you have. You are humble, but you’re also really good at saving or you are more risk averse, so you’re going to make maybe safer or more conscious decisions about where you’re investing. You’re not going to just jump in with both feet blindly, and then, oh, now I’ve lost $20 billion. It seems like there are a lot of the women that I know are really doing a lot of thoughtful consideration when they are contemplating an investment.

Scott:
I think these are awesome advantages, but other than the lack of confidence, are there some potentially real disadvantages that women face when confronting investing? For example, I heard a story a while back about a woman was leading a real estate investing project and a contractor comes by and the contractor’s wanting to talk to the husband, the decision maker essentially, even though, of course, this woman was the decision maker in that case. Are there examples of that or things that go beyond that or deeper for women investors that make this a legitimate challenge that’s not just about confidence, but about other things as well?

Elizabeth:
Yeah, I think that’s still happening, Scott, and it’s happening. I know, Andresa, you experienced that a number of times. I experienced it not on a job site, but in other ways. And that’s something we really need to do a better job at speaking up about and not just laughing it out. And I think people still, whenever there’s any ism, whether it’s sexism or racism or any ism, people need to speak up and they need to speak out about those sort of things.
To assume that a contractor is talking to a man and there’s two, there’s a man and a woman, not sexist. It’s pretty simple. It’s not like, oh, they don’t know. No, it’s called sexism. And so I think we, as individuals, men and women, can be part of the solution of really being able to speak up. I heard a couple boys at the pool with my daughter, I have a daughter and a son, we playing at the pool. This is a few weeks ago when the pool opened and he said, “Stop acting like a girl.” And I was like, it’s interesting. That’s a bold statement. And so the kid ran away really quickly and I was like, I really wanted to go up to him because literally he said it and left. It was a disappearing act.
But I’m like, would I’ve said something? How would I have said something to this eight year old boy? But it’s a real thing, right? It’s a real thing that we… So then I said, okay, I can’t speak to him but I want to speak to my kids. So I talked to them both and Zack’s like, “Wow, what does that mean, mom?” “What do you think that means?” Because he hasn’t heard that before. I’m just using that as an example of how we teach our kids and how we’re speaking about things and when we see something not appropriate, we need to speak up or have a lesson in that, if that makes sense. But I do think that’s just a part of this.

Scott:
It sounds like overcoming that challenge is really, comes back to confidence. Liz, you’re very confident and so if that were to happen to you, you would be like, either this relationship is over, or no, I’m the one in charge here. We’re going to proceed here as a professional. You’re talking to the decision maker. Is that one of the ways to combat this? Is it really confidence it comes back to that as the root issue? Or is there something more that women can do or should be doing around that?

Andresa:
I would say that my confidence did not prevent me from hearing this multiple and multiple times. And I joke around, I was like, no, I am not the realtor, not the architect. I’m the one that write your checks. And I think that what Liz is saying is that we can do our job, as women we can do our job to get the knowledge, to get the confidence, but what is really crucial is also for our allies, what can you do? Number one, you can invite every woman that to step up, or your daughters, your wives, your spouse or whatever that is. And the other thing that it’s crucial is that when there are conversations where we are not present to the fan or to shine the light, so those many times locker room conversations, that’s when we need the allies to get uncomfortable.

Mindy:
And I think lack of confidence is a real disadvantage that can be easily overlooked by people who are confident. I have a lot of confidence, sometimes misplaced, but I don’t let that stop me. But again, if I say something stupid or I say something uninformed, I’m okay with somebody correcting me because then I’m going to learn. And “Hey Liz, you can get a residential loan on a 40 unit apartment building. Did you know that?” And Liz would say, “Actually you can’t, that’s a commercial product, you can only get a commercial loan for that.” “Oh, okay. I learned.” It’s okay to make a mistake like that. And that is how you learn. But some people will feel very slapped down and very corrected and, “Oh my god, I’m so stupid, I’ll never ever say anything again.”
And I don’t think that the majority of people are correcting in harsh tones. But again, if somebody says, “Oh my God, you’re so stupid, how could you possibly think that?” Then there’s a person that has shown you they are not somebody that you need to do business with. But I really like what you said, Andresa, I’m the one who writes the checks, do you want to get paid? You’re going to talk to me.

Elizabeth:
I think confidence is a really big topic in general because I think there are women who are very confident in their life, and they may not be confident in investing or confident in an area. So I don’t think confidence is blanket thing where I’m confident or I’m not confident. I don’t think it’s as simple as that. So I think what’s interesting… And people in general. I think the interesting part too, and this something we recommend to women is how are you naturally confident? Where have you had these confident moments? We’ve all, as people, have confident moments where we just shine and we’re on top of the world and then we forget those moments. And so really, really bringing people back in, especially women because that’s who we serve, bring them back into that power because you have women who are confident in other areas and have had confident moments. All of us have. So I don’t think I’m confident or not, I don’t think it’s as linear as that. I think it’s actually much deeper and it’s a reconnecting of the confidence.

Scott:
So I think this is awesome. I think that there’s a whole bunch of problems that lead to… Of contributing factors that lead to the problems that we just identified here in the market at a global sense, the $30 trillion in wealth that will be managed by women who maybe are less confident. But how do we translate that into actionable next steps. For some of the women who may be listening to this podcast, how do they go about addressing this and taking the first steps towards increasing their confidence, directly making investments or moving down that road?

Andresa:
I think it starts with knowing oneself, right? Liz and I have done the work. How does that look like? Really understand what are your natural abilities. So taking all different types of tasks that you can possibly get in order for you to understand. I’m talking about predictive index, Kolbe test, different things so you can really understand what are your true natural abilities, your personality, your cognitive, how you make natural decisions and where are the gaps, so you can focus on your strengths and not your weaknesses.

Elizabeth:
I would also add, we heard it on a podcast we interviewed this week about starting with, we always talk about our goals and what’s our why and how important that is. I think for women, they have goals, but then they look at them and go, why do I have that goal? Was that goal handed to me? Especially in our space of real estate, if it’s not like a hundred unit, no one wants it, right? There’s a lot, I think, a lot of goals that have been given to us, especially in our space.
So the key is where do I want to be? And that big picture, Scott, literally five years, paint that picture for yourself. What does that look like? It doesn’t have to be specific, but just what does that look like for me? What would bring joy and happiness and passion to my life from a financial abundant perspective? What would that give me? Time, energy, what will that provide me? Emotionally get connected to that. Then you start to, and I know the people who don’t like to vision are like, well, that’s BS. But it starts there. And then the next step is what’s one thing can I learn? And the next step is once I start to learn something, I read one book on short-term rentals by Avery Carl, Pickpockets published, then what community can I join to ask them some questions about the book that I just read or the podcast I just listened to?
The problem is that people have a dream and then they ask very general random questions to people they haven’t built a relationship with. How do I find 19 private lenders tomorrow. They think, okay, I’m not sure how to answer that, right? I’m not sure how to help you. So the key is get a little knowledge, figure out where you want to be, really get connected to it emotionally. Second, get some knowledge, whether it’s a book, a podcast, there’s so much tremendous resources between our communities. And then thirdly, don’t stop there. And that’s why women stop there and they try to figure it out themselves. So get connected to a community. We have investor meetups across the country and there’s an online community. There’s a lot of ways to get connected, you got to get connected to people doing it.

Scott:
It sounds like, form a plan, right? It’s the Cheshire Cat quote. Which way should you go? How should you invest? Well, it depends on where you want to go. We have this problem over and over and over again in our Finance Fridays here on BiggerPockets Money. Men and women, right? Well, how should I invest? Well, what do you want? Do you want the biggest pile of money in 50 years? We got one approach. Do you want flow right now? We got another approach. Do you want a hybrid? We got a third. How hands on do you want to be? These are all questions that your visioning exercise can help with.
And then it sounds like you guys have really emphasized the theme of community as being perhaps a stronger or even more important piece of the puzzle for women than it might be even for men, or at least maybe it’s harder to access for women perhaps, maybe in addition to or instead of that. Is that a good way to paraphrase what you guys have said here?

Andresa:
Yeah, yeah, certainly. I think that what we are looking to really continue building as a board of directors. I’ll give a simple example. One of the members of our community could not close on a deal two days before. So she had the courage to come and share what was going on, what was happening. We connected, other women started saying, “Well, I have a lender in that area, let’s connect it here and there.” And it was just really powerful. She was not alone in that situation any longer. So the stress and the pressure for her to try to figure out on her own was no longer there. And she was able to close that quick because of the power of resources and other people’s experiences that were already there.
So that’s the goal here. You do your due diligence, you do your homework and you tap into a community, BiggerPockets community, the real estate investor community, your local people. You’ve got to be connected with them as a board of directors. You won’t see your blind spots. And you’ll lose your hair and your health if you continue trying to figure out your challenges and how to achieve your goals by yourself. Why would you do that? Other people have done it. Tap into their experience so you can speed up. You get access and speed in one spot.

Elizabeth:
Yeah, I think the big thing too, when you’re, you’re in a community and the power of it is when you have this goal, okay, should I invest? What’s the investing landscape right now with today’s economy? If you ask your uncle or your aunt who don’t invest in real estate, they’re going to probably have a strong opinion and maybe give you some good insight. But are they the right people to be asking? And so we need to constantly ask ourselves, if you want to run a marathon, ask someone who ran a marathon. I wouldn’t ask someone who doesn’t really run. I don’t really want their advice. Maybe not to do and what not to do, but not to actually complete a marathon. So I think we constantly are asking ourselves and you have to ask yourself, am I going to the source of who we’re going to be able to support me with what I need and how I need it? And I think that’s the power of community, any community.

Mindy:
Okay, with investing a team sport, do you have any recommendations for how women should be building their community or team and so that they can start investing today?

Andresa:
Many people say that the partnerships is the way to go, and we love that, but, there’s always a but, right? We have paid our share of mistakes and we don’t want other people to do it. So we have prepared what we call a partnership guide, is a free PDF that we can put it on the show notes, you guys can go and download, which are questions that you should ask yourself in terms of your goals, what do you want to do? And the partner asks the same thing. The main goal here is for you to align with other people that have the same values and diversify and experience what you bring to the table, time. We always believe that not everybody will be a good match and better having those conversations, hard conversations now before you shake hands and get into a deal. I think many people get into deals too quickly without considering what is this partnership all about?

Mindy:
I love that you said that.

Elizabeth:
I would also add to it beyond skills and experience and obviously clarifying time availability, money availability, deal flow availability. There’s a lot of assets that people bring to the table. I think beyond that, from a team perspective, it’s really, really helpful when you’re building something with someone if you are more of this relationship person and you love people and you like connecting with them, it’s really helpful to have somebody who’s not working closely with you, very tasked, very shrewd, very skeptical. You tick each other off, but you need each other.
And the other thing I’d say too from a personality perspective is risk and caution. If you are a cautious person, have an accountability partner that’s a risk-taker. Have somebody in your close circle who is a risk-taker because they’re going to push you in a way that you aren’t going to push yourself. So I think that’s really critical. And then the task and the people. I also see it with logical people and very gut feel people. So actually it helps you make decisions faster when you have a very different style helping you through the decision. And that’s why community is so important. Because if you’re going to surround yourself with a bunch of risk-takers or a bunch of cautious people, you’re going to be overanalyzing a deal. And that deal’s gone right, literally, and you’re still analyzing and talking about it. So you really need that diversity, accountability partner, small circle, local group that can push you in a way that you just can’t push yourself because you’re not wired that way.

Scott:
So can you guys tell us a little bit about any special or particular program and platform that can help women find a lot of these solutions and any places that you suggest that they check out on that platform?

Elizabeth:
I cannot help you with that at all.

Scott:
Sorry. All right. Thank you guys so much. We had a wonderful [inaudible 00:38:10]. Okay.

Elizabeth:
But it’s the Real Estate InvestHER community, and our podcast is probably published, distributed by BiggerPockets. We have Facebook community that women can really get and get connected quickly where they’re just posting questions, getting support. We take spam down very quickly. We are very diligent. So it’s that safe environment online. In person, we have over 50 meetups where women can get plugged into their local community. We’ve a number of them growing in Canada as well. And so that’s all on our website as well. And in terms of just getting connected in person, online and just to support them around their goals.

Andresa:
And once a year, we have InvestHER Con, which is our conference. Next year, we’re going to Austin, Texas. And it’s all about taking control of your financial future. That’s going to be the theme for next year.

Mindy:
And where can people find this partnership guideline document?

Andresa:
So you’re going to go to therealestateinvesther.com/giveaway.

Scott:
That’s therealestateinvest, H-E-R, .com

Andresa:
Slash giveaway, yeah.

Scott:
Slash giveaway. Yes. So check that out. And guys, thank you so much for sharing this incredible overview of the market that I don’t think a lot of people are aware of, and then the problems that underlie that. And thank you for forming a solution to those problems for women to access. Really appreciate it and I’m really grateful for all you do for the BiggerPockets community at large and all of the women investors out there who have benefited from your programming. So thanks so much for joining us today, and we hope you have a wonderful rest of your week.

Elizabeth:
Thank you, Scott. Thank you, Mindy.

Andresa:
Thank you.

Mindy:
Thank you, Liz and Andresa, we’ll talk to you soon.
All right, Scott, that was Liz and Andresa. I just love talking to them. Such a delight, such a wealth of information and so encouraging. If you are a woman and you’re listening to this episode and you are excited about real estate, head on over to the InvestHER group, talk to other women, see what they’re all about. It’s really a fantastic group. The podcast is amazing. I just love Liz and Andresa so much in everything that they’re doing.

Scott:
I mean, these are just world-class investors and it’s great to chat with them. And they have a great window into this enormous problem that has been and will continue to grow over the next couple of years and decades. And I hope they make a big dent in it and really solve this and help provide resources that address that one critical component of this whole chain, which is the confidence level of women who have large amounts of wealth to invest.

Mindy:
Yep. I think that confidence is key, and I wish I had a magic fix to fix the confidence level. I think education and information is going to be a huge help in overcoming that hurdle.
All right, Scott, should we get out of here?

Scott:
Let’s do it.

Mindy:
That wraps up this episode of the BiggerPockets Money Podcast. He is Scott Trench, and I am Mindy Jensen saying can’t stay Blue Jay.

Scott:
If you enjoyed today’s episode, please give us a five star review on Spotify or Apple. And if you’re looking for even more money content, feel free to visit our YouTube channel at youtube.com/biggerpocketsmoney.

Mindy:
BiggerPockets money was created by Mindy Jensen and Scott Trench, produced by Kalyn Bennett, editing by Exodus Media, Copywriting by Nate Wyntrov. Lastly, a big thank you to the BiggerPockets team for making this show possible.