Hello, and welcome to Passive Real Estate Investing. I’m your host, Marco Santarelli and welcome to another great episode. You know, entrepreneurial women are shattering glass ceilings, they’re winning promotions and building multimillion dollar companies from the ground up in industry after industry. And yet many are still living paycheck to paycheck without accruing real wealth, even highly successful women can struggle to build portfolios that generate wealth and create true financial freedom. One of the best and least understood ways to thrive financially is through real estate investing. In fact, 90% of millionaires are made through real estate, but unfortunately only about 30% are real estate investors that are women in the millionairess mentality, financial expert, Tamar Hermes addresses this problem by distilling her expertise into proven strategies. Women can use to mitigate risk and reap financial rewards through real estate investing. And while many financial books discuss real estate and wealth building strategies, few acknowledge the specific challenges women face while charting their financial destinies tomorrow uses real world examples and a step by step explanation to help women build their own legacies while tackling roadblocks, such as a lack of confidence or fear of taking on risk or debt and bad investment experiences.
Tomorrow condenses years of wisdom into an easy to follow investment formula. Anyone can use whether you’re a man or a woman. And the result is an indispensable handbook that teaches women, The Millionairess Mentality that they need to build a foundation of unshakeable wealth, one property at a time. So with me today is my guest Tamar, who I look forward to interviewing here and having a conversation about her past her experience and her new book. So with that, let us welcome our guest.
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It is my pleasure to welcome Tamar her maze to the show. Tamar is a full-time real estate investor. She’s a coach author and the founder of wealth building concierge. As the CEO of wealth building concierge. She empowers women to become financially free by teaching them how to invest in real estate. Tomorrow has been investing in real estate for over 20 years, focusing on appreciation with buy and hold single family homes and duplexes, her mission. It is to support women in overcoming fear and overwhelm in investing by building their confidence and education, taking them to taking action, understanding there isn’t only one way to invest. She’s actually a very smart woman. I’ve known her for a few years. She is a contributing writer for entrepreneur and her first book, The Millionairess Mentality, a professional woman’s guide to growing wealth through real estate was released just recently a month or two ago. And as a three times Amazon number one best-selling book. And with that Tamara, welcome to the show.
Thank you. It’s great to be here, Marco.
So was everything I just read pretty accurate or have there been any changes to that?
Pretty accurate? I always joke because I say that because I’m a few years older than a lot of other people in the real estate space that I’ve done a lot of things and I have a large portfolio. And as we know, time is our best friend in real estate. So I have actually a pretty vast portfolio in addition to single families and duplexes now involved in all kinds of passive investments and in all kinds of also active investments that are more sophisticated than the single family and duplex, which is pretty common. Mm-Hmm <affirmative> once you dive in, you usually start branching out.
Yeah, well, I know you’re a big fan of income passive investments, and you’ve kind of built your lifestyle around a portfolio of, of various passive investments. Before we kind of dive into that a little bit. Tell us about yourself, cuz you have an interesting background. I know you didn’t come from a wealthy family, an immigrant family, and you know, you had to get a job to save up, to get your first car and you kind of found your own way as an independent woman. So maybe tell us your backstory because I think it’s pretty interesting and it, and it kind of segues into some of the things we’re gonna talk about today.
Yeah, absolutely. So I did grow up poor and it was very challenging to understand how many worked or how I was ever going to have a comfortable life. And I could see around me, a lot of people were doing things that I really wanted to do that cost money and let’s face it in this world. We need money. So for the most part, I was left to figure it out. And I muddled through, I became an executive in television about 30 years ago and realized that I was again, changing my time for money. Didn’t love it and looked at the bottom line and then started to realize that real estate would gimme the opportunity. If I could buy my first property, then I would have that chance. And so that was really where I started to segue into real estate. I realized that if I bought a property, then I could have my, some of my rents paid because I bought a duplex and I started to see the results and realized that this was a really great opportunity.
That was your, was that in California or where did you get your start?
Yes, I lived in California and also back in 1999 when I bought my first property, we didn’t have internet, we didn’t have podcasts. We didn’t have all these resources that are so amazing today where you can learn so much. The one thing that just hasn’t been taken away is the fact that it still can be scary for people to invest in real estate. And there’s a lot of misnomers about it and there’s a lot of overwhelm about the choices and fear around making a mistake and losing money. And so that’s really a lot of the things that I like to address. I love that you address a lot of those on your podcast as well.
So did you stick to single family homes and duplexes? Cause I know that’s where you started in LA and you did very well on that first investment. Did you ever, I, I don’t want to use the word migrate or upgrade or anything else like that to larger units like larger multi-unit did you always stick to single families and duplexes?
I did for a long time. And the thing is, is I know you’re a huge fan of this single family in duplex model as well, because you don’t have to get fancy to do very well in real estate. That’s the beauty. You don’t have to take a lot of risks unless you wanted to. I really wanted to scale and I’m a curious person. I wanted to get into more opportunities. And I remember having lunch with a friend’s father who started telling me how he is making these returns of 20% annualized doing nothing. And I thought this can’t be real. What is this? It’s the first time the light bulb goes off. When you realize there is truly this thing called passive investing, <laugh> where you literally get checks. And these days it’s just wired into your account, even better. You don’t even have to walk to the bank.
And so it was from there. I met my first multi-family investor. He has over a billion in assets and has become a really good friend. And I just started selling off some of my properties so that I could get those returns because remember in Los Angeles it takes a while before your cash flowing really well because the prices are so high. And so you really wanna be thinking about those numbers and there’s a lot of variables that go into whether or not it’s a good strategy for you. And at a certain point I had appreciated a lot and then I really needed to make that appreciation work for me. And so that was my strategy was to sell start putting that into multifamily homes passively. And then of course I went on and, and bought other homes. And now I have Airbnbs and have a lot of partners doing different kinds of pre right now I’m working on some prefabs in east Austin, we’re tearing down some properties. So it just goes on and on you start meeting people and you start getting more savvy.
Interesting. So I’m guessing here that the reason you’re doing the prefabs and you’re actively involved and I emphasize on the word actively is so you can achieve and maintain the professional real estate investor status. Is that true?
Yes. Yes, absolutely. You and I had just discussed that real estate professional status is just such an opportunity, although you really do need to be active. And so you can’t really just be getting checks wired in and then take the kinds of deductions that you’re eligible for as a professional. And so it does require me to actually still do some heavy lifting. Luckily I’m not lazy and I don’t mind getting into it. And I find it pretty exciting to have some projects that I manage and that I look after and am involved with.
Nice, nice. That’s great. Yeah. The, the tax benefits of having professional real estate investor status is amazing because you can put your deductions towards your active income, not just your passive income and it just gives you so many other opportunities to become tax efficient. So, and we actually talked about that on a recent episode. So it’s not something I’m gonna necessarily re you know, rehash here today. You released a book recently called The Millionairess Mentality, a very interesting title. Why did you write this book? I, I know what the book is about, but in your own words, what inspired you to write the book? And what is the book about?
Well, first an interesting statistic, which is that 81% of people believe they have a book in them or want to write a book and only 3% do. And I love a challenge and I always felt like a book was something so interesting to have because I actually had a friend and she passed early on in her life, but she had written a book and she had this culinary business and she had all her recipes in there. And I thought, what a great piece to have a legacy like that, that will live on. And someone 10 years from now can pick up her book. And so for me, I had learned so many lessons the hard way, and I really wanted to write a book, particularly for women just to show them it’s okay to have money. Why I feel this, why I feel like it’s essential, not I write it for women, but I mean, everybody should buy real estate.
Everybody. There’s no reason to not own real estate in some form in some capacity. And also just the strategies. I always felt like it was just buy and hold. And that was all there was, I didn’t realize you could do syndications. I didn’t realize you could do notes. I didn’t realize you could tear down a, a property and build it up. I knew other people did that, but they’re very foreign to us when we are not educated in real estate. And it, it can feel very daunting. And so I really wanted to just break it down. I wanted to break down the lending. I wanted to break down all the pieces so that women could feel that it was more accessible to them. And that it really wasn’t that hard. If you could just figure out what you wanted to do and just take one step at a time, you could build a portfolio.
You know, I’m sure you know this, but traditionally in real estate and real estate investing, you don’t find a lot of women, especially with real estate investors. When I talk to people who are investing in real estate, almost always, I’d say 80% of them are men. It’s just dominated, you know, by us males. But you always say that all women should invest in real estate. Like, I mean, obviously that’s, you know, part of your mission here, why don’t more women invest in real estate? Is it just something that they’re afraid of or is it kind of a cultural thing? I just don’t understand why. So few women, statistically speaking, invest in real estate.
Yeah. I think it’s mixed. I think that it has to do with the fact that there was actually a time, not that long ago in history where we couldn’t vote and we couldn’t own property. And so we’re still newer to the game and that’s one piece. And I think the other piece is that women tend to be more cautious and they really think things through and they don’t wanna make a mistake. Now, granted everybody, men and women are like that, but men are just, it seems like they’re just conditioned to go out and just take more chances more quickly. And I feel like it feels more daunting to a woman for some reason. So that’s why I, I just think it’s important. And I, I just had actually a friend that told me yesterday, he says, I’m buying this for my sister and for my daughter. And I thought that was so great because you know, there’s a conversation, even if I know a lot of your audience is male, but you can be thinking about, does my wife understand this? Does my wife want to understand this? Does she wanna be empowered about understanding if someday I’m not here? How do I manage these properties? And she can realize that it’s for her too.
Yeah, that’s true. I mean, a lot of it comes down to commitment. Don’t you think real estate investing is about making a commitment and sticking to it. And I think men generally speaking are very good at that, but maybe you can shed some light on that. Like, is it just different for women because of conditioning? Are they less committal? I mean, that’s what it kind of sounds like you’re saying they’re less committal to it.
Well, I think that they’re more tentative. I think that they’re very great at commitments. I mean, we have children for goodness sakes. <Laugh> we care, that’s a commitment. <Laugh> right. That’s the biggest commitment. If you can have a child, you can buy property <laugh>. And and I, I think it’s just that they’re just more tentative and they just haven’t really realized that it’s for them. And so I think the more women that step up and just, and men too, and just share the information and let women understand the opportunity for them, then they start to realize that they can do it and it doesn’t have to be so daunting. So I think that we are, we’re making great strides, we’re catching up. And and I have to also say that a lot of my business partners are men. And I find the men that I work with to be extremely supportive and extremely welcoming to what I bring to the table because where women really shine is in relationship in nurturing those connections.
And in real estate, that’s so important because the people that we meet, the opportunities we get that has so much to do with who we are and how we’re able to resonate with others. And so we almost kind of have a little bit of a leg up if you think about it. And I think a lot of men have gotten pretty savvy to the fact that women are pretty good at figuring out a lot of the key elements that are required. If you look actually at real estate agents, I think the agents may be more dominated by women. And and so they, they have that. They, they get it, they know, okay, I can sell this property. I can explain to somebody what the value is. And then they have to see it for themselves. I actually have a lot of clients that are real estate agents that realize, Hey, I’m doing this for everybody else, but I really wanna start doing it for myself.
You got me thinking just as you were talking there about people who hold themselves back because they get stuck in the loop or what I call analysis paralysis. How pervasive is that with women versus men? I know a lot of men and this was true for myself. I would get stuck in analysis paralysis because I am a, an overly analytical person, but I’ve learned that I shouldn’t do that. I recognized that I was doing it. And then I realized, okay, I have to stop doing that. I need to get past that hump, but I see this in other people. And that’s what holds them back from actually getting started in investing in real estate once they get going. And they’ve got a couple properties under their belt, it’s not that difficult anymore. But do you see a difference between men and women when it comes to analysis paralysis in any way?
Not really. I think we’re just human. I think it just depends. Cuz there’s women that are just great at numbers and they get math and I have friends that they can break down a multi-family unit of 300 units and no trouble and see right away. Okay. I like this deal and it’s just a matter of getting educated. And I just think that women haven’t seen the opportunity for themselves. They just didn’t realize it was for them and I, that that really comes down to my childhood and what I thought when I was poor, I thought, okay, this is my lot in life. When you’re poor, born poor, that’s what you’re gonna be. And we know that that’s not true, but when you’re a kid and you don’t know any different, you really get stuck in that mindset. And so I think it’s the same thing with real estate.
It’s just that we just don’t realize it’s for us. And it’s true for men and women because we find that statistically out of all the people that listen to these shows and analyze and learn a lot of them, maybe I don’t know what the percentage is, but it’s high of people that will never buy one property. I remember going to a meetup and this guy was a property manager of maybe 400 units. And he was so proud of the fact that he’d listened to every bigger pockets episode. There’s a lot of episodes. He had never bought one property.
That’s unbelievable. Especially being in the business and managing properties for 400 other people.
I know. I mean, Ken Macaroy right. That’s isn’t that his whole, that’s how he started managing properties.
Yeah. But he recognized the opportunity. He said, well, why am I managing all these properties for other people when I could be buying the properties and managing them for myself.
Right. And then it just comes down to that. It’s just that fear and getting through it. That’s why we always talk about when I say the millionaires mentality. It is so much of it is your mind and what you’re willing to just step into. I think that everyone is a hundred percent committed to having their best life for the most part and realize that money is a vehicle for it. They just don’t trust their knowledge or the many options. They are so fearful of making a mistake, right. That they just now get into it so they don’t get to the other side. So that’s why I’m so grateful that you have this show and opportunities. They’re pretty easy for people to just kind of put their hand up and get started and really start to see the benefits of how great real estate is.
Yeah. Completely regarding that property manager. I have to believe that he understands the value and power of investing in real estate. He has to understand that real estate is a great investment vehicle. There’s no way in his position that he doesn’t understand real estate. There’s something else there that is holding him back. And I’m not gonna say it’s his wife, but there’s something <laugh> something holding.
I think what it is also is that I think a lot of times when you first start out, you wanna buy the right deal. You wanna buy the perfect deal. You think, well, I could buy this in Florida, but then my friend just bought in Georgia and then Austin’s a great market. And so that’s part of the reason that’s where my coaching comes in. And that’s where, what you do is so great too, because you say these are the areas, you identify them, you show them the numbers. It’s easier to break it down when you just are willing to just put blinders on and say, I’m just gonna buy in Texas in this area. That would, that was one of the things that, that helped me. I’m just using Texas as, as example. But but I know for me, when I first bought my first duplex in Los Angeles, I knew I wanted to live close to work.
I knew I wanted to have a, a renter. I knew the area I wanted to live in. It makes it a lot easier to just make a commitment because you can kind of get rid of some of that analysis paralysis thinking about, okay, is this the right one? Is that the right one? The other thing is, is that even when it’s not perfect and I’m sure the listeners have heard this, even if it isn’t the perfect deal, it really doesn’t matter. I mean, over time, you’re likely not gonna lose money if you bought, right. And even if you end up losing a little money, you learn so much more and at least you’re in the game, at least you own property. I had one recently I bought a lake house in Arkansas that I was going to Airbnb and found out that the regulations changed on me.
But I had bought in such a way where I could rent out long term and still cash flow. So I actually had an exit strategy. Now, if I had bought a million dollar property that could only rent for 3000 a month long term, I may be looking at selling that property. Mm-Hmm so a lot of it’s just checking the boxes in terms of, okay, this makes sense. This makes sense. If this happens, I’ll do this. If this happens, I do that. And then, you know, and then you’re in it and not to mention as a real estate professional, the tax advantage of that property in Arkansas is still gonna pay for itself. I was already ahead of the game just by that purchase. And the fact that I had locked it in at a three and a half rate, which we’re not seeing now.
Right. Well, sounds like a great buy. I’m usually pretty reluctant, especially today touching anything in California, just because the rent to price ratios are so out of whack that nothing really cash flows or generates a, an attractive cash on cash return. It’s just not there. So mm-hmm
No, unless you do a new build and it’s very challenging. Yeah. This is a lake house in Arkansas. So it was so I had, I had definitely, I’m not buying in California anymore. I have a few few deals still there. And a few properties I actually was in a couple of deals that ended up selling early because of the regulations very difficult in California and definitely for any, for my clients or anyone that’s listening, if you don’t feel like you’re out of luck, if you live in California, cuz it’s a wonderful place to live and then you can just go pick another place and buy there and, and make it work.
Yeah, for sure. So at the time of this recording, you know, we’ve just witnessed several weeks of very rough stock market declines. You know, we’ve seen a lot of red days and red weeks, one after another. One of the things you talk about in your book is the dangers of leaving all your money in the stock market and not investing in real estate and the cost of that as in slowing your potential growth and your future financial security. Can you talk a little bit about that because I found that kind of interesting that you were actually making that comparison and maybe you could even talk about, you know, how in your perspective investing in the stock market compares to real estate. Although I think much of our audience, you know, already has kind of a pretty good idea of the comparison.
Yeah. This is a huge pet peeve of mine. And this came to once I started making money and and didn’t really know, okay, how do I take care of this? So I’m not having to, to give hundreds of thousands of dollars to the government after I’ve worked so hard I’m all for paying taxes, but it could be, it could be quite excessive. And what I found is that a couple things, when I would go to financial advisors before I even really started to realize how great real estate was, I would find that they would wanna put me in safe investments, annuities, but you’ll make 3%. You’ll never lose that 3%. You’ll never lose it, never lose it. And that’s the key thing. As soon as you say, I don’t wanna lose money. If you ever tell a financial advisor, I don’t wanna lose money.
That’s their invitation to sell you an annuity for 3%. Now at this price, given what inflation is doing at what 9%, who knows how much it is really you’re losing money and you’re locked in. So you have, you don’t even have the opportunity to get out because if you do, you get penalized. So the, the, the issue is, is that the financial industry there, they do a lot of good work. There’s people that do good work. I’m not saying that the stock market is horrible. It’s just that I do feel like you are susceptible to a lot of ties in with the government and big business. And you know, if someone decides to change interest rates, you, you could lose half your portfolio overnight. Now all this stuff is happening in the stock market. I’m probably about 5% of my portfolios in the stock market.
I own a considerable amount of Tesla. So it bumped it up quite a bit. Thank you, Elon. <Laugh> but for the most part, stocks don’t work that way and they go up very slow and then they go up fast and then they go down and then yes, over time you do make money, but with real estate, it’s, it’s, it’s a steady race. And so for me, I just don’t understand why you put all your assets into something that one you have no control over. And two is so volatile if you needed the money. And then all of a sudden you’re looking at your million dollar portfolio and it’s worth a half a million. You’re not, it’s very stressful. I mean, that’s not a situation you wanna put yourself in. So for me, I just think real estate, you have cash flow, you have opportunities.
You have so many opportunities to make money. You have, you can refinance, you can HELOC. I mean, there’s a million ways you can 1031 exchange. There’s so many opportunities to just kind of keep your money going for you. It’s just, it doesn’t behoove anybody to just put all your eggs in a basket that you can’t control. And I also think that you just want to have a little more control over your own finances. And so that’s why I’m huge fan of the self-directed IRAs. You can do 401k self-directed, you can do solo Ks. There’s so many opportunities where you can actually take that 401k and you can buy properties with that. Now there’s regulations. You have to be careful about what the restrictions are on your in your plan and you have to be arm length and you can’t rent it out to yourself. There’s a lot of provisions that you really wanna make sure that you’re aware of, but a lot of passive investing you can do and you can really make sizable returns tax deferred. And it’s just, I, for me, it’s much more favorable
Mm-Hmm <affirmative> so you’re not opposed to the idea of investing in real estate, in a retirement account of some kind.
Not at all, not at all. I think you do need to be really careful and make sure that you learn the provisions. So the one, the only issues that you have well, the big issues are that you can’t be active, you know, and you don’t get depappreciation in a 401k. So there’s certain things you don’t get. So you need to understand that as long as it’s at arm’s length and you’re not involved and you’re just giving like a note is a perfect, I have notes in my 401k. They’re wonderful. And I mean, I’m making between 10 and 30% annualized on my notes. I don’t do anything. I gave somebody an investment just like I would put it in the stock market. And they wire me money every month for the notes and that’s notes on property. That’s just like, you’re like the bank in case people don’t know what that is. That’s also a wonderful opportunity the notes.
Yeah, absolutely. We’ve been issuing notes that range from 12 to 15% plus, and they’re perfect for, you know, for investors and we pay monthly, you know, it’s not like when the house is flipped or sold, you get, you know, your payoff six months or nine months down the road. We we’re just doing monthly deposits, but it’s perfect for a self-directed retirement account.
A hundred percent. And I don’t know any stock that is gonna pay that steadily and give you cash flow every month. I just, I’ve never seen it. Yeah. I mean, yeah, you can get dividends. And then the dividends, you know what at was at 5% and then all of a sudden they’re like, oh, just kidding. We had a bad quarter. So now it’s 2%, you know, I mean, it could happen with real estate too, to be fair. Mm-Hmm <affirmative>, I mean, but if you’re at 15% and you have a bad month and you say it’s gonna be 10%, that’s still a great return on your money.
Yeah. It’s definitely above average as far as what you find out there. You know? So one of the, the other things that you, I mean, you’ve just touched upon this, that you talk about. There are many ways to invest in real estate, you know, both actively and passively. Obviously you’re a living example of that. You’ve got your fingers in many different things from, you know, notes to hard money, lending partnerships, some new development, short term rentals, maybe even some turnkey rentals, like what we offer mm-hmm <affirmative> how does someone who’s listening to this, especially women, but anybody listening to this understand or go about to understand the different options that are available to them, especially on the passive investing side, because that’s something I love you love, you know, we kind of build their lifestyle around passive investments. How does someone go about understanding their options and maybe even how to choose the best option for them?
Yeah, that’s such a great question. And a lot of that is I think for men and women, how we fall under analysis paralysis, and what I think is really important is decide what you really want. And I’m really obsessed with the idea right now that what we say we want and what we actually do are different. So if you say you want a certain lifestyle and you want a certain amount of passive investments, then don’t buy a new car, you know, put your money. So you’ve gotta be congruent with what you want and if it’s not working then, so likewise, when you’re looking at decisions, what you wanna do is ask yourself, okay, how much return do I want? Okay. 10%. Okay. Marco has this opportunity for 10 to 12 to 15%. There’s these deals there’s that deals. Now, then you have to ask yourself, okay, so that’s the return then you’ve gotta ask yourself, okay, what do I believe the market’s gonna do?
What do I think is the most steady? So a lot of people love the multi-family space. Some people feel like cap rates are too tight and that things are gonna implode with the changing of the interest rates. And they feel like people are not buying them at a great price. Now, granted, it depends on the sponsor, the person running the deal because certain people will underwrite it differently. But that might be overall. I know people overall, they just don’t wanna invest in multi-family right now, even though people always want a place to live. I love multi-family. I think it’s great. I’m actually [inaudible] a deal coming upcoming. I think that it’s great. I, but some people don’t like that. So then you, you eliminate that, then you can say single family homes. That’s a great way because I know that I can always sell the home.
It’s very easy to get rid of a single family home for the most part. I mean, obviously in 2008, it wasn’t sure, but generally speaking a single family home is something you can, especially if you buy it in a good area, mm-hmm <affirmative>, I mean, there’s always someone that wants to live in a good area. And even at a little discounted rate, you can get out if you get crunched. So then you might say, okay, if I want single family homes, then I’m gonna focus on maybe a turnkey, like what Marco offers. So you ask yourself, oh, you know, maybe you like storage units. You’ve gotta see what resonates for you in terms of what you think the market will do, because you’ve got your ideas about it and you’ve got your comfort level. And so that’s really what I ask. Sometimes a lot of people right now love Airbnb.
And I always ask certain things like, you know, how is your tolerance for stress? Because things can happen within Airbnb. And some people just don’t wanna deal with it. And and I get it, you know, I get it. That’s just not where that that’s not your tolerance, but you can also make a lot of money, cash flowing, especially if you buy it in the right place and you buy it in a place where you can still turn it into a long term rental, like what I did in Arkansas case in point, you know, I had to pivot, I’m not making as much money as I thought, but it’s still a workable profitable deal.
Right. Nice, cool. So Tamara, as we start to wind things down here, I’ve got like two or three more questions. I wanna ask you in your book, you talk about, you know, how real estate makes you wealthy over time, which obviously is, you know, something that most people who know anything about real estate understand. Can you talk about that a little bit? You actually write about it in your book. And I think there’s some points that you want to drill home about that I call real estate kind of a get rich, slow investment. It’s tried and true. It’s it’s historically proven. We know it creates wealth and you can build wealth and preserve wealth in real estate. What’s your perspective on it?
I couldn’t agree more with, with you. I think that that’s spot on. And I, I think that if you know that that’s a fact and we’ve seen it historically, then it’s really a no brainer. It’s really like know everybody on this call that it has not bought or been in passive passive deals, or hasn’t bought a property, go collect your money and go get going and do it. I just think that it’s just the math, it just works over time. There’s just so many opportunities to make money. And we’ve talked about the fact that, you know, you’re paying off the, the tenants pay off your mortgage. I know you’re a huge fan of reminding your audience about that. So you’re not really paying the bill. The tenants are paying the bill, which is extraordinary. You’re buying this asset and someone is paying your bill. I mean, what, what else could you want?
<Laugh> it’s glorious. I mean, you know, it, it’s just a great opportunity. And and we see appreciation over time. I mean, if you look back, if, if New York city could be bought for $24 a piece, think about how valuable real estate can be a case in point. And and there’s a million other examples like that. And you also have cash flow. So you don’t have to worry about working. If, if you have a slow month, you have money coming in. And it’s just a glorious opportunity of many, many benefits tax advantage. Mm-Hmm, <affirmative> huge tax advantages. And even if you’re not a real estate professional, your passive gains will mark. So when you make money in real estate, and then you lose it in the stock market, you don’t have to pay the loss on the stocks because the gains on the real estate was so great.
Right? No kidding. You got me curious about one thing. When you’re looking at real estate deals or investing in a single family, a duplex, whatever it may be. Are there certain things that are more important to you than others? What are you most focused on when you’re evaluating an investment? A real estate deal.
For me, one of the most important things is population. I like places where I know people are always gonna wanna go and people are moving to, and there’s a lot of different industry. I’m extremely comfortable in Texas. There’s just so it’s booming. There’s so much industry. There’s so many opportunities where there’s people, people need a place to live and people have jobs and then they have money and then they can pay rent. And it just is a great formula. That’s probably one of the number, one things. Now I kind of went off road when I bought the lake house in Arkansas. Although it was interesting when I put it up for rent. The next day I had 24 applications. Wow. So more and more people were moving there and it showed me the supply and demand issue, which also excited me. Cause it, it showed me that next time, if I do a long term renter, I could charge more money.
So you really wanna just make sure that you’re looking at desirable places. I think also I mean, it’s wonderful to buy in remote places because eventually those places will go up and in value. Although we don’t know when, and we don’t know a lot about how it’s all gonna play out. And so the sure bet is to just go where, you know, you’ll make slow and steady or solid returns. Yeah. I mean, we say slow and steady. I mean, 15% on your money is a great amount of money. I mean, that’s a great profit.
Yeah. I agree. Great answer. That’s the key thing is population, population growth and stability in that market. It’s the fundamentals that you wanna look for regardless of where you’re investing. So other than The Millionairess Mentality, are there any other good books that you might wanna recommend about money or wealth, something that you are your favorites or a recent read mm-hmm
<Affirmative> there are so many great books that I love. I just got through the curse of the pirate. What is it? It’s the, I can’t remember the name of it. It’s very, it literally, if you wanna understand everything about money, everything historically, and really what’s going on The Creature of Jekyll Island.
I oh yes. G. Edward Griffin.
Yes. Now that book will turn you upside your head. It’s a very long book, fascinating about the inner workings of the financial system and the government and what’s going on and proven facts in politics. I mean, it’s, it’s a mind blowing book. If you really it’s a little heady, I’ll tell you it’s a little heady. It’s a hard one to get through. I love Principles by Ray Dalio. Yeah. Also another very heady heavy book, but really talks about money. It’s not exactly real estate, but really shares a lot about how money works. And I think, you know, of course all the bigger pocket books are really good that they talk about the ber method and how to invest in real estate. And Gary Keller has a lot of great books. And The One Thing with Jay Papa on that’s a great book that’ll really help you focus and dial in cuz you don’t wanna just read real estate books. You also sometimes need a little bit of balance in terms of, okay, how am I gonna execute? Yeah. Cause sometimes they tell you, but sometimes they’re just giving you more of, you can do this, you can do that. And then you need some of the mindset piece to focus in.
Yeah. It’s funny. You mentioned the one and thing and whatnot with J papain. I, my interview with his wife just went live this morning. <Laugh> as we oh, awesome. As we record this. Yeah. It’s kind of funny. Yeah.
They live here in Austin.
Yeah. Yeah. She’s a, a really sweet lady.
Powerhouse. Very sweet, very smart. And also looking at not only having money, which is an important thing, not only having money, but also bringing value to her life. So it’s like, she’s not just in the rat race she’s looking at. Okay. What kind of life do I wanna have? Which is, which are important questions.
Yeah. It’s a lifestyle question. Just a quick comment for the listeners listening that book, the creature from Jekyll Island by G Edward Griffin. It is a door stopper. I have it here somewhere. Actually. I’m looking at it right now. It’s like two and a half inches thick and it’s fine print. It’s not even large print. I did interview G. Edward Griffin, I think a couple years ago. So if you’re listening to this, you can just go back and listen to that interview. It summarizes the book very, very well. And he’s a really smart guy, just a him and his wife, very sweet people. I’ve gotten to know them over the years. They’re really good people. So let’s wrap this up tomorrow. Any final comments or takeaways before we get to your contact information and you mentioned the giveaway. So any final comments or takeaways.
I would just say, just buy real estate or invest passively, do something. If you’re just sitting on the sidelines, you’re listening and or maybe you just caught the podcast. Just, this is your gift to just, you know, these two pretty successful, smart people really care about you and want you to just be successful and just dive into something and just know you’re gonna be okay.
Absolutely. Great comment. So Tamara, tell our listeners how they can follow you or get more information, get access to the new book.
Yeah, absolutely. So my website for the book, you can just type in Tamarbook.com, it’s that easy. TAMARbook.com, which is a great way to get access to the book. And it’s also available on Amazon Barnes and noble, but that link will take you there. There’s also a pretty cool gift that I have on there that tells you the 20 things. I wish I knew when I first invested in real estate. <Laugh> so it’s a pretty interesting list. And I think it’ll give you some insight. And then also I’d love to offer my toolkit, which is all the downloads from my book, which gives you an asset building organizer, a list to vet sponsors. Like we talked about for passive deals, questions you wanna ask and things you wanna be thinking about. And two other downloads, it’s just a, a good all around piece that you can use to help you on your journey.
Great. Well thank you for offering all that, that I appreciate it. Yeah. Well, it’s been an interesting conversation tomorrow. I’m glad I had you on the show here. It’s been maybe a little bit overdue. We’ve been talking for years <laugh> but thanks for sharing your wisdom and your book and all the good work you do with to help women and whatnot. So thanks for coming on.
Thanks for having me. It was a pleasure.
Yeah, mine too. Thank you.
That is it for today’s episode. I hope you enjoyed it. Remember to download the ultimate guide to passive real estate investing. It’s a free download on our website. You want a free strategy session, contact my team of investment counselors. We’re here to help you and guide you through your investing journey. Do you have a question about real estate investing? No problem. Click the Ask Marco link at the top of the website at passiverealestateinvesting.com and I will answer you directly or I will cover it on the show. And if you haven’t already remember to subscribe, it only takes you three seconds and then you never miss a weekly episode. That is it for today. Thank you for listening. We will see you on our next episode.
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