Aug 3, 2022
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. She is also 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.
In this episode we talked about:
Useful links:
Book: The Power of One More: The Ultimate Guide to Happiness and Success by Ed Myllet
https://www.themillionairessmentality.com/
https://quiz.tryinteract.com/#/60bd0792decf1d00177af595
Discover your Investing Personality
https://wealthbuildingconcierge.com/
Transcriptions:
Jesse (0s): Welcome to the working capital real estate podcast. My name's Jessica galley. And on this show, we discuss all things real estate with investors and experts in a variety of industries that impact real estate. Whether you're looking at your first investment or raising your first fund, join me and let's build that portfolio one square foot at a time. All right, ladies and gentlemen, my name's Jess Fraga and you're listening to working capital real estate podcast. My guest today is Tamar Hermas. She is a full-time real estate investor, coach, author, and founder of wealth building concierge, guiding women to become financially free through real estate investing.
She's also a contributing writer for entrepreneur and bigger pockets and has been featured in Buzzfeed fem founder, and the bigger pockets podcasts. Her first book, the millionaires mentality, a professional women's guide to growing well through real estate was released last month and is three times Amazon. Number one, best seller. Well congrats number one and tomorrow. How are you doing?
Tamar (57s): Thank you. I'm awesome. It's an awesome day to be recording an episode with you.
Jesse (1m 4s): Yeah. Well thank you again for coming on the show. You're joining us from Austin today.
Tamar (1m 9s): That's correct. The great, the great city of Austin, where we have booming real estate and lots of people moving here and lost of opportunity.
Jesse (1m 19s): Yeah. Despite your government's best efforts.
Tamar (1m 22s): Yes. We won't talk about politics today.
Jesse (1m 26s): Well, being north of the 45th, we won't get into us politics, but again, thanks for coming on the show. I thought it'd be great to talk real estate with yourself, from your perspective and some of the, the unique aspects and adventures that you've taken in your career to kick us off. What we like to do with guests is number one, talk a little bit about how you got into this crazy world that we call real estate.
Tamar (1m 51s): Yes. So I was 28 years old, an executive in the entertainment industry and realized that while I had a great job, I was in the trap of trading time for money and I didn't like it. And I noticed that the guy that was my landlord collected rent checks every month. And I thought, well, that's pretty cool. I wonder if I could do that. And I wonder if I could stop paying rent. So even back over 20 years ago, people were thinking this way before we learned about house hacking and all of the terms that we have coined today.
And I went ahead, I bought a duplex and the rest is history. It didn't turn out a hundred percent the way I had planned, it was a great deal, but I could have done different things. Now, knowing what I know today, I probably would've been a little more strategic, so it's still appreciated. Great. And it actually is a property that I hung onto sentimentally. It's not, it would make a lot more money if I sold it, but I just don't have the heart to,
Jesse (2m 58s): We just talked before the show about these unique properties that we kind of collect over the years. And that seems like one that's. Is that still with you?
Tamar (3m 6s): It is. It is still with me. And it's, I, I I'm really of the belief that people that build assets, people that build portfolios and have properties or in a lot of deals and partnerships. Those are people that build real wealth, flippers and people that do other strategic moves, where they don't hold the property. That's also a great strategy, but it's more of a job, right? Because as soon as I'm done with the flip, I have to find another flip.
Jesse (3m 36s): Yeah. It's one of the things I always say, the, especially with flipping or if that, you know, your business is birth strategy, anything like that, you really are, you know, a job might be too, you know, condemn them too hard, but it's definitely a business that's an operating business. And as soon as you stop working, the money typically stops coming in.
Tamar (3m 54s): Right. And that's why it's always great. If you have that strategy in place, which is a great strategy, especially if you don't have a ton of money, it's a great way to start because you can make a really good margin on a flip, and then you can use that money to buy and hold something or figure out how to strategically refinance it and get all your money out of the deal. So there are opportunities there, but I definitely believe that holding assets longterm is safe and a great way to have passive income regularly, regardless of what the market does.
Jesse (4m 26s): Yeah. That's a really good point. I think it's similar to, you know, when somebody sells a company and they take that seed money and invest it, one thing with real estate, you know, what other area are you able to take a large chunk of, of capital from the sale of say, you know, fix and flip and utilize that, you know, even if your salary's great Parkinson's law usually tells us that, you know, if we, if we make enough, we will spend probably the same amount, regardless of what percent or what amount we make. So it's a good point. So this, that was your first foray into real estate.
And you, you said 20 years, was that in the early two thousands? That duplex?
Tamar (5m 3s): Yeah, I bought that. I bought that in the early two thousands and, and really my journey. Wasn't very bold. I didn't go and start buying up a lot of properties. I was very tentative because I was, did not know anything about wealth or real estate investing. And I was very afraid. There are big investments. There, there are a lot of money and, and I didn't wanna make a mistake and I didn't want to buy something that, that didn't work out and be underwater.
And really, I was listening to the people that didn't know real estate, or that had a bad experience in real estate. And when you, when you get into the trap of listening to those people, you'll, you'll only hear negative stories. So it's always a good idea to listen to the people that are successful. And that when I started doing that, I really started to steamroll. And the truth is you gotta bet on yourself. And at the end of the day, all of us know more than we think we know we've been so beaten down, just everybody in life is their stories of trauma or hurt.
Even if you had a great childhood where maybe, you know, one day your mom turned around and said no to you. And then, you know, we're, we're we go into the adult world feeling paralyzed with that word? No. So I just think that, that it was, it was definitely the mindset and stepping into the person that I wanted to become and the, and the life that I wanted to create that helped me propel myself into an, into wealth.
Jesse (6m 40s): Yeah. I don't think there's an investor out there that had, has not had that experience of, you know, people at the beginning of your career saying, you know, I've tried it before tenants are gonna put holes in the wall. You know, you shouldn't do it, the real estate markets fickle it's really, until you do it, that you kind of quiet those voices, but a hundred percent when you're at the beginning of your investing career, those are pretty loud voices. And even though sometimes they can mean the be for the best. A lot of times, those voices are very close to home. So you, you take them to heart.
Tamar (7m 10s): Absolutely. And having income. And especially when you haven't grown up with any money, you get very attached to the security and to the comfort of feeling like, you know, your bills are paid, you know, you can go certain places and travel and do the things that we all really enjoy doing. And that attachment creates a lot of fear when we wanna make moves to grow wealth, because there's no way to do it unless you're willing to, unless you're willing to take a little bit of a leap.
Yeah. And the thing that I like though about real estate, more than any other asset is that, or any other, you know, stock market or business venture, is that I can really understand it. And like you said, once you understand it, you can, you can kind of bet on it in a way where you've really mitigated a lot of the risk. So it's almost like not really a bet. Like the stock market is a lot more of a bet business is certainly, I mean, huge rewards, but big bet. And then real estate is like small margins of bet and big rewards.
Jesse (8m 16s): Yeah. I, I can't remember. I always mix the, the three up, but there's the, you know, you can mitigate risk, you can reduce risk, you can eliminate. And I think you, you can bear the risk. So I think, you know, depending on what area in real estate, you invest, you can be super, super conservative where you can be cowboy gun slinging, you know, developer speculating. So I think there's a, there's a wide variety of aspects that you can tackle it. This one thing I, I like to ask investors is this idea that you said you kind of alluded to being tentative at the beginning.
And I'm always curious to know when people switch, if they do from their full-time job to a full-time investor, if they keep both of them at the same time, like what, what did that look like for you when you started ramping up on the investing side?
Tamar (9m 3s): Again, it took me a while to, to let go of a, a very steady stream of income. So the, my corporate, my corporate job, I actually left. And because I was starting the journey of motherhood and realized that I didn't wanna work in the entertainment industry where they absolutely don't, don't give you a lot of time off just because you had a kid it's not, I mean, there are certain companies, but the kind of work that I did, it wasn't like that.
And, and, you know, there's, the entertainment industry is well known for having long hours. It's just the nature of creating TV and movies. And so when I had left that I actually had started in another company and it was, it was very easy to just keep going with that. And even as I was making the income through real estate, I still was holding onto that because I still wanted that were so conditioned. It was like, in my mind, I still thought, well, something can happen in real estate.
And it takes a really long time. But what I did was I created certain posts, certain number posts, where it was like, okay, once I have 10,000 a month, then I'll be comfortable. And I think that's really important because otherwise you just keep racing and racing. Yeah. I have friends that have eight figures and they're still, they still have one of the, one of the partners in the relationship working in a corporate job, because they're just thinking, well, just a few more years, cuz we remember in 2008 and we didn't have money and we never want that to happen again.
So he's just gonna work in the job a few more years that he really doesn't like, because we have, you know, 9 million in the bank, but we're just, we just need another 30, 30,000 a year in cash flow.
Jesse (10m 52s): Yeah. I mean, that makes a lot of sense. Like I have the benefit, you know, my day to day job is in commercial real estate as a broker. So it's kind of like, you know, we, we, we let go of this idea of having guaranteed income a long time ago. So that's why I feel that in my world of the, of the people that do invest, they, they aren't, you know, even, even in their sixties and seventies, sometimes they always have one foot still into, in the, in the brokerage world just because it's, it's that kind of world where you can, you can somewhat manage both, but 100%, I think for everybody having that job, like you said, completely conditioned to have that income, regardless of what it, what it is because of those unknowns, the 2000 eights, the 1992 threes.
But so the, the duplex from there, what did the, the journey look like from there to where you are now and, and specifically in terms of the type of properties or assets that you invest in.
Tamar (11m 48s): Yeah. So I'm still a huge fan of duplexes and single family homes. I think that it's a great way to invest, talk about a conservative investment that can yield a lot of return and tax advantages. So I, I absolutely love that model. It's not the sexiest. It's not like, oh, you know, it's not like saying I own a 150 unit multifamily at the same time. Who cares because the truth is if you need to exit 150 multifamily, it's a lot harder than getting rid of 10 single family homes.
So you have to look at your comfort level. And for me, I still have those sprinkled into my portfolio. And over time, what I've done with my portfolio is I have gone more into a balancing act of having, having a lot of partnership deals. I'm in a lot of syndications and I'm in a lot of Airbnbs where I put the capital in, but I don't do anything, but I own equity and I own, and I, I get paid passive income every month.
So there's all kinds of ways you can structure deals. That's sort of become a, a more fun way for me because I am a people person. And I also have, have a really good radar for identifying talent and identifying really great partners that I can trust. And so at a certain point, I feel like when you're, when I'm in the grind and I have these properties, it's a little lonely, you're kind of on your own, but when you have the partnerships, it starts to get playful.
And at this, and the reason why I keep the single families and some of the other pieces that I still manage is for the real estate professional status, which is a very good benefit. I'm not sure how you have that structured in Canada, but in the states, the, the real estate professional status is allows you to take both active and passive income as a tax deduction, which is really an extraordinary opportunity to offset income.
Jesse (13m 56s): Yeah, my understanding last time I looked into this and we've had cross border accountants and lawyers on the show before my understanding is we don't have it. If I remember correctly, there's a certain amount of hours per week that need to be dedicated to real estate for, to, to classify as that status. Is that, is that correct?
Tamar (14m 12s): Yeah. It's not only that you're working in real estate. So one of the, I'm not a CPA, so please don't take my advice, talk to your CPA. But, but, but the fact of the matter is is that if you are a real estate agent, you're not a real estate professional. Yeah. It really is actively participating in the properties for a certain amount of hours and it actually gets it. The rules are actually quite strict and, and it, and if there is an audit, which is, you know, you never really know happens statistically, we're not, you know, audits.
There was a rumor that audits were on the decline, but we, we know we have a lot of, of fish to fry right now. So, you know, there's a, there's a lot of things happening probably before maybe they get to your tax return to audit it. But that said, I would, you know, do my best to follow the rules. And at the same time, know that the likelihood of you being audited is probably not wildly great. And anyway, the truth is, is that, you know, you stay in line, you have to keep a log and do the real estate professional status in the states.
And if you do and you do it correctly, then you do have an opportunity to, to get a big tax deduction, which is why I do it.
Jesse (15m 29s): Yeah. It makes sense. I mean, I think we've had, I think Laura Lauren Cohen on the show before she's a cross border lawyer and Florida to Toronto is kind of the, the pipeline. And I think part of the status for visa, for Canadians in the states, or one of the, the angles she uses is that, is that status there of real estate professional as part of building a, I guess, an argument for the visa. So in terms of the, the geography you're in Austin, Texas, your proper's, Texas out-of-state instate, what do you like to what you like to buy?
Tamar (16m 2s): Yes, well, I came from California, so definitely exited a lot of that for obvious reasons, beautifully appreciating market, but very difficult for landlords and the, and the tenant laws, which I know that that's something that you contend with too in Canada. And so Texas is for the landlord, which doesn't mean that you want to treat your tenants any less respectfully. However, if a tenant is not respecting you, then you have the right to, to have them have them vacate your premises, which seems reasonable to me.
And, and so, yes, I am investing in Texas. I really have investments across the country. There are so many great markets right now. We've seen so much growth in so many different states. And I try not to manage a lot in, in other states because one, because I'm, I'm, I like my real estate professional status and two, because I, I just don't need to because I'm in Texas and it's a great market to invest in.
Jesse (17m 10s): Yeah, my friends and family in, in California and New York state, they can feel our pain in Toronto and Ontario. I think our laws are more similar to those two states than they are to say, Florida or Texas, for instance. And it's 100% I've, I've probably, I've said it a number of times on the program before where it's, it has nothing to do with trying to do anything nefarious with your tenants. It's just having a level playing field that, you know, both sides are accountable to each other and not one is taken advantage of the other.
And unfortunately, I think the way that stabilization and rent control is developed in, in New York and California, it, it unfortunately goes that way. And it's very difficult to get tenants out when they are violating the terms that you agreed to.
Tamar (17m 54s): Right. And I do have a lot of sympathy for, for creating rules around that, because unfortunately there are people where they'll come in and they'll just take people out and they are displacing people that cannot afford homes. And we obviously have a, a lack of housing. And so that is something that is a consideration from a humanitarian standpoint, although then we have the other side. So yeah, it is, it's difficult to invest in, in, in California. I still do have investments there.
And, but it's, you know, anything that falls under the rent control is, is very difficult to work with.
Jesse (18m 34s): And are they still using the system of there's annual guidelines for increases of rent? Is, is that something they do in California as well?
Tamar (18m 41s): Yes. There are annual guidelines unless someone moves out. Yeah. Then you can, then you can raise the rent, a market rent to market, and I actually have paid, and this is crazy, cuz this, you can buy properties for this. I paid one 10 at $70,000 once. Wow. To vacate. Yeah. And that was, that was my mistake. And part of it is that when you're, when you're in the process, it was a property that I had bought early on that was under rent control. You don't know all the nuances.
And so what hap it's really important when you buy a property to start investigating right away. Okay. What can be done? These are things that I could see could be issues. So I had a tenant that was in there and I probably could have just offered them $10,000 when they moved in. But instead I, I thought, well, that's fine. We'll just let them ride. Well, 10 years later, the property had escalated in value and they were very well situated in the property and just didn't wanna move. And they were smart. They knew their rights.
And so I was really in it stuck between a rock and a hard place. So I think that it's a good lesson for whenever you get any kind of property like multifamily, whatever it is, storage, whatever it is always start right away and look at, okay, these are the potential issues that I see that could happen and figure out how to mitigate them sooner than later. Don't really think hard before you decide, I'll just kick the can on this. Because if you see that it could be an issue later, if you kick the can on it, ultimately you won't be in as strategic of a position to negotiate some sort of a, an exit around it.
Jesse (20m 20s): So that sounds to me that you wanted to get vacant possession for a sale.
Tamar (20m 24s): Well, I wanted, well, there was two, it was twofold. I either wanted vacant possession to, to double the rent from 1500 to 3000, which is a huge difference. Or I wanted possession for the sale. But once you have someone that is occupying the property, if they don't wanna leave and you can't, you know, readily force them, there are certain guidelines, but I, I try to stay within the, the legal parameters because I wanna be a good citizen. And, and so what, what happened is that if you wanna sell the property, if you sell the property with it's the same, it's the same principle also for any kind of real estate that you're doing.
If you sell the property and it's not performing as well as it could, because it has an, it has an issue. Someone else can solve that problem, but they're gonna pay less for the property. Yeah. But if you solve the problem, then you can charge more for the property. So that was my strategy I wanted to, at the time I either wanted, I wanted possession of the property. I wanted possession of that unit. Yeah. So that was kind of how it went.
Jesse (21m 27s): Yeah. It's pretty much standard practice now that in, in Toronto and a couple other cities up here that it's, it is a agreement that you come to, whether it's 20,000, 25, 30,000 in an apartment scenario per tenant to, to leave, I'm amazed that the government is still allowing us to have that adult conversation and contract and say that you agreed to leave if, if this amount is paid, cuz you know, if you just Google that, you'll start seeing a number of news articles that I probably are not dissimilar to your experience in California.
Now, in terms of the, the structure that you typically like to use, you mentioned partners now, is this something where you're doing a JV, a more formal structure, like a syndication what's what do you typically like to do? And I understand that, you know, could depend on the, on the property itself,
Tamar (22m 17s): Right? So it's true. It does depend on the property itself. And what I really work towards is identifying the best partner. So if I'm going to be a limited partner in LP, then I will look for the best sponsors and the Le best terms and the best deals. What did they buy the property for all the questions you wanna ask kind of as an outsider before you give someone your money and you also wanna look at the track record of the operator to make sure, you know, have they exited before, do do they know how to deal with this asset class, all of those things.
So that's what I look for there. A lot of the determination there has to do with, you know, do I, you know, do I like the terms? Do I like the model? Do I do? I think the sponsor can handle, you know, can, can execute on their plan. So with that, I will just put, put money into there. Also, one of the things I look at is what kind of depreciation they offer because depreciation allows us to, with, if you're not a real estate professional, you can do passive, passive income, passive income against passive losses so that depreciation can help you offset some, some, some other passive income, which is really comes in handy.
And you know, it return, it expands your bottom line, right? If they're offering you 17%, but then you get a depreciation, you can think it's like a 22%, which is quite a, quite an attractive return. So on the LPs, that's how I do that. Now, when I GP a project, I'm still looking for the same things, but I'm probably even more strict. And the reason is, is because when, as a general partner, I'm part of that deal and I really need to make 150% sure because I'm the one that's coming to you and saying, Hey, I've got a deal for you and bringing people into the deal.
And I'm also involved in, in the trenches. So with that, I'm looking even with a stronger magnifying glass and, and other deals, it just, you know, partnerships come to me, like I said, I'm in a couple of Airbnbs and the smokes, I own one on my own. And then I have a couple with partners. I do nothing and it's great. We just refied out. I just got all my money out of the deal and it's appreciated hundreds of thousands of dollars. I own equity and I do nothing. And, and so it's a fantastic opportunity.
And for that, I really look at what are the ideas that a partner approaches me with and, or what are the ideas that I'm bringing to a partner? So if I don't, you know, you either have to have the time, the sweat or the, or the deal. So, so I have to look at with me a lot of times, it's I happen to have the capital. So, you know, I'm looking at it from a place of where do I wanna give my capital, but if you have the deal, then you have options of, you know, what kind of partner would be someone that will be reasonable and create, create terms that, that are amenable to both.
So it's a win-win.
Jesse (25m 16s): So once the sale is closed, you always hear that of, you know, the different individuals I, you know, was saying, we just hired a, a new kid at work. And I was basically saying that real estate you're gonna, you're gonna have every different type of individual. And, and some client is going to be the right fit for them. And, and that may be the complete opposite to you. There's always kind of a fit because it's a people business and every person and every client's gonna be slightly different. And one thing I, we were talking about was after the deal is done in terms of closing, if you're the, the operator.
So you're the general partner in this case, you know, one thing you learned really quickly is if you have partners, you know, some people are better at making sure that the bank statement looks okay, others are better at investor relations. Others are better with construction. You said you're kind of a people person, you know, what hat do you typically or feel the most comfortable wearing when you're in that general partner role? And then how do you delegate, you know, those other, those other areas.
Tamar (26m 15s): So I'm very much a friend of the house person. And, and I definitely am a lot involved in, in putting pieces together in consumer relations in, in finding part, the right partners to also partner with us. That is more my wheelhouse, like the underwriting. I can look at it, but I don't wanna sit at a desk and underwrite a deal for, you know, 10 hours a day. And that's what it takes, cuz you're looking at deal after deal, after deal. And some people love that. They, they love the numbers, they love the strategy and that's great, but that's just not, that's not my thing.
So pretty much that's, that's the role that I play. So I might bring in other people to do different things. I usually have other, there's usually several GPS on a deal. So I'm usually not left by myself to kind of delegate everything. I usually have various partners that are very skilled at other things. And, and so that's kind of how it, how it works. And I think it is. I think one of the things that, that I do in my coaching is I talk to clients a lot about what is it that you like, right?
Because we forget as we're in the grind, we're just thinking I wanna make money in real estate and I wanna grow wealth, but there are certain things, there are certain jobs like you're pointing out that, that you may be more inclined towards, you know, you may be the other day working on some prefabs right now in Austin. And the, the general contractor on the job was talking to me about how he just loves to work with his hands. And he likes the, you know, the, the strategies of, of the buildings and he really enjoys that aspect.
Right. For me, that's a little bit of a headache I just wanna look at, okay, does this look right? Does that look right? Is this in line? So, so it's good to get to know yourself and know what you're really good at because it, especially if you, if you are someone that's really handy in construction, flipping might be a great thing for you because if you can take care of that on your own, and you don't need to hire third parties, then you don't need to rely on a huge team. You can oversee it pretty easily and you can probably get it done at a much lower price, which will give you a better profit.
Jesse (28m 24s): Yeah, it makes sense. I mean, if the alternative is your working construction for somebody else and you could be buying the assets, doing the job and coming, coming home with a larger paycheck. That definitely makes sense. I wanna, I wanna get into the book a little bit and coaching before I do, though. I'm just curious. Did your former career, was that an asset in, in how you manage your real estate business? Cuz I, I just imagine your industry, your prior industry, it's fairly chaotic long hours, lots going on was curious how that parlayed or helped or hurt, you know, your world in real estate.
Tamar (28m 57s): Oh, that's a really, that's a really interesting question. No one's ever asked me that, but I would say that someone that can work in a fast paced environment will generally thrive in real estate. If you like a lot of things moving around and fires coming up and you put the fire out and then you gotta walk over here and put another fire out. That's perfect for real estate because we, people like us thrive in that sort of environment. We like things changing. We like things moving and we like solving problems. So I definitely think so.
I also, just from my humble roots of not growing up with a lot of money, I was someone who was very hungry and I not physically hungry. Luckily I always had food, but I was, I was hungry in terms of my drive in terms of creating a kind of life that I wanted for myself. And so I was willing to work hard. I was willing to go to, to a million meetups to meet people I was willing to, to do whatever it took. And it's interesting right now I have a relative that wants to get into real estate.
I, I gave him rich dad, poor dad. And of course now the rest is history, right? Yeah. You can't not read rich dad, poor dad. And think I gotta get some real estate today. What am I doing with my life? And so, and so that happened and he is a super smart guy and he is starting to go to meetups. And I told him, I said, listen. I said, when you go to meetups, I said, do not ask anyone to pick your brain, to pick their brain and do not ask anyone if you can have some of their time so that you can learn, ask them about them, ask them what you can do for them, ask them how they, how you can be of service to them.
Because people love to talk about themselves. And they like people that aren't all about. Like, give me me, me, me, me, because it doesn't show that you're a hard worker, hard worker, someone that is like, Hey, what can I do for you? I'm I'm really willing to, to learn this. Can I, you know, can I just follow you around? And like, you know, help pick up the pieces that maybe fall apart during the day, maybe I'll go get a toilet seat for you and bring it back to the property, you know, be, be of use to people. And that's where you really establish opportunities and friendships. Yeah. I didn't bring toilets to anybody though.
I did other things though.
Jesse (31m 12s): I can't remember which guest, but somebody recently was saying, most people have an eye problem. I did this, I did that. I'm gonna do this. So if you can tap into that ego, that's definitely definitely the route to take. Okay. Let's talk a little bit about the book maybe for, for listeners. You, can you give us kind of a bit of a, what the thesis is and, and how, how it came about to, to writing it? Cause I know it's, it's not a small feat.
Tamar (31m 37s): Yeah, no, it's not. So yes. The book is called the millionaires mentality, a professional women's guide to building wealth through real estate. And I wrote it for a couple reasons. One is that I like to do hard things. Now how many people would not want to write a book and leave a mark on the world? Do book lives well beyond you? It's a really cool thing. Yeah. And statistically it's 81% of people have a book in them or wanna write a book and 3% actually do it.
It's not easy to put all your thoughts together and the editing and the work. And even when you hire people there's work involved. So, so I wanted to do it for that reason because it's one, because it's a challenge. And I wanted to feel like I, the more that I challenge myself, the more I feel confident in myself and the more I'm excited about what I can achieve. And so it was next level for me. And also because it lives beyond me, my daughter, my 20 year old read my book and how much knowledge did she get out of that?
Seeing the journey of where I came from and my thoughts about there's a chapter of it's okay to want money. That's a big thing. That's a big thing for a lot of us that grow up without money. And especially for women, I mean, I don't know what it is and why money became a dirty thing when money is, is a blessing. And it really, it, it supports everything in our, in, in every way. And we can think of it in a great way, or we can think of it as a, as a hindrance. And so as soon as you open up and are excited about it, then you can start to open the floodgates and see what's possible.
And then I just wanted chapters to really outline, okay, how do you do this? How do you get into real estate? All the things that I kind of had to figure out on my own, I just wanted to put it in a book and kind of a in, in terms that I, that I understood in a very personable way. And so that's why I, I created the book.
Jesse (33m 34s): So the, the book and I apologize millionaire, okay. Now the book itself, like I, I, I assume it's, it's something that is for the general population guy or gal, but can you talk a little bit about the, the female experience as an investor? Because we, you know, we've had women on the show before and, and like I said, you know, prior to the show, when we were talking, everybody has a unique experience, but I find that there's some, some commonalities when it comes from women going up into real estate, whether that's in brokerage development investment.
So yeah. Could maybe give a, your thoughts on that.
Tamar (34m 13s): Absolutely. So I'm a super positive person and I love people. I'm not like, oh, men are like, this women are like this. I think just, you know, if you're a good person, then you're a good person. You could be male, female. I can love you the same. And I've had that experience in real estate. We have, 90% of millionaires are made through real estate. 30% are women. So we are a minority. And part of it just has to do with the fact that we haven't not too long ago, we couldn't vote not too long ago. We couldn't even buy a house.
So, I mean, we're just, you know, we're a little bit behind because we haven't had as much time to ramp up, but I feel like women in investing actually have an advantage in that we're very personable, we're nurtures, we're relationship oriented. And if we can just get past the idea that that money is something we need to clinging to, or that there's not enough, then all of a sudden we're able to make decisions that, that give us the opportunity to really grow wealth and own, own a lot of assets and, and have the life that we, that we
Jesse (35m 21s): Want. Yeah. I think, you know, whether it's entrepreneurship business in general or real estate, I feel that having unique experiences it's, I almost see it always as a positive to the team, whether that's unique experience geographically, the way you, you grew up, you know, color creed, you know, whether whether you're male or female, I find that just uniqueness, we'll see a problem that maybe some other person didn't solve. I think the worst thing is when you have a monolith, you know, people that were all grew up the same way and they're all in the business, because then those creative solutions might not be there in your, and your blinders will be the same.
So that's a great point. I wanna be mindful of the time tomorrow. This has been great. We have four questions. We ask every guest that comes on the show, and then we'll kind of wrap up with where people can get ahold of you. So if that works for you, they're easy, easy layup. So don't be, don't be nervous. But if that works, I'll kick those off.
Tamar (36m 18s): Sounds great.
Jesse (36m 19s): Okay. One thing we ask for every guest is your view on mentorship, basically, what would you say to somebody that say female in this case, the, a younger woman that wants to get into real estate investment? You know, what would you say to that person?
Tamar (36m 34s): Well, I, it's interesting cuz I just shared about this relative and he's kind of in the same boat and I would say the same thing to a male as I would a female, I would say if you really want it and you're determined start walking toward it. And how do you do that? You have to get knowledge. So you, if you don't have resources, you have to go to meetups, you have to show up, you have to listen to people, you have to learn. And if you are, if you have resource, definitely invest in a mentorships have been fantastic for me, they've connected me with a lot of higher level people that ha and given me access to a lot of knowledge and opportunities.
So I think that the more you invest in yourself and that means your time and resources, the better. And I think that you can't, I wouldn't, I, you could certainly figure out this by yourself. It is not brain surgery, but it is a lot faster and a lot more fun and easier if you have mentors to support you along the way.
Jesse (37m 36s): Yeah. That makes sense. The beginning of your career, we all have these hard lessons we learned in the first couple years of investing. What was one of those hard lessons that, you know, you know, now you wish you knew, then
Tamar (37m 48s): I'm gonna say the story that I shared about the duplex, where I had to pay someone to get out for $70,000, that kind of hurt. That's a lot of money. Yeah. And, and there's actually two stories we're on the same property. Funny enough. So I would say, you know, get ahead of it and always, just really look at what you're buying and try to understand, you know, it's fine. It's not the end of the world. Like even though I had to pay a certain amount, I still made a ton of money on that property. It's so, you know, it wasn't the worst case scenario really wasn't that bad.
It sounds like, oh my God, you had to pay this woman. But at the same time, I also feel like, you know, I probably put her son through college. I mean, I did, you know, I did a good thing cuz that's a lot of money to someone. So, so that was, that was really great. And the other thing was that on the same property, I had an issue with, with the property where I actually had to Sue the, the owners, they didn't disclose something and I had a plumbing issue. And so the one thing I would say also is try to have as many knowledgeable people as you can look over the contracts.
Yeah. And you know, don't just assume that everything's done right. Just because no offense to realtors or anything, but you know, we're all human, we miss things. So we, we, I would say really just look at what you're signing, pay attention. I mean, really it worked out in my, my favor. Ultimately I actually ended up going to small claims court and I won and I was up against an attorney. And the reason was, was because the, the sellers had signed certain documents, not disclosing some of the work they had done. So, you know, you wanna be careful on both ends, whether you're buying or selling and really pay attention to, to documents.
Jesse (39m 30s): What is aside from your great book, which we'll put a link to. What's something that you are either reading now, just finish that you could recommend to listeners.
Tamar (39m 41s): I'm always reading a couple books at a time. Yeah. The one that came to me is the ed Mylet book on one more. I think it's called or the power, the power of one more.
Jesse (39m 53s): Is it a fairly short book?
Tamar (39m 54s): No.
Jesse (39m 55s): Cause I know he, I know he has like a really like teaser book, but that like jacked me up. I was like, you know, for that whole month I was just like on, I love ed Mylet all of his stuff is, is fantastic. If you, if you haven't listened to him, just, just Google it pretty intense guy. But sorry. So that book, that, that was so
Tamar (40m 14s): Yeah, that book, I mean, honestly, there's nothing really that he's saying that isn't something I've already heard. If you haven't done a lot of mindset work, then it's an extraordinary book. You should get it today because there's a lot of jewels in it. And the one thing that ed does, and I think this is partly part of the reason why you're saying that you like him so much is he really has a great way of sharing an idea and having it land in a way where you really wanna get into action and make a change about it. Hmm. And he puts together a lot of concepts that are, that are really valuable about, you know, how to make it and, and he's very motivating.
So I just, I had heard him on a podcast and I just thought, oh, I'm gonna, I've never really had a book of his. So I, I just started listening to it. And it's, it's really very good.
Jesse (40m 60s): Yeah. That's very cool. I think, I think it was in Vegas. I I've heard him at an event speaking and this one is max max out your life. So very, very head my let sounding. Okay. So the last question I like to ask every guest on the show, first car, make and model.
Tamar (41m 17s): Oh yes. This is great. A Ford escort stick shift and it was light blue. And it I'm very proud of that car because I bought it. I was 14 and a half. I saved all my money until I had $5,000. And then when I was, was 16, I got that car.
Jesse (41m 35s): I was about to say Ford Bronco. And then I realized you were from California, originally not Texas then moved to, okay. So we were gonna put, we'll put everything in the show notes where people can reach out to you, but any place aside from a Google search that you, that we can send them.
Tamar (41m 51s): Yeah. So the easiest way to get the book is just go to Tamar book.com. There's also a quiz to discover your real estate investing personality. And that is@tamarquiz.com. So that is just, those are two really great ways. And they'll take, you you'll get into my, into my wheelhouse. Of course it's in my website is wealth building concierge.com. But both of those will get you closer to me. Especially tomorrow.
Book will get you to my website and my book. My,
Jesse (42m 24s): My guest today has been tomorrow, the millionaires, her maze tomorrow. Thanks for being part of working capital.
Tamar (42m 30s): Thank you so much for having me.
Jesse (42m 39s): Thank you so much for listening to working capital the real estate podcast. I'm your host, Jesse for galley. If you like the episode, head on to iTunes and leave us a five star review and share on social media, it really helps us out. If you have any questions, feel free to reach out to me on Instagram, Jesse for galley, F R a G a L E, have a good one. Take care.