Latest / Own More Doors / #54 From Engineer to Investor: Theresa’s Journey Into Real Estate Wealth (Theresa Cornwell)

Transcript

#54 From Engineer to Investor: Theresa’s Journey Into Real Estate Wealth (Theresa Cornwell) · Own More Doors

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_01: What's up, everyone?
• 0:01
  SPEAKER_01: Juan Weezar here with another Own More Doors podcast.
• 0:04
  SPEAKER_01: Super excited to jump into our next interview here with one of our own agents.
• 0:10
  SPEAKER_01: We're going to be from time to time, we're going to be highlighting uh the great agents and brokers that we have in the office that helped me make Sage Real Estate a success.
• 0:17
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm here with Teresa Cornwell, and I'm super excited to tell you her story.
• 0:22
  SPEAKER_01: She's going to share with us her story, her passion, what she's into.
• 0:26
  SPEAKER_01: And, you know, she she is an inspiration.
• 0:29
  SPEAKER_01: And I and I can't wait to have you folks who haven't met her yet get to know who she is, what she's about, what motivates her.
• 0:36
  SPEAKER_01: She's inspiring.
• 0:37
  SPEAKER_01: Teresa, thank you for being on today.
• 0:38
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, thanks for having me.
• 0:39
  SPEAKER_01: Teresa, so let's just hop right into this.
• 0:42
  SPEAKER_01: Um, tell us a little bit about yourself uh from like the early days.
• 0:46
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, from the early days, man, I have been a nerd pretty much from the early days.
• 0:52
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, was first chair saxophone all throughout middle school and high school.
• 0:58
  SPEAKER_00: Um, took four AP classes, junior year, four AP classes, senior year, was always uh an overachiever, one might say.
• 1:07
  SPEAKER_00: And so, yeah, I was very, very nerdy, very into my grades, always did well at school.
• 1:13
  SPEAKER_00: And um, but I was also kind of athletic.
• 1:15
  SPEAKER_00: I was the captain of the soccer team and I was on varsity soccer um all throughout high school.
• 1:21
  SPEAKER_00: Walked on to my college team.
• 1:23
  SPEAKER_00: I went to the University of Southern California um for engineering, because again, very nerdy.
• 1:30
  SPEAKER_00: And um yeah, I've always kind of gone after, kind of been a goal setter and gone after the goals.
• 1:40
  SPEAKER_01: Teresa, where'd you grow up?
• 1:41
  SPEAKER_00: I grew up in the San Francisco Bay Area.
• 1:45
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 1:46
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and any brothers and sisters?
• 1:49
  SPEAKER_00: Nope, just the spoiled only child over here.
• 1:52
  SPEAKER_01: Where do you think your motivation comes from?
• 1:54
  SPEAKER_00: You know, that's a good question.
• 1:56
  SPEAKER_00: I guess I was always um, I was kind of a tomboy.
• 1:59
  SPEAKER_00: And so to me, whenever it was like, oh, uh, you know, the boys are faster, the boys are stronger, the boys are better at this, it like it was always I always saw it as a challenge where it's like, well, if they can do it, I can do it too.
• 2:13
  SPEAKER_00: Why can't I do it?
• 2:14
  SPEAKER_00: And so I always wanted to um kind of show the boys up in a way.
• 2:19
  SPEAKER_00: And um so I would always uh, you know, try to run faster, try to be stronger, try to get better grades, try to um, I guess maybe there's there's a little bit of a perfectionism in there.
• 2:32
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe there's uh I might make a therapist really rich one day.
• 2:36
  SPEAKER_00: But uh yeah, but just kind of always been like that.
• 2:38
  SPEAKER_00: See seeing um the obstacles or the the you can'ts as a challenge rather than accepting them.
• 2:47
  SPEAKER_01: Do you think uh some of the was there any pressure for mom and dad to be the best or expectations?
• 2:53
  SPEAKER_00: Probably, yeah.
• 2:55
  SPEAKER_00: There there was.
• 2:56
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, I'm I'm half Filipino, half white, my mom's Filipino.
• 3:00
  SPEAKER_00: And so um growing up in an Asian household, there's always the expectation of you're gonna get good grades.
• 3:08
  SPEAKER_00: And if you don't, like that's that's just not good enough.
• 3:11
  SPEAKER_00: It's it is an expectation, it's not really um an encouragement.
• 3:17
  SPEAKER_00: It's more of, oh, like, you know, if you if you didn't get an A or if you didn't get the 100%, like why?
• 3:24
  SPEAKER_00: What you know, what happened?
• 3:26
  SPEAKER_00: Why aren't you why aren't you doing better?
• 3:30
  SPEAKER_01: Teresa, so you said uh early on that you were kind of a nerd your whole life.
• 3:34
  SPEAKER_01: And and typically when I when I think of a nerd, I don't think I mean of course I would think uh really good grades, AP classes, um, you know, plays an instrument really well, but I normally don't think like all-star captain soccer player.
• 3:48
  SPEAKER_01: And so you're kind of like uh kind of the complete package, you know, and where where school is important, but but um talk to us about about soccer.
• 3:56
  SPEAKER_01: I and I know you glazed over it.
• 3:58
  SPEAKER_01: Um folks, she walked on to USC Division I soccer.
• 4:02
  SPEAKER_01: Like if to make the team is tough, to be able to walk, walk on to the team is tough.
• 4:08
  SPEAKER_01: Teresa, like um when you were in high school, and and I know recruit recruiting back then, not that you're old, but was probably different.
• 4:16
  SPEAKER_01: Like, did you think or did you want to play soccer?
• 4:18
  SPEAKER_01: Did your parents want you to play soccer in college?
• 4:20
  SPEAKER_01: Were you recruited?
• 4:21
  SPEAKER_01: Did you did you did you think that that could be an option at the college level?
• 4:25
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I was I was recruited.
• 4:27
  SPEAKER_00: Um, yeah, I had a couple of really good offers to go and play at a few other schools.
• 4:33
  SPEAKER_00: I got flown out to other schools.
• 4:36
  SPEAKER_00: Um, you know, they put me up in the dorms and I would basically shadow around the girls for for a few days and just um, you know, go to the practices, go to the classes and get a feel for what it was like.
• 4:47
  SPEAKER_00: And um, not gonna lie, it was pretty fun.
• 4:50
  SPEAKER_00: It was pretty fun to uh to be able to get flown out and everything taken care of and everything paid for.
• 4:55
  SPEAKER_00: But ultimately, um, you know, as a woman, you're not, even if you go pro, you can't make a living really as an athlete.
• 5:05
  SPEAKER_00: And so, so I always was kind of a forward-looking person.
• 5:10
  SPEAKER_00: And I knew that athletics wasn't gonna be able to be a career for me.
• 5:15
  SPEAKER_00: So while I loved soccer, while I was good at it, while I knew I wanted to play at least to some extent in college, I knew it wasn't gonna be my focus for college.
• 5:25
  SPEAKER_00: So when I got into USC for engineering, I was like, okay, well, hey, they have a great soccer team.
• 5:32
  SPEAKER_00: Um, that'd be awesome if I can walk on.
• 5:34
  SPEAKER_00: And, you know, but my real career, my real direction right now with college is engineering.
• 5:41
  SPEAKER_01: Got it.
• 5:41
  SPEAKER_01: I because there's there's people who go, you know, who are, you know, who are in travel teams now and and even at the high school level, they're thinking division one, division two, division three.
• 5:52
  SPEAKER_01: And their goal is to go to college to specifically play soccer.
• 5:56
  SPEAKER_01: That's their goal or their parents' goal.
• 5:58
  SPEAKER_01: In your case, you were good enough to do it.
• 6:00
  SPEAKER_01: It just wasn't your goal.
• 6:01
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 6:02
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah.
• 6:02
  SPEAKER_00: I definitely could have been a uh, you know, a starter at another school, um, or you know, had a lot more playing time at even at D1 colleges.
• 6:12
  SPEAKER_00: But uh, but yeah, that just wasn't my main goal for college.
• 6:18
  SPEAKER_01: Got it.
• 6:19
  SPEAKER_01: When when did you realize that you wanted to do engineering?
• 6:23
  SPEAKER_00: You know, that's a funny story.
• 6:25
  SPEAKER_00: So again, being a nerd, I was really good at math.
• 6:28
  SPEAKER_00: And so I really didn't know what I wanted to do in college, but I was close with my math teacher.
• 6:34
  SPEAKER_00: And as I was applying to colleges, uh, I was in the classroom at lunch one day, um, probably working on my homework or whatever I was doing.
• 6:43
  SPEAKER_00: And he was like, you know, Teresa, if you're at all thinking about engineering for college, you should just apply under engineering because it's a lot easier to go from the school of engineering into any other school that you want to go to.
• 6:58
  SPEAKER_00: Want to go into business, you can go to the business.
• 7:01
  SPEAKER_00: If you want to go to calm, you can go to calm.
• 7:03
  SPEAKER_00: If you want to go into a school of, you know, anything, you can pretty much go from anywhere from engineering to anything else.
• 7:12
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but to go from undeclared or, you know, a different school into the school of engineering, they're gonna make you jump through so many hoops.
• 7:20
  SPEAKER_00: It's gonna be a lot harder.
• 7:22
  SPEAKER_00: You might be behind on some of your, you know, class wrecks.
• 7:25
  SPEAKER_00: It's just, if at all, if any part of you is thinking about engineering, just apply under engineering.
• 7:30
  SPEAKER_00: So I was like, yeah, okay, like why not?
• 7:32
  SPEAKER_00: That sounds like a good plan.
• 7:34
  SPEAKER_00: So um, yeah, so I just applied under and uh like undeclared engineering when I was applying to colleges.
• 7:41
  SPEAKER_01: And then when did you decide which which type uh like specific engineering that that was more the play to your strengths, I guess?
• 7:49
  SPEAKER_00: So when I when I went to orientation, they were talking about the different types of engineering.
• 7:54
  SPEAKER_00: And uh the girl that I was kind of paired up with, she was an industrial and systems engineer, which is like the business engineering, is what she called it.
• 8:03
  SPEAKER_00: And I was like, oh, I like business.
• 8:05
  SPEAKER_00: Um, yeah, that sounds like a cool fit.
• 8:08
  SPEAKER_00: But really, it was almost like warehouse design.
• 8:11
  SPEAKER_00: Um, as I started taking some of those classes, I was like, it's kind of boring.
• 8:15
  SPEAKER_00: But um, my boyfriend at the time was a music, uh, music recording major.
• 8:20
  SPEAKER_00: And so he had really cool classes.
• 8:22
  SPEAKER_00: And being a musician, I was really interested in the classes that he was taking.
• 8:27
  SPEAKER_00: And so I took a couple of his just to fill units just for fun, and started to realize that my music recording classes all involved electronics, from the way that the microphone picks up sound and sends the signal into the mixer and the way that the mixer uh mixes all the different um components of a song and then comes out the speaker.
• 8:47
  SPEAKER_00: It's all different electrical signals.
• 8:49
  SPEAKER_00: And so I was like, well, I should just, I should switch from industrial and systems engineering into electrical engineering because this is really interesting to me.
• 8:58
  SPEAKER_00: So I ended up uh doing that and minoring in music recording at the same time.
• 9:02
  SPEAKER_01: Got it.
• 9:03
  SPEAKER_01: And some would say that, you know, out of all the different types of engineering, electrical is up there in terms of the most, I mean, all of it's difficult, you know.
• 9:10
  SPEAKER_01: I think for for for for most people, when we think of engineers, we we're like, oh, that's really smart people.
• 9:15
  SPEAKER_01: But with within that, there's actually even levels.
• 9:17
  SPEAKER_00: There is.
• 9:17
  SPEAKER_01: And then doing electrical or choosing electrical or getting into electrical is probably the one of the most difficult ones, correct?
• 9:23
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, even among engineers, uh, they're kind of scared of what we call double E's, the electrical engineers.
• 9:30
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, they know that that the double E's are kind of the crazy ones because you're dealing with electrons.
• 9:34
  SPEAKER_00: You can't see it.
• 9:35
  SPEAKER_00: It's not like uh mechanical engineering where it's like, okay, I can see how this gear works or how this bridge works, or you know, I can understand the physics.
• 9:45
  SPEAKER_00: The physics of electrons is so much different than than what you would intuitively expect.
• 9:51
  SPEAKER_00: So it's it's a much more uh it's much more difficult to conceptualize how electrons work and how circuits are supposed to work and and actually build it and put it all together.
• 10:02
  SPEAKER_01: Got it.
• 10:03
  SPEAKER_01: So Teresa, you you go through college for five years, maybe, and and and we're gonna get through like your career in engineering and then ultimately how you ended up here at Sage Real Estate.
• 10:15
  SPEAKER_01: And obviously we're we're glad to have you here.
• 10:17
  SPEAKER_01: But um what happened after college?
• 10:20
  SPEAKER_00: So um, yeah, so it was four years.
• 10:23
  SPEAKER_01: There you go.
• 10:23
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, okay.
• 10:24
  SPEAKER_01: It was five for me.
• 10:25
  SPEAKER_01: It was five for me, but I enjoyed every minute of it, okay?
• 10:28
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, well, you know, uh you guys will see that this is actually a uh a recurring theme where I'm beating one uh at many different levels, whether it's running, uh we can get into that.
• 10:39
  SPEAKER_00: Sure.
• 10:39
  SPEAKER_00: We will yeah, so four years and um and got a job straight out of college.
• 10:45
  SPEAKER_00: It was great.
• 10:46
  SPEAKER_00: Um, it was working for a company is called Science Applications International Corporation.
• 10:54
  SPEAKER_00: And they had a contract with the US Air Force, and we were developing the next generation of GPS for the Air Force.
• 11:02
  SPEAKER_00: And so I was working up towards the El Segundo Air Force Base, and I got my secret clearance.
• 11:08
  SPEAKER_00: It was really cool.
• 11:09
  SPEAKER_00: We had all this protocol for, you know, some of the information that can't be shared for the next 50 years, or else, you know, I have to have to find you and kill you.
• 11:18
  SPEAKER_00: And so um, so that was a an interesting job.
• 11:22
  SPEAKER_00: It was it was really interesting to see how the public side of our economy works because it's very slow and very time consuming.
• 11:31
  SPEAKER_00: And so when I came on to that contract, it was in recompete after three years.
• 11:38
  SPEAKER_00: So three years into it, my contract is now going into recompete, which means that the company that I'm part of might not keep the contract.
• 11:46
  SPEAKER_00: Other companies, Boeings, uh Northrop Grummins, things like that, uh, they can bid for the contract and they could win it.
• 11:54
  SPEAKER_00: And that's what happened is that another another company won it.
• 11:58
  SPEAKER_00: And um, and I decided to go and see what else was out there because this contract, after this recompete, was now 25 years overdue for when it was supposed to have been finished.
• 12:14
  SPEAKER_00: And so without going into too much detail, there's just a lot of um, I think we all kind of have this feeling, a lot of redundancy, a lot of uh slow moving parts in the public sector that I just wasn't a fan of.
• 12:29
  SPEAKER_00: It was cool to see, it was cool to be a part of.
• 12:31
  SPEAKER_00: It was cool to get my secret clearance, but um, but yeah, I was ready for something a little faster-paced, a little bit more um scrappy in a way.
• 12:40
  SPEAKER_01: And what was the next job?
• 12:42
  SPEAKER_00: So the next job was at this company called Dynamic Research Inc., and we were actually testing the first iterations of uh autonomous driving.
• 12:52
  SPEAKER_00: So we tested all kinds of advanced safety systems on cars, and um, and that included autonomous driving when it when it was very first coming out.
• 13:02
  SPEAKER_00: And so that was all of the autonomous lane keeping, pedestrian detection, uh, autonomous braking.
• 13:09
  SPEAKER_00: We would also do tests for like rollover resistance and um the ability to detect a car in front of you and then obviously deploy the brakes and things like that.
• 13:20
  SPEAKER_00: So that was also a very fun job.
• 13:23
  SPEAKER_00: That was a lot more fun than the first one.
• 13:26
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but the test site was up in Bakersfield.
• 13:30
  SPEAKER_00: And so as autonomous driving became more and more in demand and more and more standard, I was gonna be up in Bakersfield week after week in uh in this environment that I just really didn't like.
• 13:45
  SPEAKER_00: It's very uh they do like a lot of crop dusting up there.
• 13:48
  SPEAKER_00: It was just, it it felt very unhealthy to me.
• 13:51
  SPEAKER_00: It was an unhealthy like work schedule starting at you know 8 a.m., getting to the test site.
• 13:57
  SPEAKER_00: You're there all day, every day.
• 13:59
  SPEAKER_00: Um, you know, you're going to dinner with your with your team, and then you get back to the hotel and you just, you know, have time to shower, sleep, and do it all over again.
• 14:06
  SPEAKER_00: And so um, so on top of that, it ended up being a very toxic team dynamic in in my test team as well.
• 14:19
  SPEAKER_00: And so the combination of a of that environment plus the team environment really started to weigh on me, where it's like I knew I was gonna be there all week.
• 14:31
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe the next week I would have to go again, or maybe they would give me a week off and then I would have to go back again.
• 14:36
  SPEAKER_00: But it was becoming more and more and more demanding to be up in Bakersfield.
• 14:40
  SPEAKER_00: And I literally started having heart palpitations at 28 because I was just dreading being around those people and being in this environment that I just like really thought was was extremely unhealthy and it was manifesting itself physically.
• 14:58
  SPEAKER_01: Wow.
• 14:58
  SPEAKER_01: And so, and so you left the job.
• 15:01
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, so um, so my kind of saving grace in a way was that my first boss out of college at at SAIC, he was the first person to talk to me about um, you know, hey, Teresa, are you getting the 401k match?
• 15:17
  SPEAKER_00: Do you understand how the stock market works or or or how businesses work and how um how to get tax write-offs and how you know you can use businesses to create wealth and how you can use real estate to create wealth.
• 15:31
  SPEAKER_00: And he was the first person to talk to me about, you know, you need to own wherever you live.
• 15:36
  SPEAKER_00: Even if you go buy a condo, you need to, you need to buy real estate.
• 15:39
  SPEAKER_00: You need to start doing that.
• 15:40
  SPEAKER_00: And I was like, oh, okay, well, I guess, um, I guess this is what adults talk about.
• 15:44
  SPEAKER_00: I guess this is what adults do.
• 15:46
  SPEAKER_00: And so I started trying to, you know, understand how credit cards work, understand how debt works, understand how businesses work, understand how the stock market works, understand how real estate works.
• 15:57
  SPEAKER_00: And luckily enough, in my last semester at USC, I had gotten into sailboats.
• 16:02
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I just took this sailing 101 course to fill some credits.
• 16:07
  SPEAKER_00: And um, you know, you learn about sailing, you sail over to Catalina uh on a Saturday, stay on the boat, and then you sail back on a Sunday.
• 16:16
  SPEAKER_00: And I just asked the skipper, like, hey, if I wanted to sail more, how can I do that?
• 16:20
  SPEAKER_00: And he's like, Oh, well, why don't you come sailboat racing out of Long Beach?
• 16:23
  SPEAKER_00: We go all the time.
• 16:24
  SPEAKER_00: And so once I got racing, again, that that competitive side of me was like, oh, this is fun.
• 16:30
  SPEAKER_00: Like, racing is way more fun than just kind of cruising around on a boat.
• 16:34
  SPEAKER_00: And so now all of a sudden, for the first time in my life, I'm around these, these like very wealthy people who own these, these boats, these yachts, these like racing yachts that can take us all out as their crew to dinner.
• 16:49
  SPEAKER_00: They can buy our drinks, they can, you know, travel wherever they want to go.
• 16:53
  SPEAKER_00: And I started asking them, like, hey, well, well, what do you what did you do in life?
• 16:57
  SPEAKER_00: What did you do?
• 16:58
  SPEAKER_00: What did you do?
• 16:59
  SPEAKER_00: And they all had different backgrounds and different careers, but the one thing in common was real estate investing.
• 17:04
  SPEAKER_00: And so that again, like with my background of being an engineer, I was able to pick up the patterns of something.
• 17:12
  SPEAKER_00: If I had a goal for something, what are the ways to get there?
• 17:15
  SPEAKER_00: What are the patterns that I see?
• 17:16
  SPEAKER_00: And real estate was the biggest pattern that I saw.
• 17:20
  SPEAKER_00: And so now, fast forward to this time in my engineering career where I'm having heart, heart palpitations.
• 17:26
  SPEAKER_00: It was, it was the logical step for me to um to pursue this business that I had already started creating, where I was helping people understand financial literacy because I started talking to people my own age about like, hey, like, are you working on your credit score?
• 17:43
  SPEAKER_00: Are you getting out of debt?
• 17:44
  SPEAKER_00: Are you saving?
• 17:44
  SPEAKER_00: Are you investing?
• 17:45
  SPEAKER_00: What are you investing in?
• 17:46
  SPEAKER_00: And no one was.
• 17:47
  SPEAKER_00: No one, uh, very few people had investment accounts, very few had savings accounts, at least that were funded.
• 17:54
  SPEAKER_00: Everyone was up to their eyeballs in debt.
• 17:56
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm talking, even, you know, this is in my 20s, but even people, you know, in their 30s, 40s, 50s, 60s, that just, oh yeah, I just like I save up my, you know, I put, you know, a couple uh tens of thousands of dollars in my savings account.
• 18:11
  SPEAKER_00: But then I kinda I I always spend it every year on my vacation.
• 18:14
  SPEAKER_00: Or I've, yeah, I've just never really, you know, funded my investment accounts, or I've, you know, yeah, I have a lot of debt.
• 18:22
  SPEAKER_01: Teresa, so so you get this motivation because you're around um people that are successful and they're telling you, hey, kind of real estate is the one common denominator.
• 18:33
  SPEAKER_01: Um let's get into your first investment.
• 18:36
  SPEAKER_01: What did you buy?
• 18:38
  SPEAKER_01: And how old were you?
• 18:40
  SPEAKER_01: And why choose Long Beach?
• 18:41
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, at this point you're commuting to Bakersfield, and so you're I guess 28 at the time.
• 18:47
  SPEAKER_01: Talk to us about your first um purchase of real estate.
• 18:51
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 18:52
  SPEAKER_00: So yeah, so I probably got into sailboat racing when I was 21.
• 18:56
  SPEAKER_00: Started seeing these patterns at 22, 23.
• 19:01
  SPEAKER_00: And I was like, okay, I better buy real estate.
• 19:04
  SPEAKER_00: If I want to be wealthy like these guys, I need to buy real estate.
• 19:08
  SPEAKER_00: And so I started saving, started saving, started working on my credit score, got my credit score over 800, had a savings account that could last over nine months of living expenses if needed, had multiple successful investing accounts.
• 19:21
  SPEAKER_00: And I was able to kind of leverage that into um my first real estate purchase, which was a duplex here in Long Beach because I was living in Long Beach uh to go racing.
• 19:33
  SPEAKER_01: And um how old were you when you bought your first property?
• 19:36
  SPEAKER_00: And so that was at 26.
• 19:38
  SPEAKER_00: That was uh yeah, that I had to save up a long time, but I knew I had that goal in mind.
• 19:44
  SPEAKER_00: I was like, okay, this is gonna be a big purchase, but clearly it's worth it.
• 19:49
  SPEAKER_00: Clearly, they they know something that I don't.
• 19:52
  SPEAKER_01: I I think some people are gonna wonder, Teresa, hey, you're an only child.
• 19:56
  SPEAKER_01: You mean to tell me mom and dad didn't pitch in for the down payment?
• 19:59
  SPEAKER_00: No my gosh.
• 20:00
  SPEAKER_00: My mom and dad were trying to talk me out of it every step of the way.
• 20:05
  SPEAKER_00: Like they were like, Teresa, you have no idea what you're getting yourself into.
• 20:10
  SPEAKER_00: You have no experience in this.
• 20:12
  SPEAKER_00: Like, you're gonna have calls at midnight from tenants, you're gonna have to go over there and like fix toilets in the middle of the night.
• 20:18
  SPEAKER_00: You have no idea what you're getting into.
• 20:20
  SPEAKER_00: Like, why would you do this?
• 20:22
  SPEAKER_00: They were very, very much against it.
• 20:24
  SPEAKER_00: They were not, they were not my biggest fans when it came to real estate investing.
• 20:30
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but again, like my parents are wonderful, they're great, I love them.
• 20:35
  SPEAKER_00: And they worked nine to five their entire lives, retired at 65.
• 20:40
  SPEAKER_00: Like we took one vacation a year, and it was always, it was always kind of the same vacation.
• 20:45
  SPEAKER_00: Like there was nothing, um, there was no kind of like frills or spending or like splurging, I should say.
• 20:53
  SPEAKER_00: Like everything we bought was like, oh, do we have a coupon for it?
• 20:56
  SPEAKER_00: Like, oh, you want, yeah, let's go into this store, like go to the sales rack, go to go to the back where the clearance section is.
• 21:02
  SPEAKER_00: Like, we're not, we we did not buy retail, you know?
• 21:06
  SPEAKER_01: And so it's which is which is probably good to learn too.
• 21:09
  SPEAKER_00: 100%.
• 21:09
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 21:10
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 21:10
  SPEAKER_00: No, I'm really grateful for that.
• 21:11
  SPEAKER_00: I'm really grateful for that.
• 21:12
  SPEAKER_00: I still have that kind of mindset where I just like it's it's difficult to buy retail.
• 21:16
  SPEAKER_00: But now at least I understand that wealth just gives you options.
• 21:22
  SPEAKER_00: To me, financial freedom gives you options to do the things that you really want to do in life.
• 21:29
  SPEAKER_00: So whether that is for someone buying the dream car or whether that's buying, you know, some name brand purse or shoes or whatever it is, at least it gives you that option to do it.
• 21:41
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe like for me, it's it's giving back to the community, being able to be generous with friends and family and and uh, you know, invest in the things I want to invest in.
• 21:50
  SPEAKER_00: So to me, those things are important.
• 21:53
  SPEAKER_00: To other people, other things are important.
• 21:55
  SPEAKER_00: And so financial freedom gives you those options.
• 21:58
  SPEAKER_01: The part that I The most is um you know, here at Sage Real Estate, we we we get to see, we get to meet, we get to help um all ages, but but we do get a lot of young folks who we help them with their first you know investment property, so whether duplex, triplex, fourplex or or or more.
• 22:20
  SPEAKER_01: And and when I sometimes it's a couple, sometimes it's it's an individual with their parents' help, and sometimes it's a young female who who you know, similar to you, just went off and did in their early 20s, which is crazy.
• 22:33
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, people, you know, some of our clients are in their 40s and 50s and they're just barely trying to get into multifamily investing.
• 22:40
  SPEAKER_01: And you did it at an age where you didn't have the family support, you were single, and just doing it all by yourself just because you realized, like, I'm gonna make some changes in my life and I'm gonna take the risk now.
• 22:51
  SPEAKER_01: And so I I always give kudos, you know.
• 22:55
  SPEAKER_01: I I I hear from a lot of people, and they're like, oh, well, they're lucky they own a lot of real estate.
• 22:59
  SPEAKER_01: I'm like, they're lucky, like was it given to them or did they ask were they the ones who saved the money and took the risk?
• 23:05
  SPEAKER_01: And to me, real estate invest investing is risk taking, you know, it's it's calculated, sure, and there's no guarantee that you're gonna be rich.
• 23:13
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but but speaking of which, what did you pay for the property and what is it worth now?
• 23:19
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 23:20
  SPEAKER_00: Um well, so I paid, so this was in 2016 and it was 375,000.
• 23:28
  SPEAKER_00: And I made a lot of mistakes along the way, you guys.
• 23:31
  SPEAKER_00: Like, I wish that I had found a Sage real estate.
• 23:35
  SPEAKER_00: Not that Sage existed, but like if there was a brokerage who actually um would help the people who really just want to start out.
• 23:46
  SPEAKER_00: Cause I feel like a lot of multifamily brokerages, they're looking for the big guys.
• 23:49
  SPEAKER_00: They want the people who, you know, who are going five plus.
• 23:52
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, I'll do quadruplexes.
• 23:53
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, I'll, you know, if I know, if if it's my my sister or my cousin, okay, I'll help you I duplex.
• 23:59
  SPEAKER_00: But a lot of the multifamily brokerages, um, I feel like they're wheelhouse.
• 24:04
  SPEAKER_00: They're not, they're not looking to help the people who are just starting out.
• 24:07
  SPEAKER_00: And that's really what I'm passionate about.
• 24:09
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and that's what I love that that Sage is passionate about.
• 24:12
  SPEAKER_00: And that that Sage is open to doing and encourages people to do because um, because it's not easy to find.
• 24:18
  SPEAKER_00: And that was one of the big mistakes that I made is that I was like, oh, all uh real estate agents are the same.
• 24:24
  SPEAKER_01: Correct.
• 24:24
  SPEAKER_00: My my sailing buddy was an agent, a residential agent, but I didn't know.
• 24:29
  SPEAKER_00: I didn't know any difference between residential, multi-fan.
• 24:31
  SPEAKER_00: Like I was just like, I gotta buy real estate.
• 24:33
  SPEAKER_00: And so um, and so I asked him, hey, can you help me help me find a duplex, triplex something?
• 24:39
  SPEAKER_00: All I could afford was a duplex in North Long Beach, where I did not, I knew I didn't want to live there, but I knew I had to buy something.
• 24:47
  SPEAKER_00: And that was the only thing that I could like even afford.
• 24:50
  SPEAKER_00: So I think it was listed at like 385.
• 24:54
  SPEAKER_00: Like, if I would have had someone who knew what they were doing, I could have negotiated that down way more.
• 24:58
  SPEAKER_00: I just knew that I didn't want to pay retail, so I didn't want to pay asking.
• 25:03
  SPEAKER_00: And so um, so we negotiated down to like to 375, but there was zero analysis.
• 25:09
  SPEAKER_00: Like I found it.
• 25:10
  SPEAKER_00: I was like, hey, like what do you think of this?
• 25:12
  SPEAKER_00: And he was like, Yeah, looks good, you know.
• 25:15
  SPEAKER_01: And um, you know, you you bring up an interesting thing, and I and I tell people, hey, not all real estate agents are the same, not all brokerages are the same.
• 25:25
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and if you talk to someone who like, I don't like so here's my advice if someone is a buyer and they're looking to do multifamily and you're like, oh, I'll I'll use the neighbor down the street, or hey, there's this girl that I like on Instagram.
• 25:37
  SPEAKER_01: I'm just gonna, you know, she sells real estate.
• 25:39
  SPEAKER_01: Let me talk to her.
• 25:40
  SPEAKER_01: Folks, let me be very clear.
• 25:42
  SPEAKER_01: You could sell homes and be really successful and uh do videos and do the great marketing and be cute taking selfies.
• 25:50
  SPEAKER_01: I see that.
• 25:51
  SPEAKER_01: There's that's that's everywhere I look.
• 25:54
  SPEAKER_01: That doesn't make them uh the best candidate for your first multifamily investment.
• 25:59
  SPEAKER_01: It might make them the best candidate for your first condo or single family home, but there's a big difference.
• 26:05
  SPEAKER_01: We're we are selling income-producing assets.
• 26:09
  SPEAKER_01: With that, there's metrics.
• 26:11
  SPEAKER_01: Those metrics need to be understood before you enter into this.
• 26:14
  SPEAKER_01: And I guarantee you, most residential agents don't know those metrics.
• 26:19
  SPEAKER_01: Why?
• 26:20
  SPEAKER_01: They don't have to know them.
• 26:22
  SPEAKER_01: All they look at is hey, curve appeal, how are the schools, the kitchens, and the bathrooms?
• 26:26
  SPEAKER_01: That's nice.
• 26:28
  SPEAKER_01: But what's the cap rate?
• 26:29
  SPEAKER_01: What's the gross rent multiplier?
• 26:31
  SPEAKER_01: What's the price per door, the price per square foot?
• 26:33
  SPEAKER_01: And how does it compare to my competition?
• 26:34
  SPEAKER_01: Am I overpaying?
• 26:35
  SPEAKER_01: Am I underpaying?
• 26:36
  SPEAKER_01: Or is inventory up?
• 26:38
  SPEAKER_01: Is inventory down?
• 26:39
  SPEAKER_01: They are not gonna know those things.
• 26:41
  SPEAKER_01: Not to mention, we have statewide rent control now.
• 26:44
  SPEAKER_01: And a lot of times I talk to these residential agents and they're like, hey, is there rent control in Long Beach?
• 26:50
  SPEAKER_01: I'm like, you gotta be kidding me.
• 26:51
  SPEAKER_01: But I understand they don't need to know that.
• 26:54
  SPEAKER_01: But if you go to them and if you contact the person on Instagram with the following and you're gonna say, I want to buy my first fourplex, they're gonna say, Yeah, I can help you.
• 27:01
  SPEAKER_00: Of course.
• 27:02
  SPEAKER_01: They're gonna say, Yes, I can help you.
• 27:03
  SPEAKER_01: And that's a mistake.
• 27:04
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 27:04
  SPEAKER_01: It's a mistake because it's not about who you work with matters.
• 27:08
  SPEAKER_01: It's it's you need to ask them how many multifamily properties have you sold in the last 12 months?
• 27:13
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 27:14
  SPEAKER_01: That's what you need to know.
• 27:15
  SPEAKER_01: And if you ask anyone here at Sage Real Estate, we would say uh 90% of what we sell is multifamily.
• 27:21
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 27:21
  SPEAKER_01: And so um there's there's more to it.
• 27:25
  SPEAKER_01: And and so, yeah, you were able to to get into a property.
• 27:30
  SPEAKER_01: I'm I'm sure you're you're glad you bought it.
• 27:32
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, but you know, listen, you're 26, there's a lot of things you didn't know.
• 27:35
  SPEAKER_01: Luckily, everything worked out.
• 27:37
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 27:37
  SPEAKER_01: Do you still own the property?
• 27:38
  SPEAKER_00: I do, yeah.
• 27:39
  SPEAKER_00: I still, I still have it.
• 27:41
  SPEAKER_00: It was really a blessing in disguise that all I could afford was North Long Beach because I would have loved to have bought a duplex of Melmont shore, that I could live in one, rent out the other.
• 27:52
  SPEAKER_00: And that's not like a bad way to go, but because of the area, it actually doubled in value within like eight years.
• 27:59
  SPEAKER_00: So usually in this Southern California, you know, coastal market, um, we can expect doubling in valuation roughly every 10 years.
• 28:08
  SPEAKER_00: But mine like really shot up in value because of the area, because there was a lot of potential for the area, because it wasn't a great area.
• 28:17
  SPEAKER_01: So yeah, it was in the path of growth.
• 28:19
  SPEAKER_01: It's still in the path of growth.
• 28:20
  SPEAKER_01: It's there's still a lot of great opportunities.
• 28:22
  SPEAKER_01: And and let this be a lesson for some of the folks listening is that um, if you're buying your first investment property, it may not be your dream property.
• 28:29
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 28:30
  SPEAKER_01: It wasn't Teresa's dream property.
• 28:31
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, you know, Teresa wants to be near the water because she likes to sail.
• 28:35
  SPEAKER_01: Um, that's probably not where she, but but did it pay off?
• 28:37
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, 100%.
• 28:38
  SPEAKER_01: 100%.
• 28:39
  SPEAKER_01: 100%.
• 28:40
  SPEAKER_00: So the thing is, back then I couldn't take advantage of, you know, we have the Fannie Mae program now.
• 28:46
  SPEAKER_00: You can put 5% down.
• 28:48
  SPEAKER_00: It's an amazing program.
• 28:50
  SPEAKER_00: Like to be able to leverage, going into the numbers, getting it getting a little nerdy, but but being able to leverage 5%, 50 grand, let's say it's a million dollar property to trade basically 50 grand, say, hey bank, here's 50 grand.
• 29:03
  SPEAKER_00: I want this million dollar asset, is something that only real estate can do.
• 29:08
  SPEAKER_00: You can't walk into the bank and be like, uh, hey bank, the SP 500, like you know it's gonna go up.
• 29:13
  SPEAKER_00: You know it returns on average 12% a year.
• 29:15
  SPEAKER_00: Here's 50 grand, give me a million dollars of it.
• 29:17
  SPEAKER_00: It'd be like, no, that's cute.
• 29:19
  SPEAKER_00: Get out of here.
• 29:19
  SPEAKER_00: Hey, bank, here's 50 grand.
• 29:21
  SPEAKER_00: Like, I want a million dollars of Bitcoin.
• 29:22
  SPEAKER_00: Like it's it's gonna keep going up.
• 29:24
  SPEAKER_00: But like, heck no.
• 29:25
  SPEAKER_00: I don't care how good it looks.
• 29:26
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and and that's one of the important things is it's what you're what you're talking about is leverage.
• 29:31
  SPEAKER_01: So leverage allows like that 50 grand could control a million.
• 29:34
  SPEAKER_01: And and what Teresa's simply saying is that if you had 50,000 and you went to go to the stock market, well, you're really only buying$50,000 worth of stock.
• 29:42
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 29:42
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but here what she's doing is she's controlling a bigger asset.
• 29:45
  SPEAKER_01: Now, why does that matter?
• 29:46
  SPEAKER_01: Well, uh, if we go back 30 years, the average um appreciation of real estate in Southern California is 6.3%.
• 29:55
  SPEAKER_01: So, so that million dollar, call it fourplex, if you buy it and you manage it by the end of the year, if it if it stays with a 6.3, so let's just go off of that, it's$63,000.
• 30:08
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 30:09
  SPEAKER_01: And and that's and a lot of that's from leverage, it's not from the$50,000.
• 30:12
  SPEAKER_01: It's it's kind of uh from everything underneath the umbrella.
• 30:15
  SPEAKER_01: But part of the umbrella is I always look at it as making money on the bank's money.
• 30:20
  SPEAKER_01: And where you really can't do that with a lot of other assets where you can't borrow that money.
• 30:24
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 30:25
  SPEAKER_01: And so we know that in Southern California, appreciation is king, more so than cash flow.
• 30:31
  SPEAKER_01: And that's where people are really creating wealth.
• 30:33
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, imagine if at that time, if you knew what you knew, you would have bought five, 10, 20 of these.
• 30:38
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, yeah.
• 30:38
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, I would have, I would have like stood.
• 30:40
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, yes, how to scale.
• 30:42
  SPEAKER_00: Correct.
• 30:43
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, correct.
• 30:44
  SPEAKER_01: Teresa, um you're you found your way to through uh to Sage real estate.
• 30:52
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, talk a little bit about that, and then um, and then we'll get into your some of your most recent investments too.
• 30:59
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 31:00
  SPEAKER_00: Um, so like I said, I was at I was at this point in my engineering career um where I knew something had to give, something had to change.
• 31:07
  SPEAKER_00: And I had been already talking to people and developing a course basically for high school students um to help them understand financial literacy and understand the right moves that they could make before getting into debt and before messing up their credit score and before, you know, spending all their money and and not um not taking the right moves early on uh because of the power of things like investing, compound interest, leverage, things like that.
• 31:33
  SPEAKER_00: And so, you know, here I am 28.
• 31:35
  SPEAKER_00: I'm like, well, no one in their right mind in their 30s or 40s is gonna talk to me, but hey, I could probably make a big difference um helping high school students learn these things.
• 31:45
  SPEAKER_00: And so, so that was my my business.
• 31:48
  SPEAKER_00: It was called the Millionaire Keys.
• 31:49
  SPEAKER_00: And um, yeah, and I I've really tried really hard to make to make a difference.
• 31:54
  SPEAKER_00: And it was so hard to get traction.
• 31:57
  SPEAKER_00: It's just so hard.
• 31:59
  SPEAKER_00: Um, starting up a business and then COVID hit.
• 32:01
  SPEAKER_00: This was, yeah, I probably left uh engineering in like the end of 2018, right around 2018.
• 32:09
  SPEAKER_00: So trying to get up and going for for about a year and then 2020, COVID hits, everything's shut down, right?
• 32:16
  SPEAKER_00: Everything kind of comes to a halt.
• 32:18
  SPEAKER_00: And so um, so I'm still kind of grinding away and getting more involved in the community because I'm like, well, hey, these are all of the decision makers in terms of whether it's education, whether it's, you know, nonprofits, what's happening with our with our high school students, with our college students.
• 32:36
  SPEAKER_00: If I can meet some of these people and, you know, and we can partner up in and figure out a way to make a difference here, maybe that's the best way to go about it.
• 32:46
  SPEAKER_00: And so I had I had joined the Rotary Club of Long Beach, which is actually where I met you on.
• 32:51
  SPEAKER_00: And um, and that's an amazing organization that gives back in so many ways to our community and has so many um, not just decision makers, but really great people who do great work in our community.
• 33:05
  SPEAKER_00: And to me, the best financial move that I could have possibly made was buying that duplex.
• 33:13
  SPEAKER_00: So, as good as my my stock investments were doing, and they were, they were doing great.
• 33:17
  SPEAKER_00: The fact that this$375,000 asset could double in value within eight years, just like that, have 400 grand of equity that that for all intents and purposes a bank would see as mine, that that was something that I felt like I really needed to share more of.
• 33:40
  SPEAKER_00: Because as I continued on this journey of um helping people understand financial literacy, helping people make the right moves financially, I realized that I really needed to like to double down on real estate investing because it's something that just isn't taught in school.
• 33:56
  SPEAKER_00: It's usually not taught at home.
• 33:58
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, I know I never saw anyone do it growing up.
• 34:00
  SPEAKER_00: It was never talked about in my, you know, social circles by the grace of God.
• 34:05
  SPEAKER_00: I had this boss that that planted that seed and and I I was lucky enough to rub elbows with people who had done it and were were generous with their, you know, with their knowledge.
• 34:14
  SPEAKER_00: Not that anyone, you know, took me by the hand and and showed me what to do, but at least they told me kind of what their steps were to create wealth.
• 34:23
  SPEAKER_00: And so um, so when you kind of mentioned like, hey, you if you're always you kind of heard me speaking to high school students and you're like, oh, hey, if you're if you're advocating for real estate investing, like, why don't you get into it more?
• 34:38
  SPEAKER_00: You know?
• 34:39
  SPEAKER_00: And I was like, yeah, that that really does make sense.
• 34:42
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I was impressed.
• 34:43
  SPEAKER_01: Um, they had asked Teresa to speak, uh, I think it was uh 70 or 80 high school juniors, and I walked into this rotary meeting, and Teresa was on stage, and I didn't know her then, and I got to hear her story, and she's a great presenter.
• 34:57
  SPEAKER_01: She was making a great point.
• 34:58
  SPEAKER_01: And so then um, you know, from that week there was um a trip where we take the kids to um uh what we call camp enterprise, and and then I got a chance to to to meet and and speak with Teresa more and and see what it was that was driving her and her motivation.
• 35:13
  SPEAKER_01: And and um maybe a week later I called her and I said, Hey, after speaking with you, I I think you probably should be helping people buy real estate.
• 35:24
  SPEAKER_01: And and that was kind of like um, I don't know that you were thinking that at that time, but um, you know, I I put the idea in in your mind, and then from there you contacted me, and then you know, the kind of the conversations followed.
• 35:37
  SPEAKER_01: And and and I'm glad that you're here.
• 35:39
  SPEAKER_01: You know, it's it's it's interesting when you talk about, hey, with uh millionaire keys, it was it was hard to get traction.
• 35:45
  SPEAKER_01: It was right after COVID.
• 35:46
  SPEAKER_01: And and you know, it's it is tough to get uh schools or nonprofits to um to fund what you're trying to educate these kids, which I think is important.
• 35:56
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but from a real estate per uh perspective, you've you've gotten lots of traction.
• 36:00
  SPEAKER_01: And it's been really impressive to see you help um a lot of individuals either with their first first investment, you know, you've been selling triplexes, fourplexes.
• 36:08
  SPEAKER_01: I know you currently are even doing a single family home.
• 36:12
  SPEAKER_01: And um, talk to us about uh being in real estate now, um, what that's like, uh and and even talk to us about the market.
• 36:20
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, you're out there representing buyers and sellers and you're kind of seeing what's happening.
• 36:24
  SPEAKER_01: It's um July 1st, 2025.
• 36:27
  SPEAKER_01: Like, what are you seeing?
• 36:28
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it's it's definitely an interesting time in the market right now.
• 36:33
  SPEAKER_00: Um I think it's a great time for people who are looking to get into real estate investing to make that move.
• 36:42
  SPEAKER_00: Because here's the thing like people are always scared to make the first move.
• 36:49
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but especially when interest rates are high.
• 36:53
  SPEAKER_00: And that stops a lot of people from investing or maybe from doing like a 1031 exchange.
• 36:59
  SPEAKER_00: Hey, I have this duplex, I have this triplex, this quadruplex.
• 37:02
  SPEAKER_00: And like, yeah, I could I could, you know, level up, but like, oh, but my my interest rate is so good.
• 37:08
  SPEAKER_00: The thing is, what we're seeing in the market right now is that duplex sales are going up over the past three years.
• 37:17
  SPEAKER_00: There was a high in 2022 and then it dropped in 2023 as the interest rates went up.
• 37:22
  SPEAKER_00: And that's one of the laws of real estate investing is that as interest rates go up, the prices come down, right?
• 37:29
  SPEAKER_00: And or or at least stagnate in in the more affluent areas.
• 37:34
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but as interest rates come down, the prices start shooting up.
• 37:39
  SPEAKER_00: And so what I love to tell people is like, hey, you know, it's great to have a higher interest rate because you can refinance later.
• 37:46
  SPEAKER_00: Lock in the low price at the higher interest rate, a couple years down the line, refinance to a lower interest rate, and you still have you locked in that low price versus waiting and waiting and waiting for the interest rate to come down.
• 38:00
  SPEAKER_00: Now all of a sudden, investors come out of the woodwork, there's cash offers, offers are over asking, the switch flips like it, like that.
• 38:09
  SPEAKER_00: And you can't get your foot in the door all of a sudden.
• 38:12
  SPEAKER_00: It's like people keep telling themselves, like, oh, it's too expensive, it's too expensive, it's too expensive, it was too expensive for me.
• 38:19
  SPEAKER_00: People are gonna hear my story and be like, oh, 375 for a dupe like like, well, you can't get that now, so I guess I'll just quit.
• 38:27
  SPEAKER_00: Like it was so hard.
• 38:28
  SPEAKER_00: I had to save up for years, years and years and years.
• 38:32
  SPEAKER_00: And I had to put 20% down.
• 38:34
  SPEAKER_00: There was no 5%, you know, three and a half.
• 38:37
  SPEAKER_00: Like, I wasn't gonna live there.
• 38:38
  SPEAKER_00: So it wasn't the that option wasn't there for me.
• 38:42
  SPEAKER_00: But no one that I know who who started their own real estate career had it easy at the beginning.
• 38:50
  SPEAKER_00: Every single person was like, yeah, I I really had to stretch to get that first property.
• 38:55
  SPEAKER_00: Every single person was like, it was, it was tough.
• 38:58
  SPEAKER_00: I I had to scrap, I didn't, you know, I had to live there when there was nothing in it, and I had to just like like live in a sleeping bag until I had enough money to redo the, you know, the kitchen or the bathroom or whatever it was.
• 39:12
  SPEAKER_01: You know, that's one of the impressive things that um, because I I had a mentor and he taught me he was the first guy that similar to you, I I didn't know that you could build wealth and and become a millionaire through owning real estate.
• 39:27
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but my mentor, Mark, I learned that from him and I met him in college.
• 39:31
  SPEAKER_01: And so he was that that was like my my light bulb moment was like, oh, he's like, you know, you could do the same.
• 39:38
  SPEAKER_01: And and I and at no point did I ever think I was gonna be a millionaire.
• 39:41
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, I, you know, I'm an immigrant kid and I just no one ever told me I could until I met him.
• 39:47
  SPEAKER_01: And so now, you know, I mean, I I bought my first property at 23 because I had his uh not his financial support, just his his his emotional support.
• 39:56
  SPEAKER_01: You could do it, you could do it, and so then I did it, and that was kind of the beginning of my investing career.
• 40:01
  SPEAKER_01: But um, what I like about you and and everyone here um at Sage Real Estate is it's important to me that if we're gonna be telling people to invest, we better damn well be investors.
• 40:15
  SPEAKER_01: And hey guy, and that's another note for you folks.
• 40:18
  SPEAKER_01: If you're gonna be talking to someone to help you buy your first fourplex, they better damn well own a four-plex themselves.
• 40:23
  SPEAKER_01: If they don't, don't use them.
• 40:24
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 40:24
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, but but I could sell, yeah, yeah.
• 40:26
  SPEAKER_01: Listen, there's a lot of people who want to do sales.
• 40:28
  SPEAKER_01: I want more than sales.
• 40:30
  SPEAKER_01: I want someone who's got like literally skin in the game, maybe not on your specific deal, but they know what it's like to deal with tenants.
• 40:36
  SPEAKER_01: They know what it's like to deal with evictions, and they know what it's like to deal with with calls and and uh uh tenants that aren't paying, uh roofs that need to be repaired, insurance costs that are going up, that they're aware.
• 40:47
  SPEAKER_01: So that's it.
• 40:48
  SPEAKER_01: So if you're gonna go um, hopefully you you're listening to this and you're you're inspired by Teresa and you're like, if she could do it, I could do it.
• 40:55
  SPEAKER_01: And in fact, I want to work with her.
• 40:57
  SPEAKER_01: Um, we're gonna make sure to have her information um in um in the description.
• 41:02
  SPEAKER_01: But it's important that you have an option on who you're gonna work with and we're not all the same.
• 41:07
  SPEAKER_01: And ask the agent, hey, I'm interviewing three people, how many properties do you own?
• 41:11
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 41:11
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm sorry if they get offended because a lot of these people might may spend all their money on fancy cars.
• 41:18
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and well, or marketing.
• 41:19
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, we've all fallen for great marketing, right?
• 41:21
  SPEAKER_01: That can't live up to the yeah, so so you need, hey, like uh, because if I'm gonna ask you, you're gonna say, Hey, I have a duplex, I just bought seven units in Texas and a single family home.
• 41:30
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, oh, oh, okay.
• 41:32
  SPEAKER_01: So you you actually believe in the market.
• 41:34
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah, I do, I do.
• 41:35
  SPEAKER_01: And and by the way, Teresa just closed on a seven-unit building in Texas.
• 41:39
  SPEAKER_01: Make sure uh we're not gonna dive into that today because that's its own little podcast, um, talking about out-of-state experience and that kind of stuff.
• 41:46
  SPEAKER_01: And so make sure um if you're watching us on YouTube, make sure to hit that subscribe button.
• 41:51
  SPEAKER_01: If you're following us on the bot podcast, make sure that you're tuning in and then we'll do a separate podcast on that.
• 41:57
  SPEAKER_01: But um, again, I I love that you're in it, that you're that you're looking at investments for yourself.
• 42:03
  SPEAKER_01: You're not just thinking commission, commission, commission.
• 42:05
  SPEAKER_01: You're not thinking that.
• 42:06
  SPEAKER_01: You're thinking, hey, um, yeah, I'm doing it, so I'm gonna help other people do it because I'm gonna I'm in a position to do that.
• 42:12
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 42:13
  SPEAKER_01: And so, and so I love that.
• 42:15
  SPEAKER_01: Um, Teresa, let's, let's um, outside of sailing, what else do you do?
• 42:22
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I really enjoy surfing and traveling.
• 42:25
  SPEAKER_00: And uh, and I just recently, probably in the last since November, the last whatever, eight months or so, really got into running and did my first marathon this past April.
• 42:37
  SPEAKER_00: And uh just recircling back on on our conversation about me beating one.
• 42:44
  SPEAKER_00: I just want to let everyone out there know that we he had done that marathon a year or two before.
• 42:50
  SPEAKER_00: And uh, and I just did it.
• 42:52
  SPEAKER_00: It was my very first marathon, and I still beat his time.
• 42:55
  SPEAKER_00: So just want to let everyone know that if you, you know, working with me, you will you will get the absolute best.
• 43:00
  SPEAKER_01: You want someone who's a competitor.
• 43:02
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, Teresa's a competitor.
• 43:04
  SPEAKER_01: I've had a chance to to run with her.
• 43:06
  SPEAKER_01: And, you know, listen, the fact that she could walk on to a division one college team and uh and not just any team, but USC, which I'm sure was highly ranked at that time.
• 43:14
  SPEAKER_01: Um anyone who plays soccer typically makes a good runner.
• 43:18
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, you know, typically that's kind of a thing.
• 43:20
  SPEAKER_01: And so we actually encouraged Teresa.
• 43:22
  SPEAKER_01: Um, at that time I had qualified for the Boston Marathon and I was training, and and we were like, Teresa, you know that you could probably qualify on your first one, uh your first marathon.
• 43:31
  SPEAKER_01: And so she did.
• 43:32
  SPEAKER_01: And so Teresa is gonna be running Boston uh next year, 2026, April of 2026.
• 43:37
  SPEAKER_01: And and um, yeah, no, she's she's a a great runner and it's good, it's good to have her out there.
• 43:44
  SPEAKER_01: But what you hear now in terms of competitiveness, that's who you're gonna get if you decide to work with her.
• 43:48
  SPEAKER_01: And so um, you know, and then you get all her her knowledge and her background and and even all the engineering stuff that she's gonna bring to the table if you're working with her.
• 43:57
  SPEAKER_01: So um again, make sure to um where's someone follow you, Teresa?
• 44:01
  SPEAKER_01: Like if someone hears you right now and says, you know what, I I I um either, hey, I I want to have them come speak to my students, you know, because I know that's something separately from Sage Real Estate that you'd be glad to do and you do a great job to do that.
• 44:14
  SPEAKER_01: How should someone reach out to you?
• 44:16
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah.
• 44:16
  SPEAKER_00: I do still speak at high schools, colleges.
• 44:19
  SPEAKER_00: I also do less and lunch and learn sessions at local businesses and nonprofits.
• 44:23
  SPEAKER_00: So you can reach me on Instagram at get TM Keys, like the millionaire keys.
• 44:30
  SPEAKER_00: And feel free to reach out to me.
• 44:32
  SPEAKER_00: My information is on the Sage website too.
• 44:34
  SPEAKER_00: But yeah, I want you guys to take away like just like one saying, you know, if you're gonna work with someone, make sure that they walk the walk and it's not just talk the talk because everyone's gonna raise their hand to get your business and say, oh yeah, I can do that.
• 44:48
  SPEAKER_00: But but do they know the market?
• 44:50
  SPEAKER_00: Are they looking to invest?
• 44:52
  SPEAKER_00: Like to me, I am looking at, okay, how can I take my duplex and turn that into something bigger?
• 45:00
  SPEAKER_00: What are what is the next step for me?
• 45:02
  SPEAKER_00: You know, yeah, I'm doing stuff out of state, but even here locally, what does that look like?
• 45:06
  SPEAKER_00: How can I take advantage of this duplex market that has been going up for the last three years?
• 45:11
  SPEAKER_00: And then this five plus market that's been coming down quite a bit.
• 45:15
  SPEAKER_00: There's huge deals and and I'm sure that that'll be another another podcast in and of itself, but there's amazing deals in the five plus market right now.
• 45:23
  SPEAKER_00: If you're just looking to get in, there's great deals in the triplex market.
• 45:26
  SPEAKER_00: The average triplex sale is less than the average duplex sale here in Long Beach.
• 45:31
  SPEAKER_00: Like that's incredible that you could own three units for less on average than two units.
• 45:38
  SPEAKER_00: And and you know that the quadruplex market is even different than both of those.
• 45:42
  SPEAKER_00: And so you need to be around people and be working with people who understand these things, who can help you find the best deal.
• 45:48
  SPEAKER_00: It's not just, oh, you qualified for this much.
• 45:50
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, well let's uh let's see what's in that price range.
• 45:54
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah that's that's definitely um you know someone's gonna call it a nugget but I don't want to use an overly use word what what you just said is that um currently year to date this is very important is that the average triplex sale in Long Beach is less than the average duplex in Long Beach.
• 46:09
  SPEAKER_01: So guys if you call Teresa and you're gonna say hey I'm thinking of duplex or triplex she's gonna say did you know that the average triplex is less why don't we look there you get an extra you know you get an extra unit.
• 46:19
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 46:19
  SPEAKER_01: I mean that's that's huge folks and and that's something she didn't read that.
• 46:23
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 46:24
  SPEAKER_01: In fact I know she didn't read it because she went and had a research that we didn't know that going into it um until and she'll until she discovered it and she said did you know and I'm like I did not know that it's a very interesting thing.
• 46:35
  SPEAKER_01: So folks um we're gonna wrap up Teresa I'm gonna give you the final say um make sure make sure if um if if this resonated with you if you thought Teresa was inspiring if you like what she's about leave us some comments show some love and Teresa I'll give you the final say.
• 46:51
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah thank you guys for listening um I just want to encourage anyone out there who thinks that real estate investing is some you know daunting thing that only wealthy people do.
• 47:03
  SPEAKER_00: It's not it's a door that's open to anyone who wants to put their mind to it and that's the thing that I love most about real estate investing is that anyone who wants to get into this asset class, it really is possible to to buy your first investment.
• 47:19
  SPEAKER_00: And if you if you already have one like me, like it's easy to level up right now too the the market is actually perfect for for taking that next step and growing your portfolio into more so I encourage you all um to really take your wealth creation into your own hands because no one else is going to do it for you.
• 47:40
  SPEAKER_01: I love it.
• 47:41
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you so much Teresa I appreciate it.
• 47:43
  SPEAKER_01: Bye for now.