Melodies of Wealth: How a Classical Violinist Built a Real Estate Portfolio

What happens when a classical violinist from Bulgaria takes a leap of faith, uproots her life to the United States, and ends up becoming a successful real estate investor and nurse in Arizona? Join us as Alexandra Docheva shares her extraordinary journey, revealing how she navigated various career paths, from the tumultuous world of classical music to the demanding field of nursing, before finding financial independence through real estate investing. Influenced by the teachings of Robert Kiyosaki, Alexandra's story is a testament to resilience, adaptability, and the power of a strategic backup plan.

Learn how Alexandra's mindset shifted from seeking job security to achieving financial freedom. We'll discuss her first significant investment—a fourplex property—and the strategic steps she took to build a profitable real estate portfolio while managing a full-time nursing career. Alexandra emphasizes the necessity of financial education and mentorship, the crucial role these elements played in her success, and how they helped her to prudently navigate the uncertainties of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Get an insider’s look into property management, where Alexandra shares invaluable tips on maintaining ethical landlord-tenant relationships and setting clear boundaries. From personal stories about tenant interactions to the importance of involving family in real estate work, Alexandra provides practical advice grounded in real experience. This episode is brimming with insights for anyone interested in real estate investing, balancing demanding careers, or simply pursuing a path to financial independence with discipline and determination. Don’t miss out on this inspiring and informative episode!

Website and book:
https://www.holisticselfconfidence.com/

https://www.youtube.com/@alexandradotcheva

Chapter Timestamps

(00:03) - Real Estate Investor Overcomes Obstacles

(07:59) - Real Estate Investing Mindset and Obstacles

(13:48) - Financial Freedom Through Real Estate

(22:41) - Real Estate Investor Rent Strategy

(31:22) - Real Estate Investor's Growth and Strategy

(42:21) - Tenants and Property Management Challenges

(53:34) - Tenant Management and Investor Discipline

(01:04:44) - Family Involvement in Real Estate Work

Highlight Timestamps

(03:17 - 04:01) Real Estate Investment Journey (44 Seconds)

(12:58 - 13:48) Real Estate Investing During Career (51 Seconds)

(17:22 - 18:22) Apartment Renovations and Painting Experience (59 Seconds)

(24:38 - 25:55) Ethical Real Estate Practices (77 Seconds)

(31:58 - 32:30) Potential Home Purchase Incentives (32 Seconds)

(35:48 - 37:11) Lead by Example as a Parent (83 Seconds)

(39:18 - 40:05) Negotiating Real Estate Offer Acceptance (46 Seconds)

(54:33 - 55:32) Navigating Rental Property Investment Challenges (58 Seconds)

(56:57 - 58:18) Rent Flexibility for Good Tenants (81 Seconds)

(01:00:35 - 01:01:32) Importance of Hard Work in Investing (56 Seconds)

Real Estate Investing, Financial Independence, Property Management, Robert Kiyosaki, Mentorship, Discipline, Financial Education, Real Estate Portfolio, COVID-19, Rental Properties, Tenant Management, Financial Planning, House Hacking, Landlord-Tenant Relationships, Investment Property, Seller Financing, Property Modifications, Property Management Companies, Tenant Screening, Household Chores, Personal Growth

Transcript

00:03 - Marcus (Host)
Welcome to this week's episode of MVP Real Estate Podcast. We have Alexandra Docheva from Arizona, who is a real estate investor and nurse. All self-made and just a like a forest fire, paved her own path into basically retirement is what it sounds like, yes, at this point still working, and you will find out why. Um, she is the epitome of discipline. Um, we touch on health, we touch on real estate. Uh, uh, all through this podcast, we do leave out a lot of the health stuff. 

00:46
If you are interested in her overall wellness, uh, mindset, discipline, we're putting a link to her website and her book, both audio book and paper copy. Uh, you will not be disappointed, uh, in reading her book or talking to her about lifestyle. I'm going to let her speak on it because she does it way better than I do. So let's bring her on, all right. Thank you, alexander, for being here giving us the time. I appreciate you coming on the show. Thank you so much for having me Pleasure. You are coming from the sunny Arizona where you said it was 115 degrees, or it could get to. 

01:25 - Alexandra (Guest)
Yeah yeah, I was gonna get to 124 degrees, but three days ago it was 115, today's gonna be 100 105, so we're thrilled we'll get the mild 105 over there. 

01:35 - Marcus (Host)
Good, um, well cool other than the heat. Um, kind of give us a background of, I guess, where you come, where you came from and what led you into real estate and how did you get there. Because what we found out with this show people get into real estate from all different angles and it's always fascinating to see where it comes from. 

01:57 - Alexandra (Guest)
Yes, so I am originally from Bulgaria came here in 2000 to get my master's and doctoral degrees in classical violin. I was a violinist for 29 years, but after 26 years of being a violinist, I figured I wasn't going to prosper here professionally in the United States, because when they cut the orchestras in 2006, 2008, with the financial crisis, competition grew exponentially. So I put myself to a nursing school at that point. It was a drastic change. Wanted a full-time job, wanted security, wanted to be useful to society and humanity better than when I was a classical musician. So it was a very dramatic experience. I was 32, early midlife crisis and all that. And then I entered the workforce as a nurse in 2011, upon graduation and in a couple of years I realized that job security, even as a nurse, a profession that is so sought after and respected all over the world was pretty much a myth because of the high turnover, exhaustion, the way corporations that devour hospital after hospital treat the nurses and the doctors to an extent. So I came to realize I needed a plan B, and that's when I got very interested in finances. To realize I needed a plan B and that's when I got very interested in finances. I had no clue about finances, just as I had no clue about science, when I committed to learning nursing and I took a couple of mentorship online classes with the rich debt company Robert and Kim Kiyosaki. 

03:17
And in 2014, my boyfriend and I moved from Syracuse, new York, to Arizona because it's a landlord-friendly state and the climate is much more beneficial the prices are better, the taxation, everything, you name it. And in 2014, I bought my first property, which was a fourplex building with four apartments. It was my very first real estate property, because I had been a tenant before that for 14 solid years and we lived in one of the apartments. And then I purchased some single family houses and more property. He purchased our house and I've been in the business for 10 years now. It's been really, really great in financial, independent and with many more choices as far as money is concerned, that's awesome. 

03:58 - Marcus (Host)
What a cool road that led you to real estate. And you did name drop the Robert Kiyosaki. I recommend him to anybody that wants to just get dip their toe into understanding finances a little bit different way, because I know Rich Dad, poor Dad was the second book I read as I got into real estate. The first one was the Subtle Art, that was my first book, and then it was Robert K kiyosaki, um, and I even went as far as to buy that his version of monopoly, the cash flow game, of course. 

04:30 - Alexandra (Guest)
Yeah, they send it to you complimentary to sign it for the classes. And online, yeah, we, I've played that quite a bit. Did you do robert's classes? So, uh, first I read seven of his books and then I really decided to. 

04:43
I first took the um, rich dad's stay, um, become rich group coaching, choose to be rich group coaching, and he had a coach who was a lawyer, who owned six businesses, and at that point they send the cash flow game complimentary and I remember my boyfriend and I played for hours and hours and hours, um and uh. 

05:03
At the end of that coaching they offered a decreased price, like a discount, for three of the main courses, which were the real estate, rich dad, the business pyramid and the stock, and I really wanted to enroll in all three of them, but at the time, because I was a beginning nurse, it was really cost prohibitive. But I got engrossed in real estate because of the way Robert and Kim explained it so well and with the books, and I started that class in 2014,. We already were planning on moving to Arizona, so I wanted to be ready to become a real estate investor after this class and fresh in my brain, so I took it. It was a three month with a personal coach every week over the phone. Took it, it was a three month with a personal coach every week over the phone and it was just amazing, amazing, yeah, and never, never spent money better than all this? 

05:51 - Marcus (Host)
yeah, yeah, it's life-changing. So it's super cool that you took the step and obviously it it bared its fruit and and you're seeing that now. Um and I know the audience didn't catch what we were talking about before the show, but we were talking about food and changing your mindset on food, kind of. And I look at you you had so many obstacles to overcome. You're coming in from a different country, so I have questions on that alone. The first one, like was there a big cultural learning curve for you as you come over from another country and then you tried to learn the Robert Kiyosaki way of finances? Was there any culture clash or differences that you had to learn just outside of his book? 

06:39 - Alexandra (Guest)
All of the above, of course. For one thing, I came to the States as a student, on a student visa, so I wasn't legally allowed to work anything outside of my scope of practice as a violinist, so there was assistantship scholarships. I was a graduate student and then, with um, once I got out of music and I had to pay for my own education, I learned the real responsibility of committing to learning, because now it's coming out of your pocket and you're owing money. I didn't know anything about finances and investing and I remember clearly when I read the first book by Robert that I chose was Increase your Financial IQ, and I couldn't understand 75% of what he was talking about, although he's capable of writing very clearly for idiots like me, that I was at the time and that's why I knew I was was real financial, true financial invalid. I'd also got familiar with Mike Maloney's book about gold and silver and how the precious metals increase in price while the stock market dumps in price, and he had these wonderful graphs of how they mirrored themselves. I got fascinated. 

07:40
But I knew that the Robert talks about entitlement, sense of entitlement, wanting free stuff from the government, how people expect help when they really could help themselves. And that was really really hard for me to swallow, because, for one thing, I came from Bulgaria, entitled, because Bulgaria was a very poor country. I come to the richest country. For some reason I had the idea that the rich people owe to the poor money and help, and that's just I. Then I learned that was for. Couldn't be further from the truth, because if you really want something, you have to earn it. There is no free lunch, dinner in life. If you care for something, too, that's truly valuable to you, everything else is just a lie. And yes, there are many rich people who donate, who give charities and everything, but for many reasons it could be a lie. And yes, there are many rich people who donate, who give charities and everything, but for many reasons it could be a tax evasion, tax avoidance, or, and then they recover their money so, and many of them are very generous, however, they don't owe me anything, and so that was the major shift in mindset that Robert instilled with his books in me. 

08:43
And then, when I started learning these classes, I mean they were rough and because they wouldn't allow you to reschedule if you committed to the day and time of the week for the three months and that was their way to teach you. If you commit to something, you stay committed because nobody's obligated to accommodate your schedule. And that was my really first touch up with. Okay, I really am paying all this money now for this mentorship. It's my responsibility. They're not going to give it back and if I really want to learn, I stay on this schedule and I do it. Not that I wasn't disciplined before, but if you're especially venturing into something that you didn't teach to learn in school uh, school wasn't teaching that real estate mentorship and investment mindset and my friends were saying all these people are crooks, they're going to take your money. Don't listen to that. So everybody's against your new endeavor and you've committed 4,400. You stay on schedule and it's your responsibility, it's your risk and that was a great, great learning experience which became very useful. 

09:46 - Marcus (Host)
Great, great learning experience which became very useful once I started buying the properties and working with tenants, contractors, insurance agents, lenders, everything, and just add it up nicely yeah, yeah, and obviously, like you touched on the bulgaria being a poorer country, was the concept of owning real estate or investment properties even a thought in Bulgaria and I apologize for my ignorance I've never been there, so this is an open question. 

10:16 - Alexandra (Guest)
It was. Depending, though, which political system you're talking about, because during socialism and communism, you were very limited with what you could do. You could only own so many properties and, yeah, you can rent them. Then when, when the wall fell and all that the cold regime ended, you could buy. It became very expensive for people like my parents who are musicians. So, depending what work you choose, what business you're in, and then the corruption and the mafia is just horrible. Uh, in this country, because it's so small, it feels so heavily, and they overbuilt buildings on authentic grounds and architectural monuments they overbuilt over the years. So, yeah, absolutely it became a concept, but depending who is buying them and who owns them, and it's just a very different, different situation there, but see my grandmother was renting the room at some point and she had also problems with her tenants were primarily female. 

11:12
That you expect will be nice student college girls, but there's all sorts of problems. No, I never thought about that. My parents knew nothing about real estate, or finances for that matter, but I just got convinced by the books I read that tangible assets were better than the fake assets with the stock market and all that which I learned later, of course and I did learn how to trade options by the stock coach of robert yosaki, because I got curious there too. But first I secured these tangible assets and, uh, in my country there are landlords now. There always have been, but we were just never in touch with such people when I was growing up because we were musicians. 

11:49
Cultural people were, above all these things, money's. You know, something like you don't have to talk about at all. It doesn't matter, although my parents struggled many years financially to make ends meet, but money didn't matter, you know. So. You know the mindset, how it is. Many families would not encourage you to learn financially and prosper in that way investment, losing money, they can't take risks, they're afraid of failure and a lot of mental garbage that needs to be eliminated and replaced with different thought processes. 

12:24 - Marcus (Host)
Yeah, yeah. And you are a proof of anybody listening that has objections to not do this Like you, have overcome so many objections that a lot of people don't even have to consider, so kudos to you for getting that done, I think it's a very, very good message to people listening that want to get going and have those small objections to see the massive amount of objections or roadblocks that you could have had that you overcome. So kudos to that one. That's impressive. 

12:55 - Alexandra (Guest)
Thank you, I appreciate it, thank you. 

12:58 - Marcus (Host)
And now I want to get into starting your real estate career. And I know we're only focusing on one piece of the pie, of what makes you awesome in your lifestyle, but in your real estate investing you're putting yourself through nursing school. Have you graduated by the time you bought your fourplex? I didn't catch that in the timeline, oh no, no, I graduated in 2011. 

13:19 - Alexandra (Guest)
And I was in the works for three years and that's how I got convinced I needed to become a real estate investor, because plan B is always a good idea in case I got burnt out. And you know what happened during the COVID pandemic, but nobody was thinking about that at the time. If they force you to take something against your will, that you know it's dangerous because you see people die from it. I mean you have to have choices, to leave the work if you have to. But no, no, I was two and a half three years into the workforces and that's when I purchased the 4Plex. 

13:48 - Marcus (Host)
Okay, and then you basically went into save mode because you were diligent in your coursework with Robert Kiyosaki and what you were learning. 

13:56 - Alexandra (Guest)
You were saving money for your down payment for that first 4Plex, yes, yes and not only that, but I was also buying things for SEO business because I was learning how to build websites at the time. I wanted to learn lots of things, so that went nowhere. But for two, three years I was also saving and spending money on websites and SEO learning and courses and all that. So I went on a really rigid financial mode. I had zero credit card debt. That absolutely never has been a problem. But now I teach people how to get rid of credit card debt because that's buying power. It's basically the fifth criterion for you to be able to buy real estate if you want to unless you want to pay cash for it, which most beginning investors really can't do. 

14:40
But yeah, the investing came after the graduation from nursing school, okay, okay. 

14:47 - Marcus (Host)
And then how did you find your first, your first fourplex? Cause I know there's a lot of investors that go in and, like I, don't want to buy it too big and start too big too early, so a lot of people shy away from the fourplex. You must've had a very good opportunity to pick one up in your local market. 

15:06 - Alexandra (Guest)
So we wanted a duplex at first or a triplex. Now I was gonna buy it because my boyfriend was really not convinced that was a good idea. 

15:11
Okay, later on he became convinced because he saw it was working and I don't blame him at all because he always, always helped with anything I needed help with. But as far as the financial part and the risk taking, that was sold me me in the LLC. But I looked for duplexes. Those were overpriced here in the area and, mind you, that was 2014. So we were already seven years into this current bubble because in 2007, 2008, things fell apart. 

15:35
And now we're six years into the bubble 2014. So those are already overpriced. They were in decent areas, but I didn't like the prices. Then there were triplexes. That was also very tempting and attractive. Those happened to be crime-infested areas. When I was looking, I looked through all the value. We came here in May of 2014. 

15:56
I immediately started working on looking everywhere for properties. I built a real estate team that month and I was so busy interviewing lenders, lawyers, insurance agents, real estate managers everybody the team that Robert Kiyosaki suggested. So I interviewed five, six of these people, lenders 15, because nobody wanted to lend me the money, right? So that was the most wonderful part, but it just didn't work out with duplexes and triplexes at that time. So when I finally found a real estate agent that I liked, he was an investor himself, owned nine properties managed seven of them, two were managed by a different company and he put me on the multifamily list and the fourplexes really turned out to be more realistic for my budget. And then there were some deals that offered an FHA loan, with the condition, of course, that the landlord would live in one of the apartments. And that's what we wanted, because we didn't want to buy a house first and then not have an investment property. So we bought the fourplex and then we moved into one of the apartments. 

16:59
Of course there were negotiations as which apartment we moved to, the bigger or the smaller because I wanted to move into the smallest one, but boyfriend wanted the biggest apartment for ourselves and then they all needed renovation, guys, because the landlord was an absentee person from California who had been treating the tenants like dogs on the property. Basically, and my decision was from the very beginning, the tenants will be happier than me. So we renovated the three apartments that we were not gonna live in and we lived for a year and a half in the other apartment, the largest one, but it was broken and painted nasty. We did. I didn't touch that because I had to renovate three apartments on a salary of a beginning nurse in arizona. So it was stressful enough and we got the tenants. 

17:42
And then when we moved out of the house, a year of a poor place, year and a half later, when boyfriend bought our house, then we renovated the first bigger apartment and he taught me then how to paint because I had not to. And he said well, you're gonna save a lot of money if you learn how to paint ceilings, walls and trim. And I learned that way. And then the next property I painted the whole three bedroom, two bathroom house by myself because his schedule didn't allow to help me at that point and I painted everything from top to bottom the two years later. So yeah, learning curve, but yeah, four pieces just worked out best in our case yeah, no, that's cool in in. 

18:22 - Marcus (Host)
When I got into real estate, that was one of my major goals was to make sure that all of my rental income would surpass my living expenses, and that is exactly where you're going with the house hack technique. So you move into this fourplex and I'm assuming your rent role was at least subsidizing whatever your rental rate would be in that building, if not taking it all over actually, as a matter of fact, we had a 70 cash flow every month. 

18:51 - Alexandra (Guest)
Okay, the debt, the utility bill for the electric and the water bill. In the hoa we had 70 cash flow as we were living in that apartment for free which is pretty damn good. 

19:02
Yeah, we'll think 70, but uh, yeah, of course I had to pay a lot of money for the renovations and that's a given. But I paid very little for a down payment because it was an fha and I got 3.5 percent down payment. Plus there were all these rents that came immediately and actually the lender no, it was the underwriter that said, oh, she cannot be getting more money from the render that she's paying for the down payment. And the lender no, it was the underwriter that said, oh, she cannot be getting more money from the renter that she's paying for the down payment. And the lender said, why the heck not? That's the way it works with a rental property. And eventually it worked out. But that was the 15th lender I contacted, which is so hard, and I almost lost the deal. So it's yeah a venture every day. 

19:41
Yeah, real, estate? 

19:42 - Marcus (Host)
No, absolutely. And you touched on my next question was you get the down payment? You're you said you're under an FHA loan which, if I remember correctly, it's a two year period where you need to live on the property. 

19:58 - Alexandra (Guest)
Okay, yeah, because the lender said well, it's not like a set in stone, but you really want at least a year or at least six months. She wasn't really explicit. I mean, we knew we couldn't buy a house within the next six months or a year, because it was going to be my boyfriend's purchase. It was his dream and I said so you work on the house, I work on the property, because it's a lot of money, man. 

20:28 - Marcus (Host)
And he said that's fine, no problem at all. And he got his FHA loan because the first time homeowner, so it worked out great, awesome, yeah, and so you, you purchased the fourplex with financing and your down payment. Where did the capital come? And the only reason I asked down on these numbers is because this is a relevant topic for the people starting. 

20:40
So you can always run into this problem where am I getting the funds from? So you accomplish saving up the money for the down payment On your 15th lender, you got your lending package that you can use, and now it comes to rehab. Where did you find the capital for the rehab? Or was that wrapped into your loan? 

20:59 - Alexandra (Guest)
It was not wrapped into the loan at all. Um, I got credit cards with lowes and home depot and, uh, because I had a decent salary, I chose lowes business credit card gave you two options either 10 discount on your purchase of appliances whatever needed to be purchased or six months interest free. So I will always embrace the cash. So I said 10 months off, I'll pay it off the next month because I had some more savings left. And then two salaries went absolutely to pay for the renovation of the first apartment. Then came the second apartment and I constantly, constantly, constantly, was saving and minimally. Uh see, my monthly expenses are less than a thousand dollars even to the present day, so I've always kept it that way. So it was not a problem to afford to save and pay immediately any debt and be at zero, because that also boosted my credit score quite a bit. So I wanted that because I knew I was going to be buying more properties. 

21:54
I was extremely disciplined. I don't buy luxury crap and we eat very healthy. I mean, we don't eat outside restaurants because that's awful food anyway, so why pay more for food that is unhealthy to begin with? There are many ways to save money along the way, little bits at a time, and I constantly, constantly repeat to myself every dollar is made out of 100 pennies. And when we try to save a little bit, and sometimes he says, oh my gosh, we got to live a little. Can we just do this, I tell him every dollar he was like whatever. 

22:30
But he played along, though, and that was very nice because he saw the benefits, and it doesn't immediately show, but with consistency you are able to accumulate more capital and more capital. And see with with tenants, though, you don't want to spend exponentially because they don't treat this property like it's their own, so you need to provide the really decent, comfortable, nice-looking environment, but you can't be spending $500 on a faucet when you can spend 50 and it still looks professional, practical, usable and clean. Okay, some tenants are amazing, but most aren't yeah and you have to be realistic about it. 

23:12
You want to and I also want to keep my prices low. So one of my criteria when I purchase properties um, I look at the rental market. I want a certain amount of money at the end of the month, after debt and everything, and I plan on satisfying myself with this amount of money for a very long time, because that amount of money has to fit the middle of the rental market. I never start on the top of the rental market because I want to stay competitive, so I start in the middle of the rental market once I buy the property and then I always, always gravitate to the lower end of the rental market and I never lose my tenants, unless they are bad and I have to evict. But the tenants who I've had for now, they've been there six, seven years, five years, because my prices are such that I never took advantage of this horrible greed wave. 

24:01
After the COVID pandemic the landlords were increasing their rates by $100, $200, $300, $500 per lease renewal. I had never heard about such a thing and my tenants were dreading. I told them this year you're not due for an increase. And they're like are you crazy? My colleague got a $400 increase. I said do you want that? No, I'm not going to do that to you. My colleague got a $400 increase. I said do you want that? No, I'm not going to do that to you. Then I increased every other year by $25 to $50 and this was never $50, but because of the inflation I had to increase all the rents by $50 when everybody else was increasing by $500. The tenants had tears in their eyes and said why did you do that? I said because I don't need more of your money. 

24:38
I have structured my life in the way that, first of all, I don't have to take from you yeah what I don't have to take from you. If that's another way of giving people, just don't take if you don't need to take from them. 

24:51 - Marcus (Host)
Yeah it's a basic ethical principle and people seem very surprised I know because it's not a norm. But I mean, if you can boil down and you have your, your standards for other human beings in real estate is such a weird dynamic where it's a business but your business is people and you can't treat them like numbers, get properties. Once you have the property, you're dealing with people and you have to understand that they are people too. 

25:22 - Alexandra (Guest)
They have their dreams, their lives, their obligations, their problems. They are human beings and you have to treat them with utmost respect and empathy, if you can, While following all the rules and they do follow all the rules that you have on your lease and you remind them if it has to. 

25:36 - Marcus (Host)
You know that's what you agreed to, but on the other end, I have to treat them equally respectfully yeah, yep, and just meeting where they're at I know that, um, it's through this whole covid thing I've had, uh, I've had to raise rents and one was a weird scenario where we we did raise it three hundred dollars. It's because when we bought the property we always buy the worst properties like this we had to jack up the floor because the floor was deviating, so this was a major remodel and I don't want to put a tenant in charge the max rate. And then they have all of these problems that I didn't know were going to be problems because I've never lived there. So if we do a major renovation, I just try to make our numbers work. Where we're recouping what our mortgage payment is, we have some cash flow. 

26:24
But once the property we know is solid, then we put it back into that middle rate, which is the increase. Was that middle rate? And I told them like, hey, this is my one increase, I'm not increasing you next year. I probably won't increase you the rate after. I just need to get to this benchmark. And now that we're here, we're good, that's a decent selling point that's a decent rent selling point. 

26:45 - Alexandra (Guest)
You also want to keep in mind that once the bubble bursts which is going to horribly worse than in 2008, you don't want them to flee to a super much cheaper rent. So we really want to stay on the bottom end of the market right now so you can keep these people and not lose them right away. Because what happens? You know how? Investors now are buying these atrociously expensive properties and they have to jack up rents so badly that once these loans explode, they're either going to default and somebody happened that in the area of the fourplex actually, there was a desperate real estate agent that was calling me. He wanted to sell the property for $900,000. When I bought it for $200,000 in 2014, I told him guys, you realize that's a bullshit price, right, yeah, but we might try to decrease it. So they called me two weeks later and said now it's $850,000. Are you interested? And I said no, no, and you don't call me again, okay. So he stopped calling. 

27:43
Why do you even agree to purchase this project and deal with it? It's completely unrealistic and the area also is important. I mean four or five times the price that it cost, and even in 2014 that was already, uh, getting expensive at 250 000 and now they want 900 000 because they bought it, they saw it was not a good deal that they got and now they want to get rid of it. Yeah, and they're trying to attract the landlords in the area because you see we're gonna jump to buy this property only because it's in the area come on. 

28:09 - Marcus (Host)
Yes, oh, you got to go back on the numbers on that one man that's uh, that's a crazy, and that was over a two-year period, or how many year period was that, from when you were purchasing at 250 and they're trying to sell at nine? What was? 

28:22 - Alexandra (Guest)
that 2015, 2014, okay, so 2014, 215, last year, they're trying to sell it nine hundred thousand dollars. A year earlier some uh, moron was trying to sell the property his property for 750 000 and apparently another mor on bigger one bought it and they went into a hole. And now they maybe they did some renovations or whatever. They spent money, so they want to compensate for the money and now they want to save $900,000. What types of rents am I supposed to put in these 900 square foot apartments? I mean, come on. 

28:57 - Marcus (Host)
Yeah, and that's the tough part. With all the prices raised here I mean it's across the nation there are some people that aren't understanding how multifamily is different than residential. There's a couple duplexes that are in the surrounding area that we invest in that I could look at and be like, okay, that's a normal house cost, Like it fits in line. But I'm looking at a duplex. I can't buy it at that price because my rent would not. I would have to jack up the rent to a part where I would feel bad that the tenants are paying that rental and not just owning a house and paying their mortgage for what they're paying me in rent, Exactly. 

29:38
And there's this really weird middle ground where I just don't feel right doing that. So that's not a contention for a purchase, because if I was in, if they were my client as an agent, I would tell them like stop renting and go buy a house, like figure out a way to get a down payment because you're wasting your money by paying that rental amount. 

29:55 - Alexandra (Guest)
Absolutely, absolutely. That's a great point. 

29:57 - Marcus (Host)
Yes, exactly and like what you were talking about. You worked with an investor who is focused on multifamily, and that's the one thing that I always tell people that are either buying or renting. When you get into talking with an agent, find out what they usually do. Do they sell single family homes? Do they own rental properties? 

30:14
Do they focus on because an agent that knows a market and an agent that does multifamily in that same market. They look at it through different glasses and not every agent is the same. You have to understand that there's absolutely very different niches in real estate an experienced investor yeah yeah, yeah, so I always caution people with that. Like, no agent is the best. 

30:36 - Alexandra (Guest)
They just have a little niche that they're in, so yes, same with the lenders, the way Different lenders have access to different lending products. 

30:44 - Marcus (Host)
Yes, all right. Can you expand on your background or your knowledge on that, because you've spoken to many, many financial institutions? So, what's like the takeaways you get from each little a bank or a mortgage company or hard money Like? What's your feel and experience on those? So I never go to a bank. 

31:03 - Alexandra (Guest)
Okay, I always go to private land, private money. So the first time, because I was a tenant with X credit score but no experience in real estate, no owning real estate, and now they said, oh, you never want to be a landlord? Fantastic. 

31:15 - Dan (Co-host)
You know. 

31:15 - Alexandra (Guest)
So they would not. And I did look into seller's finance. I really wanted that. But then there was a seller who had like a wreck house. They wanted 50 grand down and 12% interest on top of that, when my interest was going to be 3.5% in the bank. So I have great credit. I have no incentive to buy that. But with the lenders there was a little competition between two of them because one wanted to give me the FHA loan for a triplex and then another one. Her competition said I'm going to give you an FHA loan for a fourplex. I said oh good. So then I called the penultimate, the 14th lender, and I said this company is going to give me, you know, for a fourplex. And she said I can do that for you tomorrow. And then I took her because she flipped immediately. You know the competition is going to take the deal right Now when it came to buying our house right now. 

32:07
What was interesting? I saw this ad of a real estate agent who was offering a government grant on a down payment for an FHA loan. You only pay closing costs and I said that sounds too good to be true, but let's find out. So I connected with that real estate agent. I said to my boyfriend hey, come here, here's what I found. He said I'm never going to qualify for that, so you don't know that. 

32:27
Okay, so let's talk to the real estate agent. I met with her, he met with her and then she said yeah, my lender, she has access to these loans. You know, 3.5 to5 percent down payment, a government grant, if you qualify. It's a two, two-page questionnaire. And of course, the boyfriend, skeptical as usual, said I don't want to qualify. So he gives you the sheets. Fill these sheets, give it to her Three days later. Lo and behold, he qualifies. Okay, so his house. He paid only the closing costs on the house. And I said how come I didn't know about this product? And then the real estate agent that I was dealing with at the time said well, different lenders know different products, they have access to different products and the lending market changes just as fast as the real estate market and not all the lenders are able to keep up, even if they try to, because of where they are and the influences they're under, and it really takes a lot of learning every day of your career because things change so rapidly. So that was very eye opening. 

33:22 - Marcus (Host)
Yeah, and it's a very cool scenario when you have lenders competing for your deal and you can pin lenders against each other. It's very, very cool. And when you're getting into real estate, that thought seems foreign, like no one's going to want to push that hard to give me money. 

33:38 - Alexandra (Guest)
It only happened once. It only happened once. It was the most crucial part, though, because that was my first property. I was just so stressed I was almost ready to give up, but I remember, when I interviewed for the Kiyosaki class, the person who was on the phone said there's only one thing you need to promise us. I said what is that? You'd never give up. 

33:56
So I said I promise that and I remember that. It stuck in my brain. So I'm like I'm not going to give up after 15 letters. I'll go 300 if I have to. That was such a promising thought. But yeah, you just have to persevere. 

34:07 - Marcus (Host)
Yep, and that's the stubbornness coming out. That's the beauty of the stubbornness, where you just don't give up, right. 

34:14 - Dan (Co-host)
So if anybody tries to bash the stubbornness, that is your claim to fame like so stubborn that I will not give up and it's working. I would. I wouldn't say it's stubborn. I think it's discipline, especially, like you say, coming from the inch playing. 

34:28
You said the violin right well yeah, how disciplined you have to be to be practicing and working on that and honing your craft. I think that just that just led into every other aspect of your life. Like you said, with your diet change, you're learning, you know, coming here to to be a nurse and do like everything I think goes back to to being as disciplined as you are, which led to the violin took a big part. 

34:52 - Alexandra (Guest)
Yes, I, I was practicing nine hours a day before I became a nurse, so you, you learned the discipline early on yes and it works if you decide to apply it in your other areas of your life. Probably most people don't connect the dots that way. They are disciplined in one area and they're a complete disaster in other areas, just to compensate for the discipline in the other area, and that's. I think that's a big mistake that people make all over the place. 

35:16 - Marcus (Host)
Yep, yeah, and I. I just went through this scenario where I'm like, uh, so disciplined as a father, so disciplined in my career and then in my personal life, I'm like, I'm so disciplined. I don't want to, but that lack of discipline is wreaks havoc in that area of your life where you don't give the discipline like you were just alluding to. Like discipline isn't a bad thing. I don't think it's a bad word and you're proving that it's not a bad word. You get some, you get a lot of fruit from discipline absolutely. 

35:48 - Alexandra (Guest)
I mean, if you're a father especially, you really want to lead by example because you can tell your children to be disciplined all you want. But if you, if they don't see that in you, you will gradually lose credibility, especially in their most problematic years, when they're teenagers and they take all other influences, but their parents I mean. If you lead by example early on, I think you have a better chance to regain their confidence in your integrity and respect. And so it's very, very important with children. 

36:16 - Dan (Co-host)
I can't imagine how you guys do that. 

36:17 - Alexandra (Guest)
I don't have children. 

36:21 - Marcus (Host)
It's fun and it is wild. It's wild but you get through it. I mean the obstacles I'm I'm looking at mine and I. I don't want to be too frank here, but I'm looking at my challenges as a father and the challenges you went through and I'm like me. 

36:35 - Alexandra (Guest)
Being a dad is a breeze no, no good parent is the biggest responsibility you can possibly inflict on yourself. It's the biggest responsibility and my admonitions to all parents. 

36:48 - Marcus (Host)
And Dan, how many do you have? 

36:50 - Dan (Co-host)
I have four. 

36:51 - Marcus (Host)
Four, so he beats me. I only got the one, yeah. 

36:57 - Alexandra (Guest)
I can't imagine See my boyfriend and I were very similar in that mindset. We say we have children, we're going to kill them and go to jail. Even our own DNA is worth going to jail for. So we're like no. 

37:08 - Dan (Co-host)
Oh man. 

37:11 - Marcus (Host)
All right. So fourplex, this is evolution two. You went through your knowledge, you bought your first property, which I feel like every investor has a sweet spot for that first purchase. And then it gets easier and easier and the wheel keeps getting bigger and bigger, and the wheel keeps going and you pick up speed. So how fast? After that first fourplex did it take you to jump into project two? And then I guess, basically, where are you sitting at this point? 

37:44 - Alexandra (Guest)
so two and a half years to project two, then another year to project three, and those projects were like really, especially project three, I saw the property. So with the fourplex, the thing is the learning curve. Okay, um, huge learning curve. A lot of expenses, a lot of problems with tenants initially, and you quadruple your problems when you have a multifamily. If you have four-plex, you have four problems instead of one, and that's what intimidates many people. They wouldn't buy four-plex With houses. It's easier to keep tenants in houses and especially, let's see, the last property was amazing the one in 2018, because then the prices became such that we decided we're gonna now hibernate, we'll wait for a better market right now because we're perfectly fine, we can stop working at any point at this time because our house is completely paid off and in the four years from now, I'll have all my properties paid off to zero. 

38:35
Okay, so that's another part of the discipline, because I like owning assets 100. 

38:39
But but, that's me okay. But with the third property it was great because the price was wonderful, it was completely renovated. And then there was a property down the street that was $20,000 more expensive. And then this owner, when I offered the asking price, she went into competing. What is it when you try to jack up your down payment, your um price? Because she realized that the real estate agent had offered a very low price on the market and we went to other properties. I gave up on that because I offered a thousand dollars more. But then I said that's it, we're not going to be competing with other people. That's price war. No, we don't do that. 

39:19
And I was ready to place four different offers on other properties with price modifications, because those needed work and I didn't agree with any of the prices, but they were decent enough for us to be able to fix them fast and get tenants before the first mortgage is due, because that's another criteria. I want to have tenants, uh, maybe two weeks before the first mortgage to do so. I can make some money before I even have to pay mortgage. And then, with a discounted for the first month, the prorate and suddenly my agent calls me, said they agree to your offer. So what offers the house that you love, that you offered a thousand dollars for, so get it. And that house took two days of work Really Two days. The third day I now put it, not the second day of the evening I put it on the market. 

40:04
And the third day I had a signed contract with tenants who have been there ever since, since 2018 that is such a good feeling that was amazing and I was like now I can take a break because they were so good that he, when whenever they have problem in the house, he says can you just purchase this very fast from lowes and I going to install it in the house? It's very handy. So he saves me time from handyman, from contractors and to wait and to price. Occasionally we might lower the rent on them a little bit if they perform like they changed the entire garage door mechanism. He did it himself and I said OK, I'm going to take from your rent, whatever you say, extremely reasonable prices. But it's worked great for eight years with these people and we love them. And again in the area the price is the cheapest rent for the square footage of the house four bedroom, two bathroom house, um, everything else is six, seven, eight thousand dollars more expensive than my rent. 

40:55
yeah so and we keep migrating west because the prices get get getting higher and higher centrally. So when you migrate like 30, 40 miles from your house, I say put a rest, because if you have renovations you don't want to be driving 50, 60 miles. I don't like that. I'm very proprietary with my time, and so that's another consideration. 

41:19 - Marcus (Host)
Yeah, yeah. And I like your philosophy on allowing tenants to do some stuff around the property, like that's something that I offer too. I had a tenant who back in the day she had worked the baseboards are getting a little dirty, do you mind if I paint them? And I was like why would I mind if you want to? You've worked for a painting company, I know you can paint. I'll drop off the paint and a gift card to you Because in my mind, when you move out, I would have to do that and I would have to pay money for people to do that. 

41:52
If you want to make the house a little bit cleaner and upgrade the property and you want to do it, here's the paint, here's paint brushes and there's 50 bucks to go get dinner with you and your fiance or husband, yeah, or doing that work because I appreciate it. That's, you're helping me out and you're making your space like, the more I can get the tenants to care about their living space, it's a win-win because they're going to take care of my property, they're going to get a nice space to live in. I feel like it's a win-win at that point. 

42:21 - Alexandra (Guest)
Well, you have to be very careful with that. So, for one thing, my lease is completely prohibit tenants from touching the property, but when you get into a relationship with them, business-wise, you know who knows what. Because, for instance, one of the single family homes I bought, the tenants had done such an amazing job. There was a dark purple accent wall, there was purple splashes on the white ceiling and there was purple paint on the windows, and that, just in the frame, just took forever to clean. 

42:47
So you really gotta be careful who you're allowed to what and in some cases you won't know. 

42:53 - Marcus (Host)
So it's a very fine line there, gray area lots of gray yep, and I always make sure to ask and like, when she said my initial answer was no and she was was like well, I work for a painting company. She sent me some pictures of things that she's painted and I was like, okay, with the caveat and I always caveat, like if, if a tenant wants to paint a wall, if I can feel comfortable that you're going to do it, great, but if I walk in, it's bad. You have to be prepared that you're going to get charged for repainting this thing. 

43:23
So this is a risk you're willing to take. So choose wisely. And most often than not they're like yeah, then I don't want to do it, which is fine by me, but I can't have you, I can't agree to you painting, and you paint my wall bright pink and it's like well, you said I could, you can't do that. I can't allow that to happen right and obviously anything that's mechanical or weight bearing they're not removing, like we're not touching that, that's no at that point, I think you're ready to buy your own house. 

43:52
At that point, let's find. Let's find a house for you to buy right let's sign this rent to own contract yes, yes, the rent to owns. That's an aspect that there is. 

44:08 - Alexandra (Guest)
Yeah see, I like to keep my properties, though I kind of I really like warren buffett for his philosophy buy and don't sell, because if you keep the property, you maintain them well. They can provide to the rest of your life, especially in certain markets that you know there is plenty of employment. You will always have tenants. People cannot live in computers. I'm sorry. We have to have proof above their heads. 

44:31
So I like to keep, because with selling and reselling and then right to own, you do lose the cash flow at some point and it really depends on your goal. And if you want to expand in some different way, then of course you want to sell something to buy something bigger. That makes perfect sense. If you're okay with hiring a management company, if you buy a 12 apartment building or 15 apartment building or 20, then you will need really professional management on that to just to manage with the time and the demand for the innovations and the to keep the tenants happy and satisfied. But it all depends on your plans for the future, your fee, five and 15 years ahead. I mean your parents. So you have different perspective online than I do, different goals, different obligations and responsibilities. Of course it's uh, yeah, it's an option, uh yeah, yeah. 

45:21 - Marcus (Host)
And you mentioned property management. I know that you are very diligent with your time With all of your properties that you are owning. Do you have a property management company that manages those? 

45:31 - Alexandra (Guest)
No, Okay, I don't trust anybody with bookkeeping, so I manage the properties. I have a team of excellent contractors. If need be, I can call them. I have substitutes. I have. I've assured that the very important people are on my team and if they can do it, they can recommend somebody who can with the same same quality, and it has worked so far but if I expand to 20 30 properties. 

45:56 - Marcus (Host)
That's not going to be realistic yeah, and then you start looking at the management company when it becomes an animal. 

46:04 - Alexandra (Guest)
Well, I interviewed several management companies when I started in 2014. And so the real estate agent that I found he was adamant that I should manage my property for at least a year or two before I hire a management company. And the other problem was that I was not satisfied with the interviews with any of these people, because they asked them how many properties do you manage? 500. How many accounts did you have? One? I said yeah, no, absolutely not. You guys are going to screw up my booking? No way, because they want to do everything right, the booking and whatnot. And I interviewed five or six and they were with five-star reviews and whatnot and of, and I just did not like how they did things. I wanted them to show me property that they managed and they refused to do that. So that was a big red flag right there and I figured you know, I want to manage for a couple years. Well, 10 years later, I'm still managing and I'm fine and it's really worked. 

47:04 - Marcus (Host)
great you build experience and the confidence yeah, I do like the philosophy of managing your properties, at least for the first year, especially when you're new, because you get to run in and get an actual like crash course of some problems or some some red flags that pop up. So you also know when the property manager calls you, you have some reference of, like what is going on. I feel like it feels different when you, when you actually have experienced it yourself, rather than just immediately going to a property management company. 

47:34 - Alexandra (Guest)
Yeah, you know they'll actually bother to find you a deal for a good price for a repair or something like that. Otherwise, how would you know if you don't manage it first? 

47:42 - Marcus (Host)
Exactly, exactly and, like you said yourself when you interview property management, for those people that manage 500 units, units it's a numbers game and if if they're not going to make their profit on your property, they might not take it. But also in in our shoes as the investor, if you're managing 500 properties, how much care are you going to give my property? And that's the always, that's the question that I always have. 

48:07 - Alexandra (Guest)
that was the question exactly. And just getting one accountant, one bookkeeper, that's a question that I always have. That was the question exactly. And just having one accountant, one bookkeeper, that's a recipe for disaster. 

48:14
It's small stuff, but they were trying to snatch as many properties as possible to manage. I mean, granted, they might have excellent teams that can do it for cheaper, but they won't charge you cheaper. And for one property they might want 10% to 12% from gross income per month, and I can give them more properties. That might lower itself to 9% or 8%, but still I can do this. I have arranged my schedules and there is so that I work three days a week, 12-hour shifts, and then four days a week I have to myself. So if anything needs to happen I mean I've renovated houses by myself Of course the heavy contractor work like water heater change, air conditioner change Now that I call people for that but as far as painting and minor things around the house, I can dedicate four hours a day to painting if I want to. 

48:58
I've done that with a 10-minute break for two apples in the afternoon, depending on what the pressing need is for me to rent the property. But I'm fine with that. I'm not afraid work and, uh, get my hands dirty. I mean, I'm a nurse, are you kidding me? 

49:13 - Marcus (Host)
yeah, I'm sure your hands get dirty as a nurse. We won't go into those details here, no, um, but yeah, those are. Those are a lot of the problems that you see and I'd call them behind the scenes that, um, investors or people that are going to get investing don't see up front because they're not talked about. There's so many problems front of the house with tenants and you'd mentioned problems with tenants that you'd ran into A staple thing that either popped up multiple times or one of those problems with the tenant that you didn't think you would cross. But with you managing the property, something happened where you had to cross a bridge, where it was kind of uncomfortable, or a fire. You had to put out that you weren't expecting to have to do. 

50:06 - Alexandra (Guest)
Oh, yes, yes, I will remember this to the day I die, actually. Um, but tenants always present their best behavior when they want to rent the property and then there are going to be problems. In the worst, people that are going to manifest right away. Within the first month they'll completely change their course. Uh say they're a recovering drug addict, or so they're not recovered. They drive traffic to your property. Also a revolving door. 

50:32
Three, four o'clock, five, six men come to the property and make noises and disturb your tenants. So you evict immediately. That doesn't even last two or three months. That type of a contract, so to speak. These are the things that pop up and they provide the deposit and the rent the first month and then they're immediately late the next time. They're late and late and you know that's not going to cure and you have steep late fees and they pay them. Some even paid the late fees, but it didn't pan out. And once I didn't renew a contract after a year I said you guys are out, that's it. And three times I have evicted because they were out of control. And again it showed right away and there are all sorts of stories. They almost died in a car crash. All their bank got robbed, this and this. They're very manipulative and they think you'll believe them, and so it's like are you just really tell this to me? And then the next month the rent is again late. I said you have another life-threatening experience. Are you alive? 

51:31 - Dan (Co-host)
you know. 

51:32 - Alexandra (Guest)
I mean because I'm very, uh, upfront and, like I said, mutual respect. But if you start bsing me, I'm not going to take that slightly because I'm not nice. I'm a balkan woman from bulgaria, so if you lie to me, I'll let you know that. I know that and feel free not to do it again. So these are unpleasant experiences and another reason why people don't want to go into real estate investing because of that risk. Not everybody is going to treat you with the same integrity that you treat them, and it's the same with people that you work with, patients and all that. Now, they're not stuck on your property. But that's why you try to invest in states that are landlord-friendly or relatively landlord-friendly, because you need to get the help you need when you need somebody out of the property because they're destroying it or they're disturbing the other tenants. And if you don't address the problem, then your good tenants will leave and you owe to them to remove this person if it's so problematic. Right, and it's not pleasant. 

52:29 - Marcus (Host)
I admit it's not pleasant, but it's not pleasant, but it's part of the reality of being an investor yep, and I know that there were stories all over the place during the 19 to 21 um covid crash where there was one investor who, uh, he was living in his van in the driveway because he couldn't live in his house because the tenant who hadn't paid rent in like a year and a half. They even went to court and the court decided with him that he has to stay in the property, so he legally wasn't allowed in his house, he couldn't collect rent, he was like screwed and he was in a state where it was not very landlord friendly obviously yeah he just and everybody to the sniff test, would way that municipality runs or that state ran. 

53:18
That was the decision. 

53:19 - Alexandra (Guest)
Please explain to me what made sense during the COVID pandemic. 

53:23 - Marcus (Host)
Nothing. 

53:24 - Alexandra (Guest)
Exactly. Thank you, thank you. 

53:28 - Marcus (Host)
So those problems with rental incomes and in the tragic stories that happen in the line. Do you do screenings before? 

53:37 - Alexandra (Guest)
I always do screenings, yes, Crazy Credit screenings, background checks always, but I never had problems during the COVID pandemic with my tenants. None of them decided to cheat and say, oh, I can't work, and they weren't even allowed to present proof to you, even here in Arizona. But none of them did it because they knew I was a very reasonable landlord and they really had nowhere else to go. And they also knew that you can evict them at any point after the pandemic because they've missed so much trend that you're not obligated to you know. But no, I didn't have any issues with tenants because of COVID and they didn't lose their jobs, which was even better. They were able. They were all in the so-called essential jobs, whatever that means, right. 

54:21
Like anybody can decide whether your work is essential or not, but that was. They were determined to be essential workers, so every one of them kept their job online or in person, and so I didn't lose them. But I know big investors were very greatly hurt, because the more units you own, the more risk you have that some people are on default when they lose their jobs in the pandemic. But who would think that something absurd like this would happen for two years? 

54:47 - Marcus (Host)
Right, right, and that's wild and it's crazy that you can do everything you can to prevent these problems from popping up and they still will. You do those screenings to try and make sure that your tenant is responsible enough to take on and manage or maintain your property correctly. And, like you said it, it shows pretty early and the hard thing is, as the early investor is, to see it and to take action on it early, cause you, there's always like that fear of like I don't want to be disrespectful or I got to give him a break and I feel like your skin gets a little bit thicker as more and more of those situations come up. 

55:29 - Alexandra (Guest)
I don't know if that was Very much so, very much so. You're weak at the beginning because you really want to accommodate the tenants very badly, you want to invest into work and you really cannot reconcile that the person doesn't have nearly half your integrity and they treat you like they think you're stupid. And they can smell many of them, especially the people who manipulate the system, who have manipulated the system for decades. They can immediately smell the new landlord, the new newbie, the rookie, just like a patient can smell the rookie nurse or doctor immediately. It's the exact same thing. And they try to manipulate their con artists in many ways. 

56:04
But I have had other cases, for instance, tenants who have been amazing for six years and all of a sudden there is this big financial burden on them. That happened with one of my nicest families and to these people I made an amendment on the lease and I lowered the rents by $120 because that family was in dire, dire need and I said for a year we can do that, but then we have to go back to your current guys and they were just so appreciative but I didn't want to lose them because they were doing good with the property, they were maintaining it properly and anybody else. You have to turn over an apartment. You have to spend multiple thousands of dollars to renovate it and paint, and all that. 

56:45
So, you gauge your options, but only once have I had to do that exemption gauge your options, but only once have I had to do that exception and it paid off well, because they're still there and now we're back, of course, to the normal rate. Today you increases and everything, but you have to know that people, like I said, the biggest problems. 

57:03 - Marcus (Host)
Show up early, yeah, yeah, just that simple, yeah sometimes Absolutely, and we've made concessions like that where they were in a hardship or something and let's say they had eight months left on their rent and they were in hardship for a couple of months. We've decreased for a couple of months and then basically just whatever amount they weren't paying, you just divide it up with your remaining amounts. So your rent dips for a few months and then it goes higher than expected, but at the end of the term it's all the same amount. 

57:34
It just gives them a little bit of a breathing room because you can't go to the grocery store and be like, hey, I'll come back and pay you the hundred dollars for x amount of months and exactly the roof above your head is the most important thing, right? 

57:47
and and that is that is also a testament to the tenants that a landlord would offer that service to them. Because if you are a good tenant and you're paying on time, you're taking care of the property, I'm more lenient to work with you. But if you're a tenant that's constantly late, that always has damages and you're breaking stuff and then you ask for help, less and less likely am I going to be able to extend myself as much as I'd like to. I can't, yeah so I agree completely. 

58:16
Yeah, and I know we're coming up an hour. I always ask like what bit of advice you'd give that investor that is starting out, but I feel like your advice would be discipline. I feel like that's the theme is discipline. Do you have any tactical? Because I know discipline would be your overall answer. I don't want to answer for you, but I feel like that might be it. Do you have any tactful things for a new investor, like, hey, watch out for this or make sure you do these things to set you up properly? 

58:44 - Alexandra (Guest)
yeah, always have a plan. Do very careful inspection and call contractors in besides the inspector. When you have a new property, especially if it's a multi-family, have the plan. Don't lose money for things that you shouldn't. Call at least six or seven contractors before you decide on the price of repair. It can never. Don't rush yourself and make premature decisions because at the beginning you will lose money. You have to learn to budget properly. But to budget properly you need to lose some money first If you don't have any experience with the case, like I was but you will need to learn to cut your other expenses. I mean you can't be craving for luxury items and status display if you want to be an investor, because the first five years are a learning curve so you either learn your business as an investor or you live a high end lifestyle. 

59:38
Both don't happen so well. I mean you can, but then you'll be really stretched and over leveraged. So learn finances, learn every day. Read books every day at least five, ten pages if you're that busy, whatever you're doing. But discipline is with sticking with your plan and you only change the plan if part of it doesn't work. You're going to make it work, but you will not give up on your plan just because things happen not as you expected. And they will, and your situation will be different from anybody else you learn from or you read from. But that's the beauty of the business. Your situation is different. You need to handle your own damn problems, and you handle one, two, three, four hundred problems at 200 will be much more confident if you didn't give up at first, and it's not easy. That's why not everybody's an investor. Okay, so you can ventured into that. You take your responsibility and you go with it. 

01:00:35 - Marcus (Host)
I like it. That's a good bow to put on top of it, because that is something that I feel. Like every investor, you get the. You get enough of the Instagram investors who are like I'm living on a beach and I work three hours a day and it's all rainbows and sprinkles and they leave out the discipline part and all I want them to do is expand Like it's not a vacation. You're going to hit road bumps, you're going to hit walls and you're going to have to adapt. In some things. It is work, it's not a vacation, but if you can make that things. 

01:01:13
It is work, it's not a vacation. But if you can make that so you can go, no, you go ahead. Oh, if you can get over the, the, the work that you're going to have to do, that benefit even inside of just feeling like you accomplish something very difficult, is is enough. But you're going to see the financial benefit of all that hard work too. But you, you can't cut out the hard work. It's not just a vacation. 

01:01:33 - Alexandra (Guest)
So 10 to 15 years into the experience it becomes more and more of a vacation because you get bugged and less anxiety with all the problems that you face and you know you're solving them. They're not-provoking event anymore and you have plenty of capital and resources. If you were disciplined the first 10 years. 

01:01:55
Then it becomes really wonderful and rewarding. It's just like any other career. You need at least 10 years of experience to be in control, first of all of yourself, then of everything else. So the sooner you become self-controlled of your impulses, the faster you will get to that 10 year feeling of I'm now really in control of the situation and whatever. It takes time and uh, it's just really. You have to persevere through that and it can become a vacation. 

01:02:27
But the people who advertise on instagram they've been investors for two, three months. They basically go want to get for a coaching business to supplement their repairs that they didn't budget properly for and they're picturing that wonderful. 

01:02:39 - Marcus (Host)
I think they're full of crap at least 80 of them yeah, yeah, there's some of them that I I just wish that, um that they covered the, the hard part, the not so fun, glamorous Hollywood side of it, because I feel like Maybe for coaching, for that, if they know what they're doing you know, but, most of them won't cover that part. I know. 

01:03:00 - Alexandra (Guest)
It's important to know these things. I mean come on. 

01:03:03 - Marcus (Host)
Yes, I like it. Hard work, discipline. I feel like that's the overall theme here. Yeah, we're being very trivial. Well, I am like amazed at where you came from and how far you've come. That is, it's super. 

01:03:23 - Alexandra (Guest)
I don't even know the word like respectful, and it's amazing to see where all the hard work has taken you well thank you but you, you're doing the same thing with your partner, and I mean you guys have done this probably longer than I have. 

01:03:40 - Marcus (Host)
I've only done we've only been in it for, uh, eight years. 

01:03:46 - Alexandra (Guest)
Nice, we're only been in for eight years so you, you know, you know what you're doing. 

01:03:50 - Dan (Co-host)
That's a couple more years, we'll be experienced, right, yeah especially with children. 

01:03:54 - Alexandra (Guest)
It's even more, uh, remarkable because you want to teach your children finances and tangible assets and many people, unlike you, use their children as an excuse not to venture into new risky things, and you are not doing that. So that's fantastic, fantastic. 

01:04:09 - Dan (Co-host)
Fantastic. 

01:04:10 - Marcus (Host)
Yeah, I use him as a awesome labor. I had him frame a wall when he was like six years old. It was great. He got his own hammer and his tool belt. 

01:04:19 - Alexandra (Guest)
No, no, he'll learn. He'll learn things. That's fantastic, right. 

01:04:24 - Marcus (Host)
Right Wonderful. 

01:04:25 - Alexandra (Guest)
Right Self-sufficiency. Exactly that's what. 

01:04:28 - Marcus (Host)
I want. That's what I want for him right, self-sufficiency, exactly that's what I want. That's what I want for him. I want you to be able to be self-sufficient. 

01:04:34 - Alexandra (Guest)
That's my goal exactly. I hope he likes it and he doesn't mind it, because he can learn a great deal from you. 

01:04:39 - Marcus (Host)
Yeah, he likes it. He doesn't like going to do it, but when he's doing it it is fun. 

01:04:44 - Alexandra (Guest)
But getting him up to do it, that is the difficult part and then what about the final result, when the job is done, and the reward of? 

01:04:52 - Dan (Co-host)
put your hands on your hips and like ah yes, we completed this you know, the your children helped you uh, yeah, yes, absolutely yeah, pulling weeds picking up the, the, the mess that the dog makes in the yard. Perfect raking, she likes. She likes making a mess or deconstructing things more than putting things together. But she'll help you with all the demo that she definitely did yeah oh my gosh so that's cool. 

01:05:21 - Marcus (Host)
Well, thank you for giving us the time. I appreciate it. I hope the listeners um pulled out multiple, multiple pieces from your background and your life. So thank you for the insight on how you're making your business work. 

01:05:39 - Alexandra (Guest)
Of course. Thank you so much for this conversation. It was great.