Aileen (00:01):

Welcome everyone to today’s episode of the, how did they do it Real estate podcast. I’m your host, Aileen [Inaudible] and today our guest is Christina suitor. Christina has over 30 years of extensive real estate experience where she has acquired over 350 doors. [Inaudible] over $40 million in 2019, she co-authored the book. You got this on real estate investing success. Additionally, she found a Phoebe Pasadena meetup with over 3,500 members as part of the four investor by investor real estate network. And over the last 15 years, Christina has mentored aspiring real estate investors and created the live a rich life real estate investment workshop. She’s also the host of the real estate breakthrough podcast, where she coaches, and investors and interviews the industry’s top players. Welcome to the show, Christina, we’re very excited to have you on today.

Christina (00:47):

Thank you for having me. I mean, the invitation was kind of random and came through Bronson. It was very sweet. I was like, Hey, you know, Bronson suggested we should talk. I’m like, great. Of course let’s talk. You know, that was wonderful. And you guys said you’ve even been to the Phoebe Pasadena meeting. So you had some idea of who I am and what you were in for is my, you know, loud mouth and highly opinionated personality. So you’re prepared for this. You’re prepared for my [inaudible].

Aileen (01:13):

We’re hoping the audience is prepared for this too.

Christina (01:16):

Let’s hope they’re prepared. Like I will try to, I try to keep it straight. I really, I will try to tell you the truth as I’ve experienced it over my 30 years of investing. Because I don’t, you know, my podcast real estate breakthrough is about that. Like, let’s get to the real truth of what it takes to break foo and real estate, right? Like how did they do it? Like I was excited when I saw your title. Because I went, I like it. You’re talking about the same thing I’m talking about, which is what the truth is and what does it authentically take to show up in real estate to cultivate a successful career? Whether you’re a passive investor or an active investor, sometimes it really requires the best of you. And sometimes you’re just like, but like just today I walked into my husband and I said, okay, I’ve just found out my engineer made another mistake and you know, like, okay, well now we have to fix that with the city. Right? So, you know the reality of real estate, it it’ll challenge. You it’ll bring out the best in you. It will allow you financial freedom. And that’s why so many people love it is because it lets you be an entrepreneur and bring out the financial freedom, the opportunity to run your own life based on your integrity, your values and your sense of life purpose. That’s why we do real estate. Oh, and by the way, maybe you like real estate as well. Just a little bit, a little bit like I like real estate.

Aileen (02:41):

Yes. Thank you so much, Christina. So before we get started can you tell us a little bit more about your background and how did you get started into real estate?

Christina (02:49):

Okay. So I, it was 30 years ago and I was two years old. Okay. No, I’m not 32 years old. I’m 52 years old to be absolutely truthful. And I was 17 when I started. So it was over 30 years ago. My mom was in really poor health. She could not stay in the family home. She needed to get out of it. So she could literally breathe. Right. This was, I guess we still, we weren’t really having third degree smugglers at that time. It was Los Angeles. So, you know, the San Gabriel Valley, we used to have really crappy air. But she couldn’t stay, she had asthma. So she went to Northern California and she just left the house and I, I just took it over. Right. So she needed it to me. She put me on title and I rented it out to my aunt and uncle. I didn’t know, I’m 17 years old. I’m like, I don’t know, what am I supposed to do with a house? I have no idea. Right. So I met an out my aunt and uncle and then my uncle called me and he was actually my godfather. He called me like two years later. He was like, I want to buy this from you. And because of social security, I want to buy it from you on an instalment sale. And I went, okay, great. Whatever you said, I have no idea. I’m like, what’s an instalment sale. Well, I don’t know what that means. And why does it need to be over five years? And how does this affect your social security? And I didn’t know any of it, but that’s how I got started. Right. And then eventually it kind of became something like, while I was working, like we talked about before the shift started, right.

Christina (04:09):

I’m actually a teacher. I have a teacher’s credential. I have a master’s in psychology. I have a bachelor’s in business. So I have way too much schooling, but it has worked really well for me. Right. Because I beat a lot of contracts. I lead a lot of, you know, PPM agreements. And so the business degree has helped me. I’m a consultant. So then the master’s degree in psychology helps me talk to people, right? So it ends up using everything that I’ve created. But the point is I, over time while I was doing a regular job, whether it was teaching in special end or working in childcare, I kind of collected properties. Like my brother had a condo that he wanted to sell and Brayan, and I’m like, sure, I’ll buy it. I don’t know anything about it. But you know, mom gave me this house and now I’ve got a little more money.

Christina (04:56):

I could buy it from you. And you know, and I could pay you off, pay the bank off over time. And I had a section eight mentor in there for years, the same lady, two kids, two boys. I swear. They practically grew up that I had that for like, was it nine years, 10 years, and 12 years. Like I had that for a long period of time. And I had one renter that whole time. And I had a property management company. Cause I didn’t know what I was doing. And I buying another single family and another single family. And then my mom moved and I helped her buy. She’s like, well I need help buying my, you know, my place to live. I’m like, well you gave me the house originally that I bought to the uncle. Well of course I’m going to buy you a house mom, because there’s no way I’m not going to let you have a house.

Christina (05:32):

So I bought her house and she took great care of it. And it grew a lot in value. And my portfolio kind of unintentionally grew to the point where I went, you know what? I have enough money. I’m only out of this one property that I could either put it in stocks because I did have some stocks as well. My mom introduced me to stocks when I was young. So I did have some stocks as well. I could Walden and stocks or I could buy a multifamily. Oh, Oh no, again, I know nothing about multi-families. I don’t know what I’m doing, but I was going to a real estate meeting. I figured I should probably start paying attention enough. Wealth had been developed and I’m like, Oh, well maybe I should actually be responsible for this portfolio. And I started going to a real estate meeting, much like Phoebe.

Christina (06:15):

It was about networking and helping each other out. It was not about sales or books or anything like that. And I raised my hand. I’m like, I don’t know what I’m doing. I’m looking at buying a multiunit help. Right? Like literally. And I have like five emails in my email box at night saying, here’s an agent you can talk to. And here’s an area you should think about looking into. And here’s some articles you should read. And I, you know, I became a professional investor because I was doing these two things at the same time. And I remember the moment I was running a small business, you could call it a business. I was running a small business where I was, of course I was renting space out. Right? Like my small business was about renting space to teachers and cause I was a teacher.

Christina (06:58):

Right. And I was in childcare. So I rented a space out to teachers and I was, my mint was like $1,700 a month. Like my nut for the whole business was like $2,200 a month. Right. And I wasn’t making money and, but I had this big real estate deal. I was doing over here where I was transferring money from one piece of real estate to another and I wasn’t making money. And I’m like, do I have money issues? Like maybe I have money issues. Maybe I really need to work on my money. And she’s, and I’m like, no, wait a minute. I’m handling hundreds of thousands. If not, almost a million over here at that point. And I’m running this little business over here for 2200, I’m like, I’m just in the wrong career. The truth is what I really should be doing is real estate. And that’s when I became a full-time real estate investor was because my portfolio had gotten to the point and I realized that it really was something that made sense to me in my world in the way I behave, the way I thought I was much more comfortable, much more agile had become better educated right in real estate than I wasn’t running this tiny little company. And so I became a full-time real estate investor.

Aileen (08:04):

So how did you gain that confidence to step away from your W2 job, into full-time real estate? Like how did you get into that mind-set and prepare yourself?

Christina (08:14):

I’ll be very honest with you. That’s a very great question, but I’ll be very honest with you. I really don’t do well in W2 jobs. I just don’t. I’m not that I’m not a good employee. I’m actually a pretty good employee. I’m mostly show up on time. You know, when I was a school teacher and I would show up in my, you know, all my kids were already in the classroom, then it’s like, Oh, I’m a little late, but I know. But the point is, is that it wasn’t that I was a bad employee. I actually was a perfectly good employee. I didn’t like waking up every morning to the same thing over and over and over, you know, the movie Groundhog Day. Yes. I felt a little like it was a movie day. I’m like, I don’t like this merry-go-round I’m on please. Somebody let me off. I don’t need to say see the same horses over and over and over again. I just want off. So it was never about, for me, it was never about the safety of the W2. It was, I need to find something that allows me to define my daily life because otherwise I’m actually depressed. I actually don’t do well in this environment.

Aileen (09:23):

That makes sense. And so when you got into your first multifamily what did you, what were the steps that you did to take in order to purchase that first multi-family alright.

Christina (09:37):

This is where I learned the stuff I actually tell people to do now. So I’m like, I don’t know multi-units right. I did my [Inaudible] and amaze my hand. I got my five emails. I started working with this real estate agent who specialized in working with investors in multifamily. He was a great guy. He was very chatty, very friendly and he was older. And so he loved to teach me. He’s like Christina, it’s, don’t get confused. Right? Pride of ownership. I all you need to know, Christina are the three seats, clean, comfortable, and contemporary. Like that’s all you need to know. So don’t, you know, don’t get confused. And so he was kind of mentoring me while I was doing it, which was great. But one of the things that I did that I really encourage people to do is I kept asking him, send me property, send me properties, send me properties.

Christina (10:17):

And I came up with an Excel spreadsheet that literally had over a hundred multi-families that were available in the van Nuys area. Man, I Sherman Oaks that whole Valley, right. I actually was looking at the numbers on a hundred different buildings. And what I did was I figured out what was available in the market and then what did I want? So I started with, what could I actually purchase? What would my, what would give I want to own in LA, I didn’t define myself. I defined the market and then purchase what was most successful for me in the market, given what I was looking for. So I literally probably looked at 20 to 30 buildings and I physically ran numbers on over a hundred of those buildings to get a sense for it. And there were all like six, seventh and eighth caps. And I bought a building that was a seven cap.

Christina (11:06):

And it was on the boundary between van Nuys and Sherman Oaks. And it was an 18 unit building and it needed me plumbing, but I was willing to re-plumb it like that. Didn’t bug me. I could see how I can make the building better. And what was wrong with it was fixable for my horizon line. Right. It wasn’t like I was buying a bone was so overwhelming for me. Right? Like here’s an exam, a story. Like I was, I had the building, I had a physical inspector came and looked at the building and he’s like, oh yeah, no, it’s not too bad. Your garages aren’t falling down your roof. Isn’t caving in like your AC units, mostly work. I’m like, oh, okay, cool. Sounds good. But I had a plumber look at it. And the plumber was like, this is a horrible building. Why is a young lady?

Christina (11:45):

Like you buying a building like this? And I’m like, Oh my God. Oh my God, this is going to be horrible. I had to be making such a big, forgive me, my headsets, being a pain in the, in the, whatever you want to call it because it keeps pulling. And so I’m like, I’m all freaked out buying this building. Right. And then I talked to one, you know, one of my mentors, one of the people I knew through my real estate mastermind group, this was called at the time. It was mostly a mastermind group. And I’m a talker. I’m like, I could building [Inaudible] really. I don’t know what to buy. And I’m like, look, who told you that the building was crappy on like the plumber? Did you know it had plumbing pumps? I’m like, yeah. He’s like, is he telling you the truth? I’m like, yeah, it’s a crappy building when it comes to plumbing. I understand that. He said, but what did you expect her there? It’s about to be okay. Except for the plumbing. He’s like, okay. So you’re not actually confused. So does the building work for you? And I’m like, yeah, I can do that. I have the money in the bank to replumb the building. I don’t have a problem with that. So I bought the bottle. It’s my first multi-unit, but I relied on my mentors and I relied on the numbers.

Aileen (12:51):

And so for that first deal did you purchase it on your own or did you have investors in that one?

Christina (12:56):

I purchased it on my own because I had this long slow runway while I was working my job. Right. I had developed enough capital that I could buy this building on my own. It was a million, four, I think. And I ended up selling it for a million for, [Inaudible] and I ended up selling it for four, 2.5 million for, and I had all the money I needed for the down payment in my own account.

Aileen (13:24):

Oh, that’s such a young age. And you’re already able to figure that out

Christina (13:27):

If this was 10 years later, I mean, 17 is when I started. So I’m like 27 at this time. Right. So remember I had this long runway to develop from the house. My mom gave me in San Gabriel that was like, Oh no, it was worth maybe 200,000 and had a little bit of a loan on it. Right. And then I developed that with the condo and the townhouse and this and that, and then buying the house for my mom to live in. And she took good care of it. And it was up in the Napa Valley and Napa Valley was like, well, this is really cool and all, but who knew I bought in the right place, to be accurate. My mother bought in my place because I had nothing to do with it. I wasn’t analysing the markets or being brilliant. It wasn’t my brilliance that did it. And my mom took good care of it. That’s it’s those types of things that developed this nice nest egg, where I was able to go, yes. Now I’m going to be able to buy a multiunit and I can own it myself. Awesome. So don’t be impatient. Like your listeners, don’t be impatient with the long runway to keep the job do along one way. It’s fine. You’ll get there.

Aileen (14:28):

And so from that first multi-family where did you go from there?

Christina (14:34):

Okay. So I bought that multifamily and the market was pushing up. So this was in the early two thousands. So I started flipping, so I had the multifamily, but I also had owned site, only single families. And I found a partner who wanted to flip and I thought he was a, he was a project who worked with a lot of general contractors and he was a project manager and he’s like, let’s do flipping. And I went, yeah, let’s do flipping. That sounds great because I’ve been studying these different things. Right. And I thought, Oh, I know flipping, I can do flipping. Right. And we did flipping, we did, we did do flipping. What happened was that we bought one building on the street called Curzon I, this is my favourite flipping story, but this house, nice little Spanish street called Curzon. This little old lady lived in it.

Christina (15:18):

Like you could see where she kept her chair. And when she walked from the chair to the kitchen and back, I could see in the floor. Right. And she’d been moved to an elderly home and blah, blah, blah. And I, you know, I’m sure she passed away peacefully. Hopefully. As far as I know, that’s the story. Right. And we owned it for like six to eight months. We owned it together. We owned it together. And so I wasn’t doing it alone. And because it was the two early two thousands, we did nothing to it. And we got a random offer that was for the price we wanted after we flipped it. So we sold it without doing anything to it. That’s the craziness of the two thousands market. I’m just telling you, that’s a crazy, the microwave. We had other houses that we did flip.

Christina (15:58):

We had other things that we did do, they actually did put work in and we did make money on and all that other stuff. But again, it was, you know, it wasn’t me being brilliant. It was, the market was always working in our favour. And I had a partner who was who was used to being a general contractor overseeing and being a project manager, overseeing general contractors. So I took care of the finance and I took care of the contracts and he took care of the actual day to day. And between the two of us that was mostly successful,

Aileen (16:26):

It sounds like you were doing the things in the right order and things just happen at the right time and the right place. So,

Christina (16:33):

You know, I would love to say that I coordinated it when I was 17. Yeah. I know what I’ll do. I’ll work for 10 years and now, no, I didn’t. I didn’t.

Aileen (16:44):

So, as you’re scaling up your business, what has been one of the biggest challenges that you’ve been facing,

Christina (16:50):

Which business? My consulting practice on my real estate investing business investing business. Yes. Okay. The biggest hardship was 2008 and nine. So I bought that 18 unit. I rolled that 18 unit into a 12 unit, which was in a nicer neighbourhood that was, had nicer units with bigger square footage per unit. And I was going to condo convert that unit and then 2007 happen. And I didn’t have the construction loan I needed any more to do that unit. And the flip I was doing over in Portland, I also didn’t have the money to finish that one because that construction loan also dried up. So really the biggest, hardest piece was my 2000 was 2009. I was in, I had no, and I had 50 doors at the height of my count of doors. I had 50 doors, I owned a loan and another 300, and I shared with other partners, right?

Christina (17:43):

So at that time, that was about that time. And I was flipping and I was doing this condo conversion. I did lots, you know, a lot split in Hawaii and all of this, you know, own condo tells and you know, all this stuff, I had a portfolio that was performing, but I had this piece of the portfolio. That was my development part of my portfolio that was not performing anymore. So I was funnelling money from the performing side to try to maintain the non-performing side. And honestly, by 2009, I said, forget it. I’m like I got married in January of 2006. I was trying to get pregnant in 2009. Right. Your mama. Right. I was trying to get paid in 2009. And part of my, you know, my why, like, why did I, why was I excited to be a real estate investor? Was it just because I had the heart of an entrepreneur because I wanted to be there.

Christina (18:36):

It may seem silly, but I wanted to be there to pick up my daughter from school. My mom, between the times I was two, till the time I was nine was a single mom with three kids. And I’d be left at school sometimes for an hour or two hours at a time until my mom could come pick me up because she was in a meeting, she needed to feed us. She needed to give us a home. And so I not saying her priorities were messed up. I’m not saying that what I’m saying is I know the experience of being my mom was an entrepreneur. Like I am of being in that environment. I wanted to have enough money to be an at-home mom. If I chose to be, I want to have enough money and enough financial freedom and enough of my own resources that I could be the mom I wanted to be.

Christina (19:18):

So here it is 2009. And my real estate portfolio was spinning out of control because of the financial market. And I’m trying to get pregnant to realize the final crescendo of my dream. Like, forget it. I’m fighting with my husband. I’m too stressed to get pregnant. I’m like this whole day, I sold everything. Working, not working, everything got sold, everything got put on the plate in 2009, 2009. That’s when I started just going and I had already lost money. I mean, I’m watching this condo conversion project I had dumped not by $10,000. Every time I did it by a hundred thousand dollars, I’m watching its value go down. As I’m watching time, go by.

Aileen (20:00):

That’s stressful.

Christina (20:03):

That’s really upsetting. That’s not good for once calm. So yeah, so it was about, I don’t know if it’s 2008 or 2009 and made the decision. But if between 2009, 2010, that I liquidated everything. And I took that money that I was pulling out of the good investments, this working investments. And I put it out for hard money loans so that I didn’t have to be stressed so I could be calm. And I got pregnant. I’m really happy. I got pregnant because it would have been really sad to have missed the boat. Now that you’ve heard my story, you can understand how sad it would have been for me to miss the boat. And I could have used a donor egg because I was almost 40. I got married in two, September, 2006. Here I am. It’s 2000 and we’ve tried for two years. Oh seven Oh seven or eight. We tried for two years now we’re in Oh nine Oh nine is when I’m making the decision going. I can’t get pregnant. I’m going to need help. You know, let’s sell everything. It would have been sad, but I have a great daughter. I’m very lucky, but I was 40. So I was kind of old.

Aileen (21:13):

Well, but then you’ve made, it seems like you made the right decision for you and your family at that time. And you guys were able to get your daughter from the whole situation. So I’m really happy for you guys.

Christina (21:23):

Thank you very much. Yes. I’m really happy to. And she’s a fantastic human being. I’m really lucky. Like, you know, I mean, I, parenting advice, not that this is a parenting show is not a parenting show, but I’ve watched parents because I’ve been involved with children. Like I said, a lot during my life when I’m not doing real estate kind of kids. Right. So what I’ve noticed is that sometimes the kid’s personality just isn’t a good fit with the mom or the dad, right. Like one parent gets him, but the other one doesn’t, I’m lucky. I’m the parent who gets my kid. Right. My husband’s a little, like, I don’t understand why she’s doing blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And I’m like, well, you explained to me, I’m like, okay, sure. I’ll explain it. But I’m lucky. Like I get to have this great relationship, which is what I wanted, you know? And so yeah, it worked out. Grace really helped me figure this out, even though I would say I wasn’t really that brilliant. I mean, clearly in 2005 and six, and I’m repositioning myself into doing a condo conversion, right. If my, a year before the height of the market, I’m not that smart.

Christina (22:29):

Right. But I was doing obviously enough things that had grown the portfolio in just sheer rentals, sheer buying a mental, holding the mental for several years. Right. And then maybe we financing it or being able to buy another unit like that worked so that I worked out that I can kind of take credit for.

Aileen (22:48):

So then after you got pregnant with your daughter and you started the hard money lending, how did you get your mind-set back into back into real estate? Or what did you do afterwards?

Christina (23:01):

I waited until I knew that I was returned to real estate investing more actively and I waited until she was in kindergarten. So the hard money lending was perfect because I can do a lot of work in a very short amount of time. And then I can buy a note and I can let that note pay me. Right. And so the amount of work was appropriate with the amount of time I wanted to spend as a mom at home with my daughter and we never got a second kid. We tried, we never got a second kid. So that’s the way it worked.

Aileen (23:27):

He’s the golden child.

Christina (23:29):

Yeah. I’m afraid she’s spoiled. But yeah, so I knew I would always return. So when she hit kindergarten, first grade was when I went, you know, I think there’s enough space now where I could go back to a much active investing and what I ended up doing was returning to flipping. So I don’t know that that was very good either, but I did end up returning to flipping and a little bit more like partnerships and stuff like that. Right. So where I wasn’t the primary person involved again, I’m generally not the project manager I am right now in one project I’m finishing because my project manager stepped away from the project. But in general, I’m not the project manager. I’m generally looking for the sweat equity partner. I am looking for being the financier and I’m looking to run the contracts and I’m looking to be the background, right. So that I can stay home with my daughter and take control, keep control over my schedule.

Aileen (24:24):

That makes sense. And so as you were building up your business you also started up the Phoebe and Pasadena. Can you talk a little bit about that and how, why did you decide to start that meetup and how has it helped you so far?

Christina (24:37):

Okay. So I started to decide to start it for two reasons. One, I started, I started during the meltdown I started doing like, it was like, like 2009, 2010. I started the meeting because I remembered in 2012 and went, okay, guys, we’ve hit the bottom of the bottom of the market. So now I can change the format of my meeting. Like literally I changed the format of the meeting based upon the timing in the market, because the meeting was serving a purpose for me, two reasons, one, it, I knew it would help me to develop my network. It would keep my feet on the ground. I’d be able to hear the stories of what’s really happening in a time when the market is moving really fast. Right. I was going to meetings just to stay up with, well home. How big is the shadow industry?

Christina (25:14):

What’s the real rate of inflation right now? Like, I don’t know what’s going on. I mean, I felt like I was constantly trying to research to figure out what’s going to happen to my own portfolio. Right. So it’s this time of change and desperation. And for me, fear, right. So here I am. And so I’m like, okay, well I’ll start a meeting and I’ll do economic updates, every meeting. So every month I was required to research this sort of tide that was wiping us all out. Right. And so that’s why I stood. I started for the network and I started for the, be able to do the research. And then in 2012, I went, okay, great. I understand where we are. We’ve hit the bottom of the bottom. Market’s going to turn around. Now everybody go forth and invest, and now I’m going to bring in speakers.

Christina (25:57):

And so I kept it though, because it does, it keeps me in when I do economic updates every year. Right. So it keeps me in the economic flow at the conversation about, you know, all ships rise and fall on the tide. And I didn’t honour that in 2005 and six, I didn’t get that concept of how I’m a little guy and there’s a really big economic market out there. And I really need to understand that I’m a little guy and no matter of brains or, you know ego is going to protect me from the tide going up and down. Like I’m not smarter. You can see that’s a theme for me now. But basically, yeah, so I’m a little guy riding on a big tide. And so it gave me an excuse to, and do an economic update every month. And then my meeting, I kept it because one, I love community and which I didn’t realize I was going to enjoy so much running my meetings.

Christina (26:53):

I love community and I love the process of being meaning. Facilitator means I can help my community. It means I can be educated by my community. It means I get the most recent news on the street. I still start even my zoom meetings I start with. Okay guys. So what’s actually happening in office? So what market are you in? What are you finding? Is the news on the street? Like what’s the reality that you’re seeing in Baldwin Hills or you’re seeing in Florida, you’re seeing in your mental poppies in Michigan because that news is so much faster than waiting for the newspaper or the actual data to accumulate long enough to hear that, to get it from the papers or to get it from the data.

Aileen (27:30):

And so also I’d like to talk a little bit about your inspiration to create the live a life live a rich life, the real estate investment workshop. What kind of got you started into that and how did you transition into coaching and creating this workshop?

Christina (27:45):

So the other career that I didn’t talk about that I had at the same time was I was, I’ve been a consultant since 2000. So that small space that I was renting out while I was renting that small space out, I was also doing small business management consulting. And because I had a business degree, I had a teacher’s credential and I was studying psychology. So I started and I had a request from one of my teachers to consult with them on their business. So I actually became a small business management consultants. I did that in 2000 and it was 2007, 2008. When my, one of my mentors said to me, well, Christina, why don’t you also mentor people on real estate? And I’m like, I can’t do that. And he’s like, you’ve been investing for 20 years. Why can’t you do that? Explain to me Spanky, why you can’t like, I’m like, Oh, well I guess I could.

Christina (28:33):

But I’m so used to being my own money. So at that point I never had taken investor money. I had a business partners, but I never taken investor money. I had never been responsible a hundred percent for somebody else’s capital. That’s different when you’ve got a business partner and you’re both working on the deal and you’re both got your own capital risks. And it’s like, okay, dude, we’re doing this together. It’s like a partnership. But when somebody hands you money as part of their life savings, you don’t want to mess that up. I know, I know my investors. I know the people who fund my projects. I know them personally. I know whether they have kids. I know where they live. I’ve they’ve either visited me or I visited them or they’ve seen me at my meetings. I’ve talked to them often. They’ve either been client.

Christina (29:16):

Most of them have been clients of mine at some point in time. I know who these people are. I’m not going to lose their money. I mean, above and beyond the fact that, you know, if you’re taking other people’s money, you don’t want to lose them money. Their money’s first and your money second. Right? Just in general, like if you want people to keep giving you money to invest in projects, you always make your investors whole period. It’s not more complicated than that. It’s just that simple. They’ll keep giving you money. If you keep making them whole, even if it goes up by, even if you just give them the principal back, they will often reinvest with you just because you made them whole and they know that’s your philosophy. And they know that’s your integrity and your commitment they’ll keep trusting you.

Christina (30:05):

Right? So just as a side note why live a rich life? So I started consulting in 2007 and a lot of the conversations were like my conversation. So how do we do an intentional short sale? How do we negotiate a settlement with the banks? What banks are good banks? What banks are bad banks? What pics are me? What banks are nice, right? Like that, all this conversations. And it was again like this incredible opportunity for me to both process my own portfolio, but also help other people process their portfolio is really information rich, right? Since I made the mistake of I drifted into investing, I never took it seriously until I started to take it more seriously. Then I had my handed to me. Now I’m like, I need to take this seriously. Now I’m serious about taking it seriously. Right? So I completely changed my point of view from being this sort of life kind of investor to no, no, this is what I do.

Christina (30:59):

This is my industry. I’m up to date on it. I know what’s happening. I’m working with other people on what’s happening. I’m seeing their portfolios, I’m watching my portfolio. So it got me very deep into it. The rich live a rich life. If you haven’t guessed from listening to me, I like community. I like children. I like people growing. My greatest satisfaction is when one of my clients goes from here to here and I go, yes, they’re free. They went from locked. For whatever reason it was inside of them. They went from Lockton a job. They went from locked, not knowing how to move forward. They went from, from maybe some story they heard as a kid, how they aren’t allowed to run their own financial life. They went from locked to freedom. Now that that is more exciting than real estate for hat is awesome.

Christina (31:55):

That is completely worth spending my time on year after year decade after decade that is something that brings me joy every single time. So I believe in people living in rich life, whether it’s financially going from financially locked to financially free or just pure leadership, I don’t know how to really be responsible and prideful about my own life, comfortable in my own skin, being my own leader to now I know that I live a rich and abundant life. Like, let me give you an example. I have one client who, when I first started working with her, she made 1500 to $2,000 a month, right? She still lives on about three to $4,000 a month. She lives in a man controlled unit and I’m not telling you where she rented out Airbnb. She lives in the living room and she rents out the bedroom and she lives on the money.

Christina (32:59):

She mix, she invests everything else, everything else, her freedom is being able to use her investments and rent out her bedroom. So she has no job and has not had a job for a lot of years. How does she afford it? Because she’s not really making that much money. She affords it because she only gets coffee at Starbucks. Like once every two weeks she lives four blocks from the beach. She has defined for herself that her financial freedom and her sense of richness is not attached to having a big house, not attached to her car. It’s attached to her and her dog. Being able to walk on the beach every day and not be worried that her life’s going to fall apart. Period. She’s done. That’s it? That’s her financial freedom. She doesn’t need 10 million. She doesn’t need 50 million. What she knows is that she’s in control of her choices in her life. That to me is joy.

Aileen (34:02):

Yeah. That’s great. That’s really great that you’ve been able to help people discover what their financial freedom means to them since not everybody has the same definition of what it is.

Christina (34:10):

Yeah. And you can’t assume that I never assumed that I have people whose definition of freedom is I had one client who’s had at least $10 million worth of equity in real estate. And they did not feel free. They’re like how much more do I need to grow to get financially free? I don’t understand this. I did. I me I’m not saying this was a good person or a bad person. I’m just telling you where they start and where they end. Right. And in order for this person to reach their financial freedom, they left the United States. So they could live a much better life in another country. That was the richness they wanted and they wanted it now. And they got it now because they had 10 million in equity. Like this is not that hard. We can work this out. Right. But we need to define for you what financial freedom means, then fulfil that in reality. So how to original, how to live a rich life is sometimes defining what your sense of purpose is. And what’s your true definition of abundance is. And then how do you create that? And yes, it’s a very different definition for everybody I work with.

Aileen (35:20):

Thank you so much for sharing. And so Christina, what’s next for you?

Christina (35:28):

I just decided that that’s a great question. I love it was just spent this last year, like contemplating, like what’s next for me? It’s COVID right. And so that’s very much led to a lot of introspection. What’s next for me is I think I’m having been an active investor, a passive investor, active investor. I really think I pretty much, I figure I’ve been investing for about 30 years. Like we talked about, right. But as an investor, when I’m going into my brain, I’m like, okay, well I’m 50 years old, 52. I might have another 25 to 30 years of investing in front of me, depending upon how long my brain actually works for. Because I don’t care if I’m in a wheelchair, I can invest from wheelchair, dude. I have no problem with that. Like as long as I can sign the contract, I’m good investing.

Christina (36:11):

Right. So as long as my brain’s working, then I figure I can keep investing. Right. So it’s not related to my physical body. It’s related to my brain. I figure I’ve got another 25 to 30 years to cultivate my portfolio exactly the way I want to from my financial and read leadership. And I don’t really need anybody else’s permission except my own and my husband. Right. Because my married didn’t have a daughter. And I really decided that what I like is passive investing. What I like, what I’m good at and what leads to that peace from my world every day. That sense of abundance every day is the, is the passive investing. I’m actually happier than when I’m running a flip, like I’m I was running. I had just had five flips in this last two and a half years. All upper-level flips in the area of Pasadena. Lock-In Jada. And I have to project, I had to finish off the project management and one, and I’m still finishing the project management on another one right now, because like I said, my business partner COVID her own financial situations. She moved out of town. And so I took over the process metrics. I don’t like it.

Christina (37:14):

I’m sorry. I don’t like it. I look at all these other punks where the girls are guys, but they’re punks to me. Right? They’re like they’re in their twenties or thirties. And they’re slamming at home with all these flips they’re doing and they’re working hard. And I’m like, yeah, I don’t like that. I have never firmly and completely confirmed that. I don’t like it. If I have to come in and take over flip, which I’m capable of doing, I’m not saying I’m not capable of doing it. I don’t like doing it. I can talk to clients, five different clients, over five hours, walk from my little area behind my house, where I do my clients to the house. And I’m like, this was a great day. What does my family need? Right. But if I do three to five, three hours, just three hours on my flip and my engineer and walking the site and measuring boundaries and blah, blah, blah, and meeting with the surveyor after three hours, I’m like, okay I’m going to go home now and like have a sandwich and like, you know, pray, nobody needs anything from me for a little while.

Christina (38:11):

Like that’s not living a rich life. That’s not abundant for me. That’s not joyful and peaceful. It doesn’t the purpose of a real estate portfolio in my world is to give you a better quality of living. And if it’s not giving me a better quality of living, then maybe I’m not doing it the way that’s ergonomic for me. Right. And the reason why I say that is because it’s not related dollars. It’s related to skillset, right? Like if I can clarify, just hopefully distinctly, a lot of people think financial freedom is related to dollars and I’m like, no, financial freedom is as much, if not more related, maybe even a hundred percent related, but let’s not push the belief here, right. To you doing what you enjoy doing. Because if you’re enjoying doing it, then you’re already free. Right. There’s a joke. Right. So there’s this joke.

Christina (39:08):

So there’s this old guy fishing on a Lake and this young guy he’s on vacation. He gets his gear out and he’s fishing on the Lake. And he’s talking to the guy down the way, of course, quietly, because you don’t want to scare the fish. Right. And so he’s having this conversation and he’s like, so what do you do that the old guys like, so what do you do? I’m a lawyer and dah, dah, dah. And I do this and the city, I’m like, oh, okay. That’s great. And he’s like, are you happy? He’s like, Oh, I love my vacations. He’s like, why are you happy as a lawyer? Well, you know, its okay, lets me take great vacations. He’s like, oh, what do you like to do on your vacation? I like to come out here and his fish cool lawyer says, so dude, who are you? And he’s like, well, you know, I live here, I’ve got a little house over there on the other side of the woods. I’ve been here for about 30 years. And he’s like, well, but what do you do? He’s like, well actually I spend a lot of my time fishing. And he was like, well, wait a minute. What do you mean? You spent a lot of time fishing. He’s like, well, really? I don’t know.

Christina (40:00):

My house is kind of small and I don’t really need a lot and, you know, blah, blah, blah. And so basically I fish and he’s like, so you didn’t go through a whole career to get a retirement to fish every day, which is what makes you joyful, which is what the lawyer is doing. And so one can kind of hope from the joke, right? Because I obviously don’t tell jokes very well, but at least tell stories. One can kind of hope from the joke that what you get is like, I could be doing something that’s joyful for me. That’s in my skillset. Not, not working. I’m not saying you’re not working. I’m not saying you’re not stressed. I’m just saying, you’re happy about what you’re doing while you’re building your portfolio is absolutely viable. But then you have to figure out what it is that you want to be doing. And then you might do what I do, which is you do it. And then you finally go ahead and like it, I need to stop. Right. Maybe you do it. You know, maybe you’re doing exponent, you know, experimentally like I do. Or maybe you just work it out. Like, gee, I was really good at math in school. Maybe I should do a lot of passive investing that involves a lot of math or maybe I should do the math side of the deal for flippers or, you know, so that’s my encouragement.

Aileen (41:10):

Thank you, Christina. And the earlier we talked a little bit about your coaching and do you have any events? I think we mentioned earlier that you have a mind-set coming up. Yeah.

Christina (41:20):

That’s very sweet. Yes. We have a mastermind coming up. Boy, live a rich life workshop. I call it a mastermind, but yes, it’s a liver rich life workshop or mastermind. And it starts in January. I think it’s January 5th, Tuesday at one. And I will absolutely be transparent that the reason why it’s Tuesday at one is because it’s built for people who are new to investing. So I expect my students to have a job. I expect them to be me. Like I was when I first started investing many years ago, I expect them that they’re going to have a job and that their lunch hour will be from one to two. So we’ll be doing it over zoom. So across 10 weeks, I cover the basics of real estate investing in the first mastermind class. I cover more extended ideas in the second mastermind class, but you have to take the first mastermind to get into the second mastermind, which is another 10 weeks.

Christina (42:10):

And it’s, it’s I try to make it pretty approachable, six 97, if you don’t do early bird. But if you do early bird, it’s four 97 and we’re starting in January. And again, it’s, it’s I’ve cultivated my consulting practice out of my own joy, right? Why? Because I can choose that. And I have chosen that regardless of my income, right? I love to teach. Remember I have a teacher’s credential. I love to teach and I love to watch people grow. And so both my mastermind program, as well as my one-on-one mentorship is based in this concept that I’m taking somebody from them, not knowing something to them, getting to the point where they either have their first investment. They have their financial freedom. The mastermind class is built to teach you. You need to know between not knowing real estate to knowing where you should be in real estate to developing a plan, identifying an asset, identifying a process.

Christina (43:08):

You want to become a master man, developing your plan, giving you the due diligence skills to develop the team, to make your first purchase or make your first investment. That’s the first 10 weeks. That’s the intention of the 10 weeks. So if you don’t intend to move your backside from where you are to somewhere else, don’t sign up because that’s what I’m going to want you to do. I’m going to want you to use the 10 weeks to grow yourself and maybe not knowing something to being able to achieve something maybe going from confused, overwhelmed, too many shiny objects to, yes, I know where I’m going to start and yes, I can make this investment and I’ve got my class every week to help me do that. And I’ve got private time with Christina to help me figure that out too. So that’s the purpose of the mastermind class.

Aileen (43:51):

Awesome. And just the short little time that we’ve known each other, I can tell that you’re going to hold everybody accountable to their goals.

Christina (43:58):

Yes. Because otherwise they don’t change and I don’t get my joy. It’s always very selfish over here. You know, the more people I can help find their joy, the better my life is.

Aileen (44:10):

No, that’s great, Christina. So I have a couple of closing questions that I’d like to get to. So how has real estate investing impacted your life so far?

Christina (44:19):

Real estate investing has allowed me to know that I am living my life’s purpose. I don’t think it gets better than that. It’s allowed me to have my financial freedom. It’s allowed me to cultivate my personality, my personal growth work. It has allowed me to be happy and content in my skin. It’s also forced me to grow up. It’s forced me to have those moments where I go, I’m a loser first rate. I really need to work this out and choose like choose in a way that maybe not everybody gets to choose, choose that I’m going to stay in real estate because when I’m 80 years old, I want to know I didn’t walk away from my passion. I know that moment sitting in my office chair saying, I’m an absolute loser. I’m losing a hundred thousand dollars on this property. Every time I can do my numbers on it. I clearly am not that smarter chick, which I thought I was, who am I? And what am I going to do to straighten this out? And if I want to stay in real estate, I better straighten this out and choosing I’m going to do it. Even though it really felt like there was no way in heck I knew I could fix it, but I had to because that’s what I needed to do. So it gave me a lot of good stuff, but also gave me a lot of challenges, which made me a better person.

Aileen (45:42):

And Christina, what is one thing that you know now about real estate that you wish you knew when you first started?

Christina (45:54):

You know, it’s, and this is going to sound so can real, estate’s a marathon. We all have heard this. We’ve all know that the Allstate is a marathon. I happened to stumble into real estate as a marathon because I started young and I started at 17 and I never intended to make it my career. And I was going to be a teacher and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Right. But it, it really is like just doubled down on making yourself an expert so that you can run your own portfolio. So you can be an investor, treat it like it’s a marathon, not like it’s a get rich quick scheme. If you treat it like a, get rich quick, you’re going to be nailed the first time you get a cycle or the first time you have a business partner who isn’t doing their job, or the first time you have a building that ends up going, you know, I’ve got to say words that I can’t say on, on a podcast, but you know, all those words you can’t say on a podcast. Cause the building, all of a sudden went, blah, blah, blah, blah. Right. You’re going to get nailed. You’re going to get nailed. So sidestep getting nailed, figure out your lane, figure out your lane, get a mastery in your lane and do that as a marathon because it will serve you really well. Year after year after year, if you serve it year after year after year.

Aileen (47:14):

And what is one thing that sets the successful people apart in the real estate investing business,

Christina (47:19):

I’ll tell you the one thing I think that set them apart more than anything else, I’m going to borrow this from Jay Massey, and they failed forward faster. So that literally like we didn’t stop when we failed. We just kept hammering in it to work it out. Right. We just it’s literally just, did you walk away or did you not? And it’s the willingness to be wrong and the willingness to come back and the willingness to face something that you clearly freaked up and make it right.

Aileen (47:52):

And from your failures, of course you’re always learning and then applying it for the future goals and for your future experiences. So

Christina (48:00):

That’s right. And holding yourself accountable and growing into being a better human being because of it. Yes. There’s hopefully it’s versus a more resentful human being, which is not the path I suggest. I suggest the learning path and not the resentful path.

Aileen (48:14):

And Christina, what tools or techniques have you used to improve the efficiency of your business or your personal life?

Christina (48:20):

My personal growth work, literally, just like we talked about, you know, I could choose to be really, really upset with the failures I’ve had. I’ve had a couple that were pretty bad or pretty big for me. Maybe not big for other people, but big for me, big and maybe big. Maybe my braille seem big for somebody else. The choice, the choice to use my life for learning and not to use my life for anger. I can’t replace that. That defines my daily sense of willingness to just be in life.

Aileen (48:56):

Thank you, Christina. And I really love your energy and just had a really great conversation with you today and I’m sure the listeners also want to find out more about you and if they wanted to reach you, reach out to you or learn more about you and your coaching and just, you know, get more of Christina, where can they go

Christina (49:13):

Kimora, Christina? And more if Christina is available, just so you know, more Christina is available because as I’ve described, I, my do my consulting work out of joy. So I’m probably not going to shut it down anytime soon. So Christina suter.com, not too hard. My name Christina with a C H and then Suter, SUTER one T Christina, suter.com. And my cell phone number (310) 463-5942. So (310) 463-5942. I may not always answer the first time, but if you leave a message or you send me a text, I will answer you. Like I said, I’m here to participate and I am here to get news on the ground. So if I can be of help to somebody, that’s great. Because usually in the future they might be able to help I or they might be able to help somebody I know in my community.

Aileen (50:05):

Awesome. Thank you so much, Christina. I really enjoyed having you on

Christina (50:09):

You. Got it. Thank you, honey. Appreciate it. Bye.