Debbie Wilcox is from Honolulu, HI, where she and her husband previously owned and operated a swimming pool business. After 30 years of running their business together, they decided to act on their shared dream of becoming multifamily real estate investors. They uprooted their lives, sold their dream home, and headed for the mainland to attend conferences, network, and soak up as much knowledge as they possibly could.
“I had to ask my husband, ‘Do you want to live in our dream home, or do you want to live our dream life?’”
Today, Debbie is the managing partner of Blue Rock Capital Group, which helps investors build and generate passive income through multifamily real estate. She is a co-GP of 33 units in Idaho and an LP of 2,400 units across seven states. In this episode, Debbie tells us what inspired her to leave Hawaii in pursuit of a career in multifamily, why she is adamant about getting out of her comfort zone, and how her background in business has driven her to explore asset management.
1. Uprooting Everything to Pursue Multifamily
Debbie and her husband owned their own swimming pool business in Honolulu for 30 years before moving to California to pursue multifamily. Debbie says that thoughts of changing careers began to crop up as early as 10 years ago, but limiting beliefs prevented them from making a change. Then, one day, they stumbled upon some real estate podcasts, and they began listening.
“What inspired me was listening to the stories of people that I felt were just like me — kind of feeling stuck,” Debbie says. “And maybe they were older just like myself, but they didn’t let that stop them.”
She and her husband spent the next few years learning as much as they could, and when they were ready, they did the unthinkable — they sold their home and left Hawaii to set down roots on the mainland, where they could more easily attend conferences, find partners, and oversee properties.
2. Escaping Her Comfort Zone
Debbie is a big believer that success lies just outside of her comfort zone. She admits that networking can be a challenge for her, and even scary sometimes, but she doesn’t let that stop her. “If I’m initially scared to do something, I get a little tingly, but I think, ‘Ah, this must be right. This must be good. I’m supposed to do this.’” By applying this mindset at her first conference, she met the people who would eventually bring her in on her first deal.
3. A Knack for Asset Management
Debbie assumed that she and her husband would take on the role of raising capital for their deals, but much to their surprise, they developed a strong interest in asset management. “That 30 years in business looking at spreadsheets and budgets and income expenses — we find ourselves diving into that quite a bit,” she says.
For the time being, they are enjoying pitching in on the asset management side of things, I think it’s good, in the beginning, to have your toes in a little bit of everything,” she says. “We really just want to learn as much as possible.”
Debbie Wilcox | Real Estate Background
- Managing partner of Blue Rock Capital Group, which helps investors build and generate passive income through multifamily real estate.
- Portfolio:
- Co-GP of 33 units in Idaho
- LP of 2,400 units across seven states
- Based in: Dana Point, CA
- Say hi to her at:
- Greatest Lesson: In the business of multifamily investing, the quality of the network of people you surround yourself with greatly correlates with the level of success you'll achieve.
Click here to know more about our sponsors:
TRANSCRIPT
Ash Patel: Hello, Best Ever listeners. Welcome to the best real estate investing advice ever show. I'm Ash Patel, and I'm with today's guest, Debbie Wilcox. Debbie is joining us from Dana Point, California. She is the managing partner of Blue Rock Capital Group, which helps investors build and generate passive income through multifamily real estate. Debbie's portfolio consists of being a GP on 33 units in Idaho, and an LP on 2,400 units across seven states. Debbie, thank you for joining us, and how are you today?
Debbie Wilcox: Great Ash. Thanks so much for having me today.
Ash Patel: It's our pleasure. Debbie, before we get started, can you give the Best Ever listeners a little bit more about your background, and what you're focused on now?
Debbie Wilcox: Okay, so a little bit would be I'm from Honolulu, Hawaii, where my husband and I owned and operated a swimming pool business for over 30 years. And I'm very happy to say that as of September, we sold our business, sold our home, burned the boats, and we are all-in on multifamily full-time, together. So to make that journey a little easier, we thought proximity would be good, so we moved to the mainland. We're in Southern California, as you said, and that gets us a little bit closer, a little bit easier to do the networking and conferences and visiting properties, etc. And the bonus is our 22-year old son is also here. He's attending college, so it's nice to be closer to him as well.
Ash Patel: From a mom's perspective, my wife would actually love that. The funny thing is she's like, "Hey, we're gonna move to wherever our kids go to college." And I said, "No, we're not not. They're gonna want you around."
Debbie Wilcox: Yeah, yeah. We told him we would stay at least a couple hours away, so we can't just pop in on a Saturday night.
Ash Patel: Alright, so I want to let you know that most people dream of moving from the mainland to Hawaii, and you did the opposite. So hey, I just wanted to--
Debbie Wilcox: That's probably the most commented aspect of this whole thing we get - why did you leave?
Ash Patel: That's okay. Just want to make sure you know.
Debbie Wilcox: Yes.
Ash Patel: When you were doing the pool business, was it a lot of higher-end homes? Yes, actually, it was.
Ash Patel: Did that inspire you to get into maybe some fix and flips, or residential real estate?
Debbie Wilcox: Actually, about 30 years ago, when we were in college, my husband and I, we read the purple bible, Rich Dad Poor Dad, and we had it set in our minds. That was it, that was gonna be our future; we were going to invest in real estate, buy homes, flip them, fix them up, sell them... At that age though, we were looking more at condos, or something a little smaller. But we found out very early on, especially in Hawaii, like California, New York, it's not that easy to do for a young, aspiring investor. So we didn't go that route. It was very difficult. So we ended up just pursuing our business instead. But along the way, we had a couple of long-term rentals [unintelligible 00:03:35.10] the places we bought, we moved on and rented them out, and just kept kind of upgrading from there to bigger properties, and then had a couple of short-term rentals. But we never dove deep into the fix and flips, no.
Ash Patel: And what inspired you to get into multifamily?
Debbie Wilcox: Oh, boy, that's a heavy one. So we've been in our business -- like I said, we were there for 30 years. And after about 20 years, we were starting to develop that Mom and Pop burnout. So at that point in our lives, I started thinking, "What else could we do? What else is there?" But at the same time, having been in something so long, whether it's a W-2 job or your business for 20 years, it's so comfortable, and we were doing so well. And you're thinking "Why change now?" So fast-forward, 10 more years go by. Now all the limiting beliefs start coming in, like "Nah, we can't do it now. Now it's too late. We're getting too old." And I don't know, there's something in me that just didn't want to accept that. And then one day we stumbled upon some real estate podcasts, and boy, were there lots of them. And what I found from listening to those hours and hours - I mean, I must have listened to 2,000 podcasts. What I learned and what inspired me was listening to the stories of people that I felt were just like me, kind of feeling stuck... And maybe they were older, just like myself, but that didn't let that stop them, and they went for it. And it was multifamily. I kind of read about, "Oh, you know, maybe just skip the small stuff. Skip the BRRRRing if you can. Jump right into multifamily." And I thought, "Okay, I haven't got time to lose. Time is ticking, we're going right into multifamily." And so we dove deep into that for a couple of years.
And then COVID hit. Right when we were ready to kind of go and get on the mainland and go to conferences and get educated and learn, we were just stuck at home with more podcasts and more virtual conferences. And that all kind of faded out... We had just decided last September to finally invest in ourselves, into a multifamily mentorship group.
Ash Patel: And during COVID weren't a lot of people building pools?
Debbie Wilcox: They were using them. I don't know about building them, but yes, they were definitely in their swimming pools.
Ash Patel: Alright, so here in the States, all the pool builders were 18 months backed up, because everybody was stuck at home, and they all just wanted pools.
Debbie Wilcox: Yes, exactly. Yeah, that's very true.
Ash Patel: What was the conference that you went to?
Debbie Wilcox: The first one that we were able to finally get out and go to is Dealmaker Live, Michael Blanc, in Dallas. That was our first one.
Ash Patel: What was your gameplan? Go to a conference and do what?
Debbie Wilcox: We were just so excited to just get out and go... So just talking to people in-person, and meeting, and doing all that was great. But really, I just wanted to be around people doing the same thing and wanting the same thing, and I knew that it'd be really inspiring, because honestly, at the time there wasn't really anyone we were sharing the secret dream of ours with, because it seemed crazy. What we were thinking about doing would be definitely considered crazy in our circle of family and friends.
Ash Patel: Yeah. Can you walk me through the process from leaving that conference to your first deal?
Debbie Wilcox: Yeah, so after that conference, we weren't 100% sure yet what group we wanted to align ourselves with... So we knew that they're all great, really. We looked at probably four or five different groups, and talked to people in each of those groups. But we had to find the one that we felt we would fit best with, the way we wanted to move on this journey. So it was probably three months later that we ended up joining another group. That was Jake and Gino. And we found that they had such a great community, a family-based group that we really connected very well with. So it was from then on we've been to probably five or six conferences in-person already, because we just wanted to go in. And we moved to the mainland, and then we just thought, "This is why we're here. And we're gonna spend at least a year figuring it out. And we're gonna go to everything we possibly can and network as much as possible."
Ash Patel: And then when did you come across your first deal?
Debbie Wilcox: Oh, yes. Okay, so it was at our very first conference, we signed up to one of the dinners that night. We'd never done all this kind of like "We're doing dinner here, breakfast here", and just meeting random people. This was so new to us. But it was out of our comfort zone, so we knew it was the right thing to do. Like, "Let's go, we're gonna do it." So go to dinner... And we had the pleasure of sitting next to these wonderful people, and got to know them over time at the next conference, develop that relationship. They're from Idaho, and when the deal came up, they called us, and it was only because of that time spent in-person, and connecting with people. I know you can only do so much on Zoom, so I cannot say enough about the power of networking in person.
So that is how we got into that. And we were originally going to JV it among a few of us, but as time went on, we decided we should probably syndicate it. So that's what we did, and we just closed in March, and things are moving along very smoothly.
Ash Patel: Good for you for getting out of your comfort zone. So your intention was just going to be put your own money into the deal as an investor. Why did you choose to syndicate it?
Debbie Wilcox: It had to do with the terms, and we were needing to come up with more down, and more CapEx money, and we thought "There's a few of us." And as you know, when you're JVing, it is all your money. And there were other people who knew we were looking at this, and it seemed like there would be interest if we were deciding to syndicate, that we could bring some investors on board. So we had to increase our raise, is really what it came down to... So that's ultimately what we did. And of course, we all invested in the deal as well.
Ash Patel: Debbie, can we dive into the numbers on that property?
Debbie Wilcox: Okay.
Ash Patel: How many units?
Debbie Wilcox: That's 33 units.
Ash Patel: What was the purchase price?
Debbie Wilcox: 3 million, so it's $100,000 a door.
Ash Patel: And was it Class B, C...?
Debbie Wilcox: I'd say the property's class C. It's built in - I want to say '67.
Ash Patel: Did it need a lot of CapEx, a lot of renovations?
Debbie Wilcox: A number of them had already been partially renovated, so our plan was to, in the beginning, go in and renovate what we could, and see where we could push rents. And we have been able to push rents a little bit more than what we originally anticipated. But what we're finding now is we're actually able to get very close to those rents we wanted without doing much rehab. So that's been good, as far as keeping our CapEx expenses down.
Ash Patel: Upon purchase, you saw what renovated rents went for. Is that the number that you used in your pro forma?
Debbie Wilcox: Not initially, no. We built up to that; it's taken a couple of years to get there, but we're actually getting there pretty quickly.
Ash Patel: Okay, so let me rephrase that... How much were the unrenovated apartments renting for, versus the renovated apartments?
Debbie Wilcox: Okay, so there was nothing in at the time that was fully renovated.
Ash Patel: Got it.
Debbie Wilcox: So they were partially renovated; the previous owner did some improvements, but we actually kind of went in on a couple units, and the whole thing. We gutted a few already. So we are probably getting around 1,000 a month. But before we went in, the highest rents were probably around 700.
Ash Patel: Okay. And are you losing tenants because of that, the rent increase?
Debbie Wilcox: Not much, actually. For the tenants who have been there quite a while, we are not jumping them immediately to that level, because they're great tenants. We'd like to keep them in and we're just doing incremental raises.
Ash Patel: Got it.
Debbie Wilcox: It's the new leases, where those that have left, or they were on month-to-month, that we're going in and doing everything we can to maximize the rents we can get.
Ash Patel: Okay, 3 million - what was the down payment?
Debbie Wilcox: 25%.
Ash Patel: Okay. And then did you raise CapEx funds as well?
Debbie Wilcox: Yes, we did. We did raise some money for that, but we also were able to get a line from the bank for any additional CapEx, which we have not yet had to use.
Ash Patel: And what were the terms of that loan? How long is it fixed for, the rate?
Debbie Wilcox: There's a 10-year term, but at five years we will reset. So that's kind of nice; that was getting us five years out from now, it gives us a little more cushion and not having to refi in a year or two.
Ash Patel: And what's the plan? How long are you going to hold this for?
Debbie Wilcox: That's a good question. I'm not sure. So right now, our pro forma is five, seven years? It could be 10 years. I don't know. Obviously, we'd like to refi when the timing is right, so we can get our investors back as much of their capital as possible.
Ash Patel: Debbie, is this a typical pref split syndication?
Debbie Wilcox: Yes.
Ash Patel: What's the pref?
Debbie Wilcox: Seven percent pref.
Ash Patel: And were you able to pay that right away?
Debbie Wilcox: No, we just closed in March. So we are very busy just getting our renovations in right now.
Ash Patel: So when will the pref start?
Debbie Wilcox: Hopefully by the end of the year, if not -- we did let our investors know upfront what to expect, is that we are going to go in and try to rehab a lot of units. So if we can get them sooner, that'd be great. But we did say to give us a first year to get the property up and running to where we are able to start distributing.
Ash Patel: Did you lose any investors based on that?
Debbie Wilcox: No. And you know what? It's funny, because my husband and I have invested in many LP positions... And what I learned from getting into so many deals is I really appreciated the operators who were honest upfront. So if they said, "We're going to do distributions right away", well, right away is usually in that first quarter. That's great. But it's my choice if I want to invest in that deal or not. But if another deal came along, and they say "We're going to probably take a year", as long as I'm aware of that before I sign on the dotted line, that's fine. So it was really important to me when we were raising money for this deal that that was communicated upfront, because I didn't want any investors to have any false expectations, and making sure we're all in alignment with what our goals were.
Ash Patel: Debbie, what are your thoughts on syndicators raising extra upfront to meet those initial pref payments?
Debbie Wilcox: Yeah, we did not do that. That's funny, because we got into a lot of deals and I always was amazed how quickly they could distribute. I don't know; I do know that I am happy when I invest in those deals and I get a distribution fairly quickly. And I guess in the end, what matters is that they perform and give me the returns that they promised.
Ash Patel: Yeah, I agree with you... But I have a hard time knowing you're raising extra money just to -- it's kind of like a Ponzi scheme. Right?
Debbie Wilcox: I know. Believe me, I still have to wrap my mind around that... Because I know it feels like that, and I know that's what's happening.
Ash Patel: Yeah. But I applaud you for taking the harder road, and being honest with investors and letting them know, "Hey, we're going to be struggling for a bit, and this is what to expect", versus you very easily could have raised another 100 grand to make some pref payments.
Debbie Wilcox: Yeah, no, I wasn't comfortable with doing that.
Ash Patel: Good for you. So that's your 33-unit property... You're also an LP on 2,400 units... How did this come about?
Debbie Wilcox: [laughs] So when we were contemplating our retirement from our business, we got some really great advice from someone who we were sharing this idea of retiring with... And it was a scary prospect to walk away from our business, because then it's like "Now what? What are we living off of?" So their advice was, if possible, to try to invest enough where you can receive enough passive income to cover your basic expenses - your housing, your food, my son's tuition... The basic things that we had to cover, for at least a year. That's a lot of passive income.
So we thought, "How are we going to get there?" We had already invested in a few, but it was gonna take a lot more passive investments to get us to that number, that minimum expenses covered number. So this is where the motivation came to sell our business and our home. This was our dream home; we were never going to sell that thing. It had so much equity. But the more we thought about it, it was just dead equity, right? Just sitting there. And it kind of held our future in that property. So I had to ask my husband, "Do we want to live in our dream home? Or do we want to live our dream life?" And that was a tough decision. So we decided to sell our home.
So the market is still going crazy in Hawaii, like many other cities around the country... And so between that and our business, we were able -- right away, we had in our minds, once we have that equity, how we were going to deploy it initially. So a lot of it went into passive income, to carry us this year as we build our multifamily business as active investors... And we're now investing on our active side, trying to get ourselves into more deals.
Ash Patel: As those passive investments roll, would you continue to invest those as an LP? Or would you put it into your own active portfolio?
Debbie Wilcox: The ultimate goal is to be completely passive. So it's so funny, because we're trying to focus on getting more active. But boy, there's some great deals out there. There's like these great operators, and I keep finding myself wanting to be LP-ing in some of these deals. I do want to continue to be an LP, for sure. But at the same time, I have to discipline myself and budget accordingly. So it's a good balance. You need both, I think. Or at least I'm in a position where I want both.
Ash Patel: Yeah. So are you super-passionate about being a syndicator? Or is it a means to getting your life that you want?
Debbie Wilcox: I'm passionate about multifamily real estate. Am I passionate about syndicating and being a syndicator? I can't say that just yet. I've just done one. I'm also looking at doing more JV deals this year. There's a little bit more of a sense of control. Being a syndicator, there's a lot of responsibility; you've got investors, and it's scary to be in that position. People are putting their hard-earned money in your hands. So I'm an LP a lot of deals too, and I hope that my syndicators that I've invested with treat my money the same way... It's not just a number on a piece of paper, this is their future; they're hoping that you succeed. So there's a little bit more pressure there. So I'm not really sure yet on how much more syndicating I'll do, but maybe as time goes on and more experienced, and obviously, with a strong team, it makes it that much more--
Ash Patel: That's a great point.
Break: [00:17:51.25] to [00:19:48.00]
Ash Patel: Debbie, what are you doing to find your next deal, find the next investors, find the next JV partner?
Debbie Wilcox: Network, network, network.
Ash Patel: How are you networking? Give me some creative ways of networking.
Debbie Wilcox: Well, gosh, we probably network at least four calls a week on one-on-one, and then we're in Zoom meetings a couple of times a week, and we're connecting... And then any opportunity to go to some of our educational networking events in-person, we go. And if there's anything in our community, we go. You hear it 100 times, how your network is your net worth, but it really is so true in this business. You just can't do multifamily alone. And even if you're an introvert, you really have to push yourself. It's just a fact. You just have to do it. You've got to get out of your comfort zone.
Ash Patel: Yeah, make a lot of noise.
Debbie Wilcox: And meet people, yeah.
Ash Patel: So are you an introvert?
Debbie Wilcox: I wouldn't say that, though.
Ash Patel: Okay.
Debbie Wilcox: I enjoy going to events and talking to people and meeting new people.
Ash Patel: Yeah. And that's my advice to introverts as well... I'm sorry, but you have to do it.
Debbie Wilcox: You have to, yeah. It's one of those things. I know a lot of people, and they have podcasts now, and they'll say, "Oh, I was an introvert." I don't believe them, but it was just constant -- they say there's growth beyond fear. So if you can get past that fear, you're gonna grow. So I think they have even more challenge, because networking can be a scary thing. And that's how I've tried to look at my life. If I'm initially scared to do something, I get a little tingly, but I think, "Oh, this must be right. It's mostly good. I'm supposed to do this."
Ash Patel: Good for you. The introvert thing - I interviewed somebody who coined a great phrase... He didn't coin it, it's actually a real thing... It's called ambivert, where they're part introvert, part extrovert. So they can be an extrovert, but then they need time to go back to themselves and recharge, and then they can go back and do it again. Whereas I'm just an extreme extrovert. I don't ever need time alone. I want to be around people all the time.
Debbie Wilcox: Really? Oh my God, I'm glad you told me that term, because I think that would be me then.
Ash Patel: That makes sense. Based on your personality and your networking, putting yourself out there, that sounds right. So you just need a little bit of time to recharge.
Debbie Wilcox: Yeah, we were just in an event for two full days, networking, networking, and I love it. But I had to sneak away at lunch for 30 minutes to go in my room and just close my eyes, take a lot of deep breaths, and then get back out there. And I was ready to go again through the night.
Ash Patel: Yeah. So me, eight in the morning, I'm out of bed, and... I'd rather not go to the presentations. I'd rather sit in the hallway and interact with people. And I don't want to break till three or four in the morning when the last person's going to bed.
Debbie Wilcox: Oh, you're good. I know people like that.
Ash Patel: And then I just want to do it all over again.
Debbie Wilcox: That's awesome.
Ash Patel: Is your husband in this business with you, or did you just drag him to the mainland because you wanted to do this?
Debbie Wilcox: Yeah, I kind of just dragged him... [laughter]
Ash Patel: Is he not in the business with you?
Debbie Wilcox: No, he is. We've been in business our whole lives, since we were 19. We've always had a passion for real estate. So he kind of drove that, our previous business... But although we're both in this together, it did take some, like, "Come on, we're going to do this. We've got to burn the boats, we're gonna do it." And it was really scary, but I felt like we had to do it. And so I did give him a little nudge.
Ash Patel: You've had some great success in a very short amount of time, and the story has a lot of positives. What are some hard lessons that you've learned?
Debbie Wilcox: Oh, hard lessons... Okay, now, let me think about that...
Ash Patel: Whether it was about people, or deals, investors...
Debbie Wilcox: Okay, a lesson I learned, a hard lesson was - when we first got started, very eager -- because now we've left everything; very eager to just jump into anything, really. And I have to say, in the beginning, which wasn't that long ago, people bring you underwriting and you look at a deal... You almost get too eager; even though you have a sense that "Maybe I shouldn't do this", you just still want to do it so bad, because [unintelligible 00:23:53.18] that first deal. "Just get the deal. And maybe it's not going to be great." And we were very close in a couple of situations getting ourselves in that, and I learned very quickly that no matter how bad we want it, we have to be patient; the numbers have to work, and the team has to work.
Ash Patel: That's a tough one, because I've met people that have studied for years, and I'm like, "Please, just do a deal. I don't care if you lose money." But then, after doing this for ten years, I can see how patience in a lot of situations will reward you. That's a tough one.
Debbie Wilcox: It is, and I'm getting that advice again right now as the investing climate is changing. Just be patient, because there's going to be deals coming. And maybe they are, and deals are starting to come around a little bit more right now.
Ash Patel: How about this - be patient, but relentless. So keep looking for deals, constantly. Speaking of which, what are you doing to find deals?
Debbie Wilcox: Oh, we're still networking. And because of all the networking we've done, and we've really put it out there to the people that we are very much interested in partnering with, and for us being in California, it's really partnering with people who are boots on the ground in markets that we're interested in, because we can't be boots on the ground. So we are looking at deals. Every day, there's always something. But that doesn't mean it's going to happen. And so there's a lot of due diligence that has to take place. But my hope is that by the end of the year, we'll have at least a couple more under our belt.
Ash Patel: Okay, two questions. The first one is you're networking to find deals. So are you relying on other people to bring you deals? Why not try to find your own?
Debbie Wilcox: At this point, yes. Because there's different aspects of a team. And part of the acquisitions is the broker's relationship with them, being able to drive and look at properties... And at this stage, we can't do that. So we have met a lot of great people, though, who are boots on the ground, and we maintain good relationships with them, and we want to work with them. And they want to work with us. And so we can all provide different things for each other.
Ash Patel: Got it. Do you share your story about relocating, uprooting your life? Because I think that adds a lot of credibility to what you're doing.
Debbie Wilcox: Do we share it? With the people in our group, yes. The people back home - we were actually kind of nervous to share that, because there was a lot of looking at us like we were absolutely crazy. And nobody leaves Hawaii, like you said. So we haven't shared it with too many. But we're starting to -- we're starting to come out of our shell a little bit...
Ash Patel: Yeah. When you go to a real estate meetup, if you share that story, that "Oh my God, sold a business, sold our dream house, uprooted to pursue multifamily", that I think adds a tremendous amount of credibility. So I would share that.
Debbie Wilcox: Thank you. We'll do that more.
Ash Patel: And then - this might be a tough question, but what do you bring to the table? If I've got a great deal, why should I partner with you?
Debbie Wilcox: That's a good question. In the beginning, we asked ourselves that... Because they always say, "Know what your strengths and your weaknesses are." Well, we're brand new. Are we just full of weaknesses [unintelligible 00:27:03.12] But... But because we were now cashed out of our assets, or liabilities, as some may call them, we had equity; we had capital. So we were able to, in our first deal, help to be KPs, with the risk money... So that kind of got us in the door. But in the end, what we have found is we're also very much interested at this moment in asset management. And we didn't think that was going to be the case. I thought I was going to come out and do "I want to raise capital, I want to help bring these opportunities to people and educate people." But that 30 years in business of looking at spreadsheets, and budgets, and income expenses, all these things, we find ourselves diving into that quite a bit. So we're enjoying helping out with that. And I think it's good in the beginning to have your toes in a little bit of everything in a syndication, from the beginning to the end, and as time goes on, you will hone in on what your skills are. And then we can grow that skill set for the next team that we're on. But right now, we really are doing a little bit of everything, but the asset management is something we just can't help ourselves right now. We just want to learn as much as possible.
Ash Patel: I love that. You're using all of your business years of experience, and finding what you enjoy with asset management, amongst other things. Good for you. Debbie, what is your best real estate investing advice ever?
Debbie Wilcox: Okay, that's a big question, but two of my favorite quotes come to mind. So the first one is by Mark Twain, and he says "20 years from now, you'll be more disappointed in the things you didn't do, than the things you did." And the other one is by Tony Robbins, and he says, "Focus on where you want to go, and not what you fear." And those two were just so impactful to me and to making this decision to follow my dream. So what I say is, "Don't let fear of what other people think, or expect of you, and don't let them stop you from living your dreams, because it's your life and you want to live it with no regrets.
Ash Patel: Debbie, are you ready for the Best Ever lightning round?
Debbie Wilcox: Yes.
Ash Patel: Alright, Debbie, what's the Best Ever book you recently read?
Debbie Wilcox: I've read a lot of great books, but right now I am deep into Atomic Habits by James Clear.
Ash Patel: My wife just read that and she's got all kinds of rules for everybody in the family.
Debbie Wilcox: It's so good. It's good, I need it.
Ash Patel: Yeah, it's on my list of my next read. Debbie, what's the Best Ever way you like to give back?
Debbie Wilcox: The way I'm giving back right now is to my friends and family and anybody who will listen, I enjoy sharing what we're doing and the benefits of multifamily investing as an alternative to the stock market. I find a lot of people are not aware of it, and so I think it's very helpful and enlightening to a lot of people.
Ash Patel: And Debbie, how can the Best Ever listeners reach out to you?
Debbie Wilcox: The best way is probably LinkedIn, or Facebook. Debbie Wilcox. I'm also on Instagram, @dwilcox808.
Ash Patel: Debbie, I've got to thank you for your time today. You shared an incredibly inspirational story of uprooting your entire life... Granted, it was to move closer to your kids. But starting over in real estate, chasing your dream of getting into multifamily, and making things happen and learning along the way, pushing yourself out of your comfort zone... An incredible inspiration. So thank you for your time today.
Debbie Wilcox: Thank you so much for having me. It's been a pleasure.
Ash Patel: Best Ever listeners, thank you so much for joining us. If you enjoyed this episode, please leave us a five star review. Share the podcast with someone you think can benefit from it. Also, follow, subscribe and have a Best Ever day!
Website disclaimer
This website, including the podcasts and other content herein, are made available by Joesta PF LLC solely for informational purposes. The information, statements, comments, views and opinions expressed in this website do not constitute and should not be construed as an offer to buy or sell any securities or to make or consider any investment or course of action. Neither Joe Fairless nor Joesta PF LLC are providing or undertaking to provide any financial, economic, legal, accounting, tax or other advice in or by virtue of this website. The information, statements, comments, views and opinions provided in this website are general in nature, and such information, statements, comments, views and opinions are not intended to be and should not be construed as the provision of investment advice by Joe Fairless or Joesta PF LLC to that listener or generally, and do not result in any listener being considered a client or customer of Joe Fairless or Joesta PF LLC.
The information, statements, comments, views, and opinions expressed or provided in this website (including by speakers who are not officers, employees, or agents of Joe Fairless or Joesta PF LLC) are not necessarily those of Joe Fairless or Joesta PF LLC, and may not be current. Neither Joe Fairless nor Joesta PF LLC make any representation or warranty as to the accuracy or completeness of any of the information, statements, comments, views or opinions contained in this website, and any liability therefor (including in respect of direct, indirect or consequential loss or damage of any kind whatsoever) is expressly disclaimed. Neither Joe Fairless nor Joesta PF LLC undertake any obligation whatsoever to provide any form of update, amendment, change or correction to any of the information, statements, comments, views or opinions set forth in this podcast.
No part of this podcast may, without Joesta PF LLC’s prior written consent, be reproduced, redistributed, published, copied or duplicated in any form, by any means.
Joe Fairless serves as director of investor relations with Ashcroft Capital, a real estate investment firm. Ashcroft Capital is not affiliated with Joesta PF LLC or this website, and is not responsible for any of the content herein.
Oral Disclaimer
The views and opinions expressed in this podcast are provided for informational purposes only, and should not be construed as an offer to buy or sell any securities or to make or consider any investment or course of action. For more information, go to www.bestevershow.com.
