Want to Win in Real Estate? Watch What the Rich Do!

You want to do well in real estate? I know I do. I looked it up last week. I have had my real estate license for 23 years. And in those 23 years, I've had some major blunders. And a lot of you know my story. I'll share a few stories in today's video. But I've also had quite a bit of success. And if I could do it all over again, I wish I would have looked to the rich folk. How are they investing? Are they making decisions out of fear? Are they smart about their investments? Where are they investing? And in today's video, we're going to teach you 10 lessons that I wish I knew back then, 23 years ago. And before we move forward, this is not about, oh, Andre is so greedy. She wants to be all wealthy. Oh, this is a get rich quick program. It's not. This is about making wise decisions. I want everyone watching this video not to make significant pitfalls. I've worked with a lot of high net worth clients, and I've also seen some of my other clients make some really poor decisions that they regret today. And I don't want you to be stuck in that same situation. Let's get into it. Lesson number one, location, location, location. Hold on. Hold on. I'll do it for you. That's me rolling my eyes. A lot of you heard that. And you're like, lady, come on, give me a break. This is supposed to be, you know, educational. We all know that. Yeah, you all know that. But you're still not doing it. So a lot of you got caught up in this during COVID. Were you like, I was just grateful to have a property and you bought a house under the power lines or too noisy. You're in a bad school district or you may not be in a really great neighborhood. Really pay attention to that when you're investing and never feel like you have to purchase something because you're in a huge hurry. Now, I will tell you, every single investor that I know that is doing really well, they are smart about where they invest and they're very strategic with their investments. So let's say they have $650,000 to invest in a property, whether it be all cash or whether there's a mortgage. They're going to look for highly desirable areas like near the ocean. So I live in California. Any property near the ocean is a good investment. And we have like, you know, more inland properties that don't appreciate at the same level because it's not as highly desirable. So the mistake that I see and the mistake that I've made is that I'm like, wait a second, I can put $650,000 in this little small condo for $650,000 or I can buy this really nice house with four bedrooms, a large lot with the pool and the slide and the built in barbecue. Oh, it makes sense to go buy that one because it's so much more. And that's the mistake that I see a lot of you making is that you have those families and you have these memories and you don't want to bite the bullet and make the investment in a better location near better schools. Guarantee you this little tiny house over here is going to appreciate way more than the $10.2 house, even though it's larger. And then the other thing is this little house over here is probably surrounded around very wealthy and very fancy homes. So the big fancy homes brings the smaller homes value up. So if you are investing, I highly suggest that you look around the neighborhood. You don't want to be the nicest, biggest house in the community. And also, this is family lessons. I guarantee a lot of you are like, hey, we got to go inland. We got to go to Timbuktu because we have kids and they need to have space. OK, no, they don't. You won't believe the little house that I grew up in. There was only two bathrooms in the place. I think it was 1200 square feet or something like that. And we were perfectly OK. The best thing you can teach your kids is how to manage their money and their investments wisely. Better to live below your means in a better neighborhood than maxing out your means in an area that isn't as desirable. Now, before I make you angry, I know a lot of you are watching me right now going, oh, my gosh, all she cares about is making money on our houses. Well, first of all, yeah, kind of. I am and you should be, too, because if you're going to work every day and making a huge sacrifice to come up with your mortgage payment, it's super important that you pick the right house. You hear me on that? A lot of you are working your tail off right now and paying that mortgage is a huge sacrifice. So buy right. Even out in Timbuktu, if that's where you decide to live, there are better locations than others. So if you're going to go buy out in Timbuktu, then you're going to buy the one that's even a better location. Don't be the nicest house in the area because the smaller houses are going to bring your values down. Better to be the little house than let the bigger houses bring your values up. You feel me on that? So the big mistake that my husband and I made is this is so painful to even talk about. We bought a real fancy house. We got into a new development in a really affluent neighborhood. For those of you who know the area, we used to live in Crystal Cove in Newport Coast. We had a great view, beautiful home, and then we invested in a bunch of other properties in the surrounding area. And then the great crash, the great recession hit. And we panic. We had all these tenants that weren't paying. The market was really scary. My husband's job was, you know, not doing so well. So I panicked. There's a ton of fear that overtook us. And we sold all of our properties and we hunkered down, moved south and started renting. To this day, I can't even drive near that property because it makes me so sick because I made decisions out of fear. And yes, we could have hunkered down. We had tons of equity in all of our properties. We were smart about it. But never, never have we ever seen a downturn like that. And that's one of the things that I see a lot of these very successful investors do. Some of the wealthy is they expect these downturns. OK, they don't panic during these downturns. In fact, they enjoy the downturns because they buy when everyone isn't. OK, and that's lesson number two. Buy when things are on sale. And in 2008, 2009 and years following, there were a lot of homes that were on super sale. And I remember specifically thinking this very thought, which is we're never going to get to the 2008 peak ever again. The prices will never, ever cross that 2008 line. Yeah, well, guess what? Today we are double, triple the values in some of the areas, at least around me. That's crazy. It's crazy. So the goal here is not to time the market. But, you know, like right now, the market's feeling a little funky. Maybe it's a time to jump in. Maybe you find a great house in a great location at a great price. Now might be the time. Also, when COVID hit, I remember this specifically. I had three houses that were under contract. The sellers already moved off the property. The buyers were all excited to move in and then COVID hit. And then guess what? All three buyers backed out of those three listings. And my sellers were beside themselves. What do we do? So I called my investors and I'm like, hey, we got these houses. I go, OK, give me a good deal. We sold them at a discount. Unfortunately, the sellers were thinking the market was going to crash. So they jumped in. They accepted it. I solved a problem. But imagine how well those investors did in a very short period of time. So you have to study the market. You have to know where the areas are good to invest. Don't get too motivated or have too much urgency where you're frantic. And, oh, I got to buy a house. I'm missing out. Every day it goes by. I'm losing money because I'm not in the market. If you watch really successful, wealthy investors, they're calm as a cucumber and they jump in when it makes sense. All right. During covid, a lot of you bought homes you shouldn't have bought. Either it's not the right location or you overspent or you bought a lemon and you didn't do the proper investigations and you didn't realize that you were saddled with this. A lot of deferred maintenance. And you didn't realize how much it was going to cost. Or you bought a house that had a street behind it. You didn't realize that the street noise was so loud because no one was driving around during covid. They're all hunkered down. So you didn't notice the road noise when you're in this like frantic buying frenzy and everyone's jumping in the market. Be aware. Be cautious. Make sure it makes sense and make sure you're not feeling like you're rushed. Never rush into a big purchase. Take your time. The right property will come up. If it's not today, it will be in the future. Lesson number four, the wealthy investor, the successful investor is well connected. They have bird dogs out there constantly looking for opportunities for them. They're enjoying their life. They're not running around all panicked on Zillow looking at everything. They are relying on experts to help them find deals. And they align themselves with really smart people. So the investor story that I told you during covid, I have a lot of investors that I work with. So I see an opportunity. I'm going to reach out to them. And what you all don't realize is during covid, there was a lot of off market opportunities because there were a lot of families that didn't want people to come into their home because they were worried about contracting covid. So a lot of my investors bought a lot of really nice properties without having to do all this, you know, 15, 20 multiple counter stuff. And they didn't feel frantic because opportunities were brought to them. So you can tell me right now, well, we're not wealthy and we don't have great connections. Oh, my gosh. You know, that's nice for them, but we can't play in that market. Yes, you can. I would highly suggest that if you're considering buying a secondary home or if you're finding your very first home or if you just want to jump in the market, align yourself with realtors who are doing deals. There's a lot of people out there that don't want to put their house on the market. And a lot of you out there right now are like, no, no, no. I know more than my real estate agent. I'm on Zillow and Redfin and Homes.com, and I can find my own properties and I'm going to get my own deal. I'm going to go directly to the listing agent and negotiate. If the house you're looking at is on the market, you're already at fair market value or higher. OK, if it's a really special property, more than likely there's going to still be multiple offers, even in the slower market, because special properties are scarce and they will go for a premium. So you still can go tickety-tack-tack-tack and go find your own properties. But what I'm suggesting you do is create a really tight network of people in your life. So you're going to want to go align yourself with top producing realtors in your area. They could potentially bring you opportunities somewhere down the road. You never know when you need to reach out to someone and ask for a good plumber or electrician or God knows what. But it would be nice for you to have one or two, maybe even three realtors in your pocket that you can go to. And you might want to sit down with them and say, hey, eventually down the road, I'm looking for something. Now, don't just talk to them once. You need to be shamefully persistent. Be in their face. Send them a birthday card, send them a holiday card. Go visit them at their open houses. Eventually, you know, they're going to really like you. I have this one, this one individual that's always going to my open houses, has never, ever, ever bought a house for me. They're in the market. Now, I'm going to tell you that the next really good opportunity that I have that fits his parameters, I'm going to go give it to them because they're so persistent and not even that. This person actually has referred me a lot of business. He's like, she's the best. Here's the reason why. And we've created a relationship. I'm highly suggesting that you do that. I'm telling you right now, that's what the wealthy do. They are very well connected. Learn this early on. It will save you so much time, energy and hassle. Oh, and by the way, if you're looking to sell or buy a house or maybe in the future, we're happy to refer you some real estate agents in your area. We have a referral network. There's no obligation, no charge. It's always a good idea to start those relationships early on. Get your head start. I'll link it right here. And it is in the description down below. Keep fighting with this thing. And by the way, you guys noticing how cute Olive is? Oh, she's so cute. Lesson number five, follow big developers who spend a lot of time and money doing research and development. There was this really wealthy investor that I was really intimidated by early on in my career. And I remember I was so nervous when I was talking to this gentleman. I'm like, listen, I know this is a really weird question. I'm really nervous even talking to you. But I'm just curious, like, how are you so successful in real estate? He's like, Audra, honestly, I just follow the big guys. You know, they do so much research and development. Like if they're going to go buy in Nevada and there's really fancy shopping centers and there's a great school that they're just starting to develop, they're already spending all the money to do all the demographics where people are going to start moving to where the big businesses are coming in. And I just invest where they invest. Super simple. I'm not going to spend all that money doing research and development. The big developers are already doing it for me. I'm like, and I'm serious. Ever since that conversation, I follow the big developers. But I think a lot of you are making mistakes is you are investing with smaller developers that aren't doing that research and development. And they're just looking for a quick profit. And you're stuck in a bad area. Just make sure you're following the top developers or builders. And by the way, Toll Brothers is my favorite builder. They do such a good job. And the other one is the new home company. They do a great job as well. So lesson number five literally carried over to every aspect of my life, including my business. So this year I had done a rebranding of my logo and my colors because it was just bugging me and it was getting a little outdated. And the main reason why I did all this is because I kept being called Gambert. The annoying. I'll show you why. So my old branding was this. This is my CMA cover folder. And it's cute. We create a little book for you. But do you see this? Looks like Yam. It looks like a Y. Gambert. And what I failed to realize is no one's doing handwriting anymore. This is my logo. Yes, I have it copywritten. But also the orange was kind of this pumpkin burnt orange. It's actually looking pretty decent in this video, but it's not. I can never get the orange right. And I would, you know, yell at the printer. I'm like, wrong orange. Why are you doing the ugly orange? It looks like diarrhea. I know it's the right one. I got so frustrated. So then I remember my lesson number five. And I'm like, you know what? I'm going to look to the people who are doing it right. So I brought this to them. Hermes orange. OK. This is the orange I want. Not pumpkin burnt baby diarrhea orange. OK, see orange. This is my new logo. OK, this is my new folder. You guys see the difference? Same orange is good enough for Hermes is good enough for me. Now, please don't tell me you like the other one better, but it's a little bit smaller of a logo. It's not as prominent. And the Lambert group is very easy to read. OK, it's not as fancy, but also I don't want to be the main show. I don't want to look like, hey, look at me. I'm the Lambert group. That's Lambert group, by the way. So let's take a little comparison. Let's see. Here we go. See which one you like better. OK, please say this one. See how much brighter this orange is. And it's so much easier to read. Yeah, I like this one better. Please tell me you agree. OK, let's not forget to subscribe to my channel. If you're getting any benefit, you all know I have pretty lofty goals. Let's get back into it. Number six, wealthy investors, successful investors don't over improve their home. They know right away what type of investment in the upgrades or the maintenance they should be making on any of their their rental properties or even their primary residence, where I see a lot of you making the mistake is you're over improving your home. You're like, yeah, mine's the best. Well, guess what? If your market, meaning your neighborhood, isn't fetching those higher prices and don't have those upgrades, that may be a bad return on your investment. So upgrade your home for what the market will support. And if you are investing in your own primary residence, be very mindful about not upgrading with the trends like we all learn from the Tuscan era that that's not good anymore. And and now the farmhouse era is going out. And now all you did was upgrade and spend this money. And now it's considered dated. So when in doubt, go beige, go boring, go neutral. And when you go to put your house for lease or for sale, you're going to appeal to a larger buyer group because your house isn't dated, because you overinvested in upgrades or trends. So classic traditional style is going to be your friend. You can't go wrong. It will pass the test of time. Little story here. I'm wearing my mom's dress. Can you see this, how cute this is? That's so cute. OK, she bought it at I-Magnons. They don't even have that store anymore. It was kind of a high end store at the time. She went in there, tried the dress on. She didn't look at the price tag. She goes up to the counter. She was embarrassed because she couldn't afford it. She put it on the credit card and she got home. She tells my dad and my dad's like, oh, honey, you look so pretty. And it will figure out how to buy the dress. Well, now I don't have her many years later. I mean, it has to be 60 some odd years later. It is still beautiful. It is still the fabric's gorgeous. And every time I wear it, I get a compliment and I just love it. It's kind of like my Jackie O dress. How cute it is. It's so cute. Anyway, that's what I want you to think is when you're doing improvements on your home, don't go buy all the cheap stuff. Don't buy all the stuff. Just like buy one really nice product. Put it in your house. It will pass the test of time. I want you to watch this video. It's called Don't Get Rid of This. It's about classic design. Don't just get rid of things because you want to keep up with the trends or keep up with the Joneses. Highly recommend you watch this video. I will link it down below as well. Lesson number seven. Smart, wealthy investors are always focused on the exit strategy. So if given an opportunity for a duplex with a similar square footage price and location as a single family residence, guess which one they're going to choose. Now, a lot of you would probably say, oh, it's going to be the duplex. You're wrong. Guarantee you they're going to go single family residence because when you go to sell this duplex, the only people that are probably going to be interested in buying it are investors and investors want a discount. They want wholesale, whereas a single family residence. There's a lot of families that want to have Fido in the backyard. There's going to be more of a market, more of a demand for that single family residence. And when they go to sell it, they don't sell it for wholesale. They're going to sell it for market value. Smart, right? Lesson number eight. Very successful investors value their time and they pay for property management services on their properties. They don't want to be hassled with the midnight call that there's a leak or the air conditioning unit just went out. They have property managers handling that. And most property managers have resources and contacts that go fix everything. They also do your books. So at the end of the year, you just hand them over the statement and your CPA or whoever's doing your books for you or your taxes are good. It's all detailed out there. And a lot of you are like, no way I can't afford six to 10 percent of a management fee every month. I can just do it myself. If you can't afford a six to 10 percent management fee on your property, you have no business owning that property. And I'm serious. I'm not trying to be unkind, but that leads me to lesson number nine, which is you don't want to be over leveraged on any of your properties. And the reason why you don't want to be over leveraged is because you start to make bad decisions. You're feeling the pain. You're feeling urgency. So your rental property goes vacant and no one's coming to give you applications. So then you end up lowering your rental price because you don't have staying power. And then you finally get an application. You're like, oh, don't have a good feeling about this. But, you know, I got to stop the bleeding. So you take the application, you approve it. The tenant comes in and now they start squatting and they're not paying their bills. And you got a major problem, major problem. The market's changing. I'd be really, really careful. So one of the things that I see a lot of these investors doing that we could all learn from is that we don't over leverage. We always have those reserves. We don't get panic when the market changes and we're not going to accept bad deals or bad tenants. Lesson number ten, successful, savvy investors know that foreclosure doesn't automatically mean good investment, good deal. A lot of you newbie investors think, oh, foreclosure is the way to go. I want you to think of this. Why did the homeowner not just put their house on the market and sell it? And I'll tell you why. It's because there's something wrong with it. It's in a bad location or it's in bad condition. It could have a foundation issue, mold issue, roof window issue, plumbing issues, a myriad of things. Why do you want to take somebody else's problem on? You got to ask that question. I can't tell you how many home flippers lose their shirts because they underestimate the cost of repair or remodel. Now, most of the real savvy, successful investors that I'm working with, they're not looking for bottom of the barrel. They don't want to do all those improvements. They want to find a house that's in good condition in a good neighborhood that's going to appreciate over time. And if you are jumping in the market, I'm going to suggest that you do the same. I certainly hope the message of this video is clear. This isn't about greed. This isn't about making money. It's about wisdom. And the best way to learn about investing is looking to the people who are doing it right. I'm fighting with this little plant because I'm always talking with my hands. If you got any benefit, please smash the like button and comment down below with any of your questions. And I will see you in the next video. Thanks so much for watching.