Expand Your Fempire Podcast #104 Transcript

Guiding Principles to Real Estate Investment with Olympia Hostler

Welcome to Expand your Fempire with Caterina Rando, the podcast for women in business on a mission. Sharing ideas to support you to grow and thrive. Now here’s your host, Caterina Rando.

[00:00:00] Caterina Rando: Welcome back to another episode of the Expand Your Fempire Podcast. I am blissing because we have one of my favorite gals with us, Olympia Hostler. Olympia is super smart, super fun. One of my most fun business experiences ever, with my friend Olympia and our mutual friend Ann Bennett, was when we had a hot tub mastermind evening. Inevitably you get three women entrepreneurs together in a hot tub and the ideas are going to start to flow.

[00:01:07] Olympia, anytime you wanna have a hot tub mastermind, I’m there. Okay?

[00:01:14] Olympia Hostler: Yes, good

[00:01:16] Caterina Rando: Olympia. Everyone can look at the show notes. You’re an MBA. You’re a real estate investor. You help other people with that. We got so much to talk about. What I wanna ask you though, is how did you go from college to entrepreneur endeavor?

[00:01:31] Olympia Hostler: So I got my bachelor’s degree in math and computer science, and I thought I was gonna be a computer programmer. Then I went right on and got my master’s degree, my MBA, and I thought I would start my own business. But then I realized I didn’t really have the experience, even though I had the knowledge, and that was probably a mental block on my own. So I went into corporate America because I thought that was the way, and I became a corporate executive by the time I was 33, running multi-billion dollar programs, and thought I had made it. And I realized I was miserable, and I really did need to revisit going back to being an entrepreneur, because I have great ideas and I know what to do and how to do marketing and sales and networking and product development.

[00:02:21] Caterina Rando: Olympia, let me ask you: you said you were miserable. Today, I know you, I know you’re blissing in your business and your life. What was miserable about a corporate gig, especially executive billion-dollar budgets you’re managing, what was miserable about that, differentiating it from your blissful life now?

[00:02:41] Olympia Hostler: It was a few things, Caterina. One was working in an environment that had low integrity, and I was not willing to compromise my values. As in lying, cheating, stealing, manipulating, I’m just not gonna do that.

[00:02:56] Caterina Rando: I’m happy to hear that Olympia, happy to hear that.

[00:02:59] Olympia Hostler: Yep. And then another one was I realized that I was bringing in millions and millions of dollars of business a year for this company, and I was not getting what I thought was a just reward for that in terms of money. And I was also just severely overworked. So I was working 60 to 90-hour weeks regularly. And my health was starting to deteriorate, even at the age of like 35. I was having some major health issues.

[00:03:30] Caterina Rando: Wow. Well, those were all good reasons to not be doing that kind of work. And I wanna hear all about your business. Let’s give everybody a little overview about your business, because I know that last year was challenging for you. And I wanna talk about that a little bit more, but let’s tell everybody the kind of entrepreneurial endeavor you’re currently engaged in.

[00:03:53] Olympia Hostler: What I’m doing now is I am real estate investing and I am advising other people on real estate investing. So I’m focusing on working with women so that they can be empowered to really have passive income and to really be able to have the time and the money freedom that we’re all after. And it’s really easy to do by investing in real estate.

[00:04:23] So what I do is I help people find the correct markets, to find the right properties for them based on whatever their appetite for investment is. Like some people wanna fix and flip. Some people want to have an Airbnb and rent out short term. Some people just want to buy a property, get a good price, get a good capitalization return on their investment, and they wanna have cash flow or they wanna have appreciation. So whatever it is they’re after, I help them find that investment property, help them work the deal –I’m actually a real estate broker, so I can do that– and I help them set up a team in whatever city they’re in, cause this is a nationwide endeavor. So I’ve set them up with things like property managers or contractors or cleaners, if they’re an Airbnb, whatever it is they need to have a successful and easy investment.

[00:05:17] Caterina Rando: Love it. Love it. Love it. Love it. These days, I know you’re blissing in your business. Why are you blissing in your business these days, Olympia?

[00:05:25] Olympia Hostler: I’m blissing because I get to play a lot. I get to do my self care. I get to travel. Also, what really warms my heart is I get to give other people jobs and employment. You know because I’ve been so successful, I have people who I’m able to give jobs to, for them to be able to be happy and blissful in their lives as well.

[00:05:51] Caterina Rando: Love it. Love it. Now, Olympia, I know that last year was a challenging year for you. Let’s tell everybody what happened, and more importantly, how you dealt with what happened.

[00:06:02] Olympia Hostler: Well last year in June, on June 21st to be exact, I had a brain aneurysm rupture and a brain stroke at the same time. And I had two operations within a week and I was in the hospital for three weeks. So I had a lot of time to contemplate what I wanted to do with my life, who I am, what my future might or might not be. And then I had to take the rest of the year off to rehabilitate. So things like my balance, I could hardly balance or walk. I had low energy. I couldn’t see out of my right eye. And now that I took the time and put in the effort to take care of myself and to rehabilitate, I actually have more energy now, I’m more happy, I’m more blissful, my relationships are deeper and stronger and more loving than they’ve ever been. And I’m manifesting like crazy.

[00:07:00] Caterina Rando: Yay Bing, Bing Bing. Well yeah, and listeners you cannot see the beautiful Olympia with massive vitality. My friend, nobody would know that you had any of these challenges because you are looking fabulous, super fit, super positive. And I love what you said that you took the time to take care of yourself. And I would imagine, because you’re thriving in business, when this unexpected situation came up you were able to step away and take care of yourself. And I wanna shine the spotlight on this, Olympia, because I always tell all of my clients, our listeners, that it’s very important to build financial surplus because we don’t know what’s gonna happen, and of course have the appropriate insurances. But when you have a business, your business has to operate even if you are not there doing your thing. And having surplus is very important. I love that you were able to step away. I love to see you thriving these days. Now, let’s talk a little bit about you as a businesswoman, because I know that you, like me, value embracing philanthropy in your business, and that giving is part of your standard operating procedure for business, as we want all women entrepreneurs to embrace. What types of giving matters to you that you focus on?

[00:08:40] Olympia Hostler: Right now I’m focusing on giving for women and children, but mostly for women to empower them, because in the world –I’m not talking about just the United States– but the world, women are rising up and they’re coming up to really being more entrepreneurs, being more independent, being more self-sufficient. And a lot of that has come out of necessity, whether it’s a, you know, not having a partner with them to help share the load, or maybe it’s because of COVID, or maybe it’s because of a job loss, you know? There’s all kinds of reasons, but entrepreneurialism for women is one of the fastest growing sectors in the world right now.

[00:09:26] Caterina Rando: And that’s very exciting. And you know, that makes me very happy as well. I am huge fan of real estate, Olympia, having some real estate myself. And I know that you have your top five secrets to maximizing money in real estate investing, and let’s give some super tips on real estate investing to our listeners. I gotta tell you something Olympia, I’m not sure if I’ve said this on my podcast before: growing up, I would see my mom — who does not drive by the way, never has– she would get her checks every month from her real estate investments. And she would be happily walking a few blocks to make that deposit to the bank. And then I would see my dad who would be having his newspaper open and frequently stressing about his stocks. And so, as a kid, I saw the bliss that came from real estate investing over the situation that I saw my dad with stocks. I’m not necessarily these days anti stocks, but I’m definitely more pro real estate. Let’s get the ladies investing in real estate more. What are your five tips?

[00:10:52] Olympia Hostler: Absolutely. I wanna make sure that the ladies know that it’s easier than ever to invest, and it’s easier than you think to invest.

[00:11:03] So number one is to get out of your own way. You know, let’s get that roadblock out of the way. And it’s a matter of just looking at some numbers, you know your financial numbers, and leveraging them.

[00:11:15] So you wanna use to the most optimum amount other people’s money, it’s called OPM. So you wanna leverage your money. So as much as you can use alone, you wanna use alone. And you want to make sure that it’s something that the property will support.

[00:11:37] This is for people who are looking at more of a cash flow objective. You’d have a look at what is gonna be the cash flow of that property. Let’s just take, for example, a duplex.

[00:11:49] So two units, you take a look at how much money each side is going to bring in for income. You take a look at what your expenses are gonna be for your taxes, insurance, maintenance, and mortgage. The goal is for that to be positive. So not only are you getting the cash flow every month, you know, additional money coming into you passively, but you’re also getting the appreciation on the property. That’s my number one tip, is to get a loan.

[00:12:20] Number two: if you have a retirement account, whether it’s a 401k or a Roth, it doesn’t matter, or some other one like a SEP, you can convert that into something that’s called a self-directed IRA. There are companies that do that for you. And you do need to use a company, you need to pay somebody to do that, cause it’s a big legal process and they know how to do that.

[00:12:46] But what you do is you convert it into cash basically. And then you can use that cash. No penalties, no interest for taking it out, cause you’re not taking out, you’re converting it from a retirement investment vehicle, which is treated one way in the banks and with stocks, versus it’s basically pure cash and you can invest that in real estate. You can really invest that in just about anything you want. There are some rules to it and we don’t need to go into the details of that now, but the message is you can use that for your down payments. You can use that for your renovation costs.

[00:13:24] You can use that to buy multiple units and leverage that, instead of say, for example, right now, keeping it in the stock market. I’m a big believer in the stock market, but right now it’s gambling in my opinion, it’s just so volatile. So what is happening, a trend –here’s a hot tip– wealthy wealthy, wealthy people are taking their money out of the stock market and they are buying up land like crazy. So if we can take a lesson from them, there it is.

[00:13:55] Caterina Rando: Oh my gosh. I’m learning so much today. How exciting. All right. Next, super tip.

[00:14:00] Olympia Hostler: Next super tip is to know your investment profile, your risk profile as it’s called. So how much risk are you willing to take? Because it varies. It varies by your age. It varies by your personality, by your financial commitments. And that’s kind of a service I provide when I work with people, is to help them to figure that out. Because like let’s say there’s a person in their sixties or seventies and they come to me and they’ve never done development before. And they say they wanna do development, I’m gonna have a chat with them to make sure that that is in fact what they wanna do and that they can afford to do that. You know, you have to really take a look at how risky is an investment and developments are risky. There’s no doubt about it, but with risk comes reward.

[00:14:48] Caterina Rando: The challenge too, that often people don’t think about is the stress, and that we wanna make sure our investments, whether or not we’re massively monetizing, that it’s not creating a ton of stress for us. And so what I’m hearing you say, Olympia, is “Hey, let’s get you going with real estate, but maybe you don’t wanna be a developer from day one. Maybe you wanna do some other strategies first.” Is that what I’m hearing you say my friend?

[00:15:19] Olympia Hostler: Absolutely. Absolutely. And then the fourth super hot tip is consider investing with others. Like maybe you don’t have quite enough money to invest a property all by yourself, you can invest with others and there’s all kinds of ways, to syndicate is one way to do it, or just form investment groups.

[00:15:41] Caterina Rando: My friend, what does that mean, syndicate?

[00:15:43] Olympia Hostler: Syndicate is a legal process where people pool their money together into another entity, and that entity is what purchases the property. So you and your other people are members of that entity. So there’s a lot to consider if you do that, things like “how do I get out if I need to get my money out?” You can’t just sell it because you’re in the pool with all these other people. You might be able to sell it to somebody else who’s in the investment pool already, or you could sell it maybe to somebody outside, but you can’t sell the whole property. You could only have control of your share, obviously. So to think about that and how much your return will be.

[00:16:27] This is kind of a twofer here. So you really wanna look at cap rates, a cap rate is short for capitalization rate. And what that means is it’s the return of investment on your money that you’re investing in real estate. So you take your net operating income, which is basically the gross amount of money you’re gonna receive from rents, and then you divide that by the purchase price, and then you get a percentage. So that is a common measurement of how good and sound an investment is. So let’s say for example, we wanna invest in the Missouri market. I just got my Missouri brokers license because it’s such a great market.

[00:17:11] Caterina Rando: Congratulations!

[00:17:12] Olympia Hostler: Thank you. I’m so excited. You can get a cap rate of like 6-10%, which is almost unheard of these days. You have to really pick your markets. So what market are you gonna be in? Like let’s say for example you wanna be in New York City. Well, God bless you. You are not going to be looking at a cap rate because those cap rates are not gonna be good, because when you invest in a major city like that, like a San Diego, like a San Francisco, like a New York, a Chicago, those type of major cities, you are pretty much gonna have to be in it for the long run because you’re gonna pay top dollar, and so your cap rate is gonna be less, because your income, your net operating income, is going to not be able to cover that big nut of the purchase price.

[00:18:03] So what you’re really gonna be looking for in those types of markets is the appreciation. Like for example, properties here in California, you know depending on what market you’ve been in, they have gone up like a hundred to 200% in the last few years, like two to three years. So hello, you can cash your money out, and then you can decide what you wanna do with that. You can either pay capital gains or you can roll it over into another investment called a 10-31 exchange. There’s a lot of things you can do with that. So there’s a whole strategy of what do we need to do and what do we wanna do to make money? And how much time do I have to make money?

[00:18:45] Caterina Rando: So exciting Olympia, all of this. Okay. I think you got one more super tip for us.

[00:18:51] Olympia Hostler: One more super tip is to do it with a team. I’m talking about, get yourself a broker, a real estate broker who really knows the market, not just anybody. You do not wanna get yourself a residential real estate agent to do this investing. For the most part, they don’t know. There are few exceptions people know, but I would go with somebody who knows more about investments.

[00:19:11] Also on the team you want a contractor in the area you’re gonna purchase in. You also want to have a property manager. Let them do the property management for heaven’s sakes. You want them to do their job, which is multifaceted.

[00:19:27] You know, are you the one who wants to take the call at 2:00 AM that their toilet is backed up? I don’t think so. Because you’re not only taking the call, but then you have to resolve it. So, in my opinion, a property manager is worth their weight and gold. They’ve got the systems down, they’ve got their teams of people to take care of it. You know, if you have an eviction or you have somebody who’s not paying or not following the rules, like you just let them take care of it.

[00:19:51] Also you may need an attorney on the team, depending on which state you’re in, depending on how you’re gonna take title to the property. If you’re doing an Airbnb, like a lot of people these days are purchasing property to rent out in what they call a short term rental market, which is an Airbnb kind of situation. And so you need a cleaner. Like some people don’t even think about that. Like you’re not gonna be there cleaning that unit in between, you know, in between rentals. Like somebody’s leaving in the morning by 10 and somebody’s coming in by three. You want somebody else to do that for you? So, power of the team and community.

[00:20:28] Caterina Rando: Okay. Olympia, let’s give a quick recap of the five super tips that you’ve shared. Number one, out of your own way. Number two?

[00:20:37] Olympia Hostler: Consider using a self-directed IRA, if you can, for your investment, for your cash part.

[00:20:43] Caterina Rando: Number three?

[00:20:44] Olympia Hostler: Number three is know your risk profile. What’s your objective and how much time do you have to recoup your money or make more money, and how much you’re willing to risk to get a reward?

[00:20:56] Number four is to invest with others if possible, or if needed. Some people don’t like to do that, other people love to do that because when you do invest with others, you’re diversifying your risk again, you’re diluting it. So the risk is spread amongst others.

[00:21:11] Number five is to have the team, have those team of professionals who do this day in and day out, who know how to handle it. Yes, you need to pay for them, but they are worth their weight in gold

[00:21:22] Caterina Rando: Olympia, I love this. I know that you have a free gift to go into this in more detail than we’ve had an opportunity to do today, let everybody know, and we’ll of course put in the show notes how can they get that, how can they get in touch with you, because I know everyone is gonna be turned on to real estate investing after listening to our time together.

[00:21:46] Olympia Hostler: Yes! So to get the Top Five Secrets to Real Estate Investing, I want you to just go ahead and text me. Text me “topfive”, literally the word top five, to (917) 288-7477, and I will have my team send that out to you. And then to get ahold of me, the easiest way is, is to call me or text me at (917) 288-7477. I’m very personable. I’m very user friendly and fluffy. I like to talk to people.

[00:22:21] Caterina Rando: And you’re fun to hang out with, absolutely. Olympia, thank you so much for your massive value today. You are inspiring. You are of course super smart, and I’m very excited about talking with you about next steps for me with all of this.

[00:22:43] Everybody don’t just say “Hey, that all sounds good.” Get Olympia’s free gift investigate more because we do like multiple streams of income. And when you are thriving in your business and you’re making all that surplus that we talked about at the top of our time together, you wanna take some of that surplus, have it work for you. You know Olympia, I call my building that I have where my center is –I own that building with my mom– I call that my old lady money because, you know, when I’m an old lady, that’s gonna be some income from that property, because we wanna think about that too.

[00:23:26] Olympia Hostler: Absolutely.

[00:23:26] Caterina Rando: My friend always good to be with you. Everybody, remember you got massive value to bring. There’s a lifetime supply of people to serve. Be strategic about your money so that you can sell more, serve more, and most importantly, uplift more lives. Olympia, talk with you soon. Listeners, talk with you soon. Hopefully, you’re listening right after this to another episode of the Expand Your Fempire podcast. Bing, Bing, Bing.

We hope you enjoyed this episode of Expand Your Fempire with Caterina Rando.