The Secrets to Airbnb Success: Insights from Real Estate Expert Ginger Faith

Dylan Silver (00:00.899)
Hey, everybody, welcome back to another episode of the Real Estate Pros podcast brought to you by Investor Fuel, the nation’s premier real estate mastermind. I’m your host, Dylan Silver. And today we have Ginger Faith on the show. Ginger is a 30 year real estate investor, real estate broker, mortgage broker, fix and flipper. And now in the commercial space, Ginger, welcome to the show.

Ginger Faith (00:27.952)
Thanks for having me, Dylan. Good to be here.

Dylan Silver (00:30.122)
Absolutely. Tell us and I always like to ask how folks got into real estate. Was it in your blood?

Ginger Faith (00:39.33)
I’m a learner and a reader and so early on I read Tony Robbins Unlimited Power and this was like in 91 or something and he said you can do anything just put your mind to it and all this good MMP stuff and then I started reading books on real estate and so this sounds really cool. I like the idea of passive income.

Dylan Silver (01:00.322)
Yeah.

Ginger Faith (01:01.14)
I was wrong, but it was a good idea at time. I like the concept. I started reading Robert Allen books, Nothing Down. And he said, you know, if you buy one piece of property per year and then pay it off for 10 years, you get 10 properties and you use the rent to pay the mortgage off. And then after 10 years, you’ve got your retirement set for the rest of your life.

Dylan Silver (01:03.064)
Ha ha ha.

Dylan Silver (01:23.179)
Hmm.

Ginger Faith (01:29.43)
So that was great in theory. I liked the idea and it’s actually a good, know, it made more sense in the 90s than it does in 2025 because of everything we know. But I decided to get a jump on it and buy a multi family right away. I said, well, why don’t I just jump start this instead of waiting 10 years? I just buy a multi and yeah. And then I bought another multi and then another multi I pulled cash out and bought another multi. it was kind of like

Dylan Silver (01:30.701)
Thank

Dylan Silver (01:38.421)
Okay.

Dylan Silver (01:45.23)
Wow.

Dylan Silver (01:51.809)
Get the multifamily.

Ginger Faith (01:58.57)
became a little monopoly game because I liked the cash flow. was fun. That’s where I, so I wasn’t in my blood, but money was in my blood, I guess. So I just.

Dylan Silver (02:07.981)
Tell us a little bit on a granular level for folks who may be new. What was that first deal like? Like, what was the process? What were the thoughts that you were having? Were you super confident? Were you like a little bit nervous? You know, what you mentioned that you had some books and there was Tony Robbins. Tell us about everything that was going on. Because I know that for folks who have never done a deal, especially now with all the information, that first deal can seem like an insurmountable task.

Ginger Faith (02:36.424)
I think the blessing was I had no information. So with the confidence that usually accompanies ignorance, I forged right through thinking this is going to be easy. So I actually had a realtor that I called from one of those papers, you know, and

Dylan Silver (02:40.065)
Ha ha ha ha ha!

Ginger Faith (02:56.854)
I said, I’d to buy a rental property, you know, and he says, oh, that’s a great idea. My, my friend’s so-and-so just bought a triplex and all he does is collect wrench rents and he bought a Porsche. I thought, no, it was a Jaguar. Sorry. It was a Jaguar. It was a Jaguar. And I was like, I can collect rents and buy a Jaguar. can do that. And I can do that. I got, I know I have the skills to do that. Right. And so that was literally.

Dylan Silver (03:12.172)
Thanks.

Dylan Silver (03:16.874)
Yeah, that’s it. Great.

Ginger Faith (03:24.35)
you know, what started me on it. And I found this dilapidated six family Victorian building, absolutely awesome. Widows Peak, mahogany library, just cool. But it was a six family, but it was really dilapidated. It was like three colors on the outside. And I started just, this is cool. Let me play house. And so I started dolling it up, just like my natural thing, you know. It was cream and pink and purple and like a painted lady.

Dylan Silver (03:35.84)
Yeah.

Dylan Silver (03:48.861)
Yeah.

Ginger Faith (03:53.428)
It was very organic back in the time. think having less information was beneficial because you just kind of look at what’s in front of you and you just do the next thing and the next thing and the next thing. And as soon as I painted the outside, I had people lining up with literally handing me applications. Like I didn’t even have an application. They’re like, here, take this. I want to move in and don’t worry about fixing the place up. Just give me some paint and…

Dylan Silver (04:10.697)
Wow.

Ginger Faith (04:19.678)
Some some spackle and up. I’ll fix it. I even just let people go in. yeah. Yeah, go ahead. Go fix police up yourself, you know this is in Boston area Yeah, yeah, yeah, so what is a friend it was I was in Newton and I had property in Brockton My first flip was in Brockton and I had property in Fall River

Dylan Silver (04:26.859)
And this was in San Francisco, this, In Boston, okay, I lived in Boston for six years. Which part of Boston was it?

Dylan Silver (04:40.167)
Newton, okay, yeah.

Dylan Silver (04:44.424)
Mm-hmm. Okay, I lived in Jamaica Plain and There was one area I’ll remember it later on in the podcast, but it was outside of Jamaica Plain that I lived in as well so Boston Wow lots of stories, but But it sounds like you went in with a lot of conviction and and confidence and and had your realtor

Ginger Faith (04:50.836)
Okay.

Ginger Faith (05:01.782)
We’re tired.

Dylan Silver (05:11.424)
Was there people in your life who you could point to and say, hey, they’re doing something similar? Or was this something just you went out on your own and started doing it?

Ginger Faith (05:19.87)
Nobody literally nobody in the process. I met a few people of course right once you get involved I started meeting people and so the guy who? Sold me my second sixth family He was a broker realtor broker, and he was an investor And he and I became great friends, and we’re still friends today even though I live here in California now You know when I say great friends. I call him like once a year. We talked for an hour. You know like

Dylan Silver (05:45.183)
Yeah.

Ginger Faith (05:46.056)
I mean, you know, know is that we have a good a good relationship when I last time I went out to Boston we had lunch, know, so But we know we have this come Padre because you know, we were both working doing he went way beyond me He was he was even more a workhorse worse than I am And and you know, he just kept

kept going going. But yeah, no, I didn’t have anybody in the beginning. But you know, you meet people on the way, some good, some bad. He was great and helped out with, you know, my learning. But there wasn’t a lot of information like there is now.

Dylan Silver (06:09.995)
You were really I’m impressed because you know, sometimes people will say I had an electrical engineer who got his first property I want to say it was in Connecticut and it was a multifamily and he said that he did like lots of extensive research and bought lots of books before he jumped in and

You almost have an opposite story. You called up a realtor, you read a book, and you were like, let’s do this.

Ginger Faith (06:42.614)
Yeah, and you know the reality was Well, here’s the thing is I was cheap and I ran the numbers Okay, so he was showing me all these big fancy places because he said you’re a classy lady You should be in all these fancy places But I looked at the numbers and then I was like you’re getting how much for rent and I would just do them like how am I gonna pay this? That was kind of like that. That’s where my benefit was like all I did was like pencil out the numbers You know an old-fashioned calculator and a pen and paper

I’m like, I can’t make any money that way. But then when I saw this one, because it was a distress sale, it was like a brainer. But now, of course, that’s you know, cache, you know, but back then to me, it was just common sense. I don’t want to be putting the bill for this thing. somebody else to do it. Right. So so it was more like instinct, you know, self-preservation instinct, which is very valuable in this business. You always want to

Dylan Silver (07:17.971)
Yeah.

Dylan Silver (07:38.058)
Yeah, we’re good.

Ginger Faith (07:39.626)
You always want to have your self-preservation instinct on high all the time in business, in real estate for sure.

Dylan Silver (07:44.489)
Absolutely, absolutely, and we’ll definitely touch on that more here in a bit. The first deal being distressed, how much work had to be done? Was there major repairs that needed to be done? if not, what were the repairs and how did you do those?

Ginger Faith (08:05.082)
Yeah, so it’s kind of goes back to my being cheap, right? So the first thing I did was paint it, which is cheap. Paint makes it what it ain’t. Right. So it looks good. And then it’s more like you kind of look at things like, that needs work or that needs work. And like I said, people came into the property and they liked it they just did their own work. And that was like, great. I mean, who does that? Who does that? Nobody does.

Dylan Silver (08:10.427)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Dylan Silver (08:25.383)
Yeah Nobody does that,

Ginger Faith (08:28.79)
It was a cool property. was a cool location, beautiful property, it had value once it looked nice on the outside. Fix the boarded windows, stuff like that. It was a six family Victorian.

Dylan Silver (08:43.069)
Was it, was it, it was a multi-family? Or was it,

Okay and you said that you had people like quite literally like handed you applications like you didn’t even have to put it in.

Ginger Faith (08:54.518)
Telling me that they fixed it themselves. They would fix the place themselves. Yeah, so it was crazy. It’s just it’s all I just handed them materials and then and they just fixed it themselves now I didn’t have any concept of QC or safety or insurance Go go go give me my bread, that’s all I just want my Jaguar that’s it

Dylan Silver (09:16.618)
Yeah, that’s it I can I can buy the rental property and drive the Jaguar I’m capable of that Were you in Boston yourself at the time I imagined in that area, right? Okay

Ginger Faith (09:22.262)
You

Ginger Faith (09:28.638)
Yeah, I was there. Yeah, I was living there. I didn’t move here to California until 2001.

Dylan Silver (09:33.457)
Okay, okay, so as an aside, you’ve done the coasts. You’ve done the coasts. I’m imagining you like California better because you’re there now.

Ginger Faith (09:37.896)
Yeah.

You know, love you know Just the weather just the weather. Yes. yeah, California It’s not you know, not isn’t as it is. It’s not exactly as the beach ball Beach Boys depict it

Dylan Silver (09:46.492)
The weather is nice. weather, yeah.

Dylan Silver (09:57.477)
Yeah, yeah, I lived in Boston for six years. The Charles River, which is their river, froze. It was so cold. I still can’t believe this happened. But for people who are in Boston, they’ll they’ll know this is true. Boylston Street, which is like kind of their Fifth Avenue, if you will, would get so cold with so much wind, people would walk backwards down the street, like to avoid wind chill in their face. Yeah.

Ginger Faith (10:19.466)
Mm-hmm, right. I did that, because you can put your good up and then you don’t have to worry about like, yeah, freezing your face off. Yeah.

Dylan Silver (10:27.27)
I remember there was one time in particular that I saw a whole street of people and I’m new to the area and I’m from New Jersey I’m like I’m not gonna wear a scarf I’m not gonna wear earmuffs you know I’m 18 years old I’m thinking I’ll be fine you know it’s you’re freezing you’ll get burns so you’re walking backwards so that’s a funny little aside

Ginger Faith (10:29.916)
I’m sorry!

Ginger Faith (10:43.478)
Yes. You have little icicles on your eyelashes.

Dylan Silver (10:50.267)
Yeah, I can’t do it. can’t do it. I said someone said you need a balaclava and I said I don’t I don’t really like Greek food and they’re like no the scarf and I thought they were talking about like baklava and they were like no the it’s like on your face. I was like, okay. Okay. But fast forward a little bit. You’re a real estate broker and a mortgage broker.

Ginger Faith (11:02.991)
That’s funny.

Dylan Silver (11:15.881)
but also an investor yourself. And it sounds like you were an investor before you were a real estate broker and a mortgage broker. So how did that happen? How did that pan out?

Ginger Faith (11:27.958)
It’s really simple, know, again, I’m an opportunist and I just kind of like I go by feel as you can see, you know, hear by, you know, my story. So I came to California and I looked at the numbers and I’m like, well, this doesn’t make any sense. I’m not going to make any, you know, my little pencil. It doesn’t work. This doesn’t pencil. So I’m so aware, can I make money if I want to live in California and have the warm weather? Well, mortgage brokering in 2001 was hot, hot, hot.

Dylan Silver (11:45.864)
Okay.

Ginger Faith (11:57.654)
The rates were dropping, dropping, dropping, dropping. I got a mortgage broker license in 01 back when I was told that you couldn’t. People didn’t know that there was a special license that you could get a CFL. And I got that right away, took some classes. Then in 2005, I got my real estate broker license only to help my clients because I could get better deals having both licenses. I could get better mortgage rates for my clients. But then everything changed.

Dylan Silver (12:15.164)
Yeah.

Ginger Faith (12:25.254)
And then in a couple years I realized that, wow, these numbers look different. So now I can. They do cash flow for, and it was tight for a while with the rents because the rents were really low too. They got hit hard in the crash as well. So I didn’t buy enough real estate, but I did buy some. And that’s when I started flipping properties in earnest because now the numbers made sense.

Dylan Silver (12:30.406)
Yeah.

Dylan Silver (12:48.897)
That’s something that I hear over and over and over again. So when I start getting deeds in my name, I got to take note of this. People will say, you know, either I didn’t buy enough properties or I regret not holding on to, 10 % of the flips that I did or, you know, I sold too quickly. And I’ve heard this like, so many times. It’s now etched into my brain. I’m like, okay, I know it seems tempting. Yeah.

Ginger Faith (13:07.67)
If it ever happens again, if it ever happens again, which is not looking likely, we know what to do this time. But then, you know, does history repeat itself? I suppose it does, but we’ll wait for that.

Dylan Silver (13:22.641)
So we mentioned a little bit, you have so much experience. Did the flips, did the mortgage broker, real estate broker, Airbnb, do you have a favorite? Can you have a favorite? Are you agnostic to area?

Ginger Faith (13:41.406)
I have two favorites. have, I love, I love helping people sell and buy homes. I love that because it’s personal. I’m kind of a golden retriever in nature. You know, I like to.

Dylan Silver (13:53.957)
That’s helpful in this industry,

Ginger Faith (13:55.87)
Yeah, I like to help so that’s fun and then I love decorating so Airbnb’s are fun for me from that standpoint, but I joke with my you know, I have a couple Investor friends and I said I just like to decorate and collect the money It goes back to the it goes back to my original intention for the Jaguar which I never got by the way, I Just like to collect the money. So when it comes to the investing honestly

Dylan Silver (14:10.753)
That’s the fun part. Yeah

Dylan Silver (14:18.512)
Yeah

Ginger Faith (14:24.656)
I like decorating and I like collecting money. Those are my skill sets. And you know, I like helping people. So that’s why I like hospitality from that standpoint, making people feel, you know, what makes me really happy is when I have the books, the guest books and people write in it, like they had their wedding, you know, nearby and all that cool stuff and like, my God, this is amazing. And you know, I name my Airbnb’s, they have names, you know, and they have.

Dylan Silver (14:36.805)
you

Dylan Silver (14:40.571)
Yeah.

Ginger Faith (14:50.71)
One of them has each bedroom has a name, know, the boho skyloft, know, the garden room. So, you know, I have fun with it. I like to elevate people’s experiences and elevate people’s lives. There’s what a decorating and then the, know, making things fun. And I do the same thing in my real estate brokerage. I, in addition to having competence in helping to place people in homes or get their homes sold.

Dylan Silver (15:03.001)
Yeah.

Ginger Faith (15:15.028)
that extra touch, know, those extra touches are things that make me, kinda juice me a little bit.

Dylan Silver (15:20.931)
two Airbnb questions. So the first is do all of the Airbnb’s or maybe individually have themes?

Ginger Faith (15:29.384)
Yeah, I have the Cowboy Farmhouse, I have the Heart of Heaven Homestead, I have the Magic Manor, I have the Temple, Wine Country Retreat, and the Secret Downtown Garden Cottage.

Dylan Silver (15:45.59)
wow. So when you’re going to purchase a new Airbnb, would you have a totally new theme? Are there going to be maybe some some aspects of one like kitchen that you’re pretty much going to apply across the board or is it everyone different?

Ginger Faith (16:03.926)
Everyone’s different. I mean some people can do like cookie cutter. You know anything right you think anything you know there’s some people who say you know I have a thousand doors of Airbnb basically they have a hotel You know and they’re like we only we only get people you know are cleaning people we only pay them 20 bucks an hour and they Consider that a model, but that’s not a model for a house You can’t give your people $20 an hour when they’re cleaning. It’s just different, but if you have a hotel you could give someone like

Dylan Silver (16:07.514)
Yeah.

Dylan Silver (16:14.725)
Yeah.

Ginger Faith (16:30.934)
Salary then then you have a full-time cleaning crew. It’s different In that case. Yeah, it’s gonna be more cookie cutter hotel will be as a rule more cookie cutter than than Airbnb’s Right, so I look but I really love that. I think it adds it’s a draw. It’s a draw for people You know, he’s like, oh, what’s the secret garden? What’s the you know, what’s the cowboy farmhouse? Right? What’s the magic manner and it you know again, it just elevates people’s

Dylan Silver (16:34.884)
Yeah.

Ginger Faith (17:00.704)
feeling, you know, it’s all about feeling when it comes to hospitality, right? Yeah, yeah, you want to elevate. So my job is to elevate and I love it. That’s fun.

Dylan Silver (17:06.2)
It really is.

Dylan Silver (17:12.963)
I love Airbnb. When I get some deeds in my name, I want to do Airbnb. My mentor in Dallas, which is where I’m in Denton, which is North DFW Metroplex, he does Airbnb. But the other question that I had was I was speaking with a guest earlier this week, a gentleman, his name is JD Alexander in Miami, and he specifically does like communications management and booking management.

for Airbnbs and his model is he, if you’re on Airbnb, he’ll list you on the other sites as well, Verbo and the other ones, and he’ll do all the communication so that not only is it paying for itself, you’re increasing your margins. Do you do all the communication yourself with the guests or how do you manage it?

Ginger Faith (18:02.598)
Yeah, Airbnb has a phenomenal platform for communication. And so what I do is I create one of my mentors years ago said, if you ever have a problem, create a system to solve the problem. And Airbnb, I think is absolutely the number one platform. I’ve done VRBO, I’ve done booking.com, and I’ve taken them off for various very, very valid reasons.

And so, Airbnb continues to impress me as a platform. I absolutely love it. I’m very loyal to Airbnb. And one of things that I love about them is you can create a whole series of communications with the clients, starting from the booking. So the booking, and you set it up. And it can be tailored to that particular property, know, welcome to the Magic Manor. And then what do they need to know?

Dylan Silver (18:44.772)
Mm.

Ginger Faith (18:55.158)
What I’ve noticed is critical is you have to have, people need to have complete transparency. If there’s something negative, if you say it upfront, they have a choice to move forward or back down. And then you don’t get a bad review, everybody’s happy. If you do not disclose something, either because you forgot or something happened during or whatever, that’s where you get the bad reviews oftentimes. So I’ll give you a funny example.

Dylan Silver (19:13.134)
Yeah.

Ginger Faith (19:23.144)
Airbnb’s got, you know, the system where one of my properties is on an acre, but it’s off of a massive boulevard, massive boulevard. The fairgrounds is across the street. But once you hit my street, you have potholes galore going up, up, up, up, up, up to the property, up and around, and then it drops down to an acre of privacy. But the neighbors, there’s only a few neighbors, they want nothing to do fixing those potholes. So…

Right, my contractor’s like, we gotta fix these potholes. And I’m like, no, because then people are gonna be racing up the street and there’s children. And so, but my Airbnb guests, what do I do? Well, I drive up and I give them a video and I insert that into the Airbnb communication. So I’m driving up here and you’re gonna find potholes. And we love our potholes because that means that you’re not gonna get any driving racers. Right, so you reframe everything.

Dylan Silver (20:00.023)
Ciao!

Dylan Silver (20:09.774)
Hmm

Ginger Faith (20:22.11)
Appropriately right but you disclose and so they’re like when they’re driving up nobody complains anymore I got one complaint in the beginning about the potholes after Nothing, so every single thing. you change it or can you frame it? Can you disclose it like how you know so it’s it? But so there you go. I hope that answers your question

Dylan Silver (20:32.099)
Yeah.

Dylan Silver (20:44.812)
No, yeah, absolutely. that talk about the framing and the salesmanship and fair communication. Like that’s that’s that’s the name. Disclose, disclose, disclose, you know, and at the know, the potholes actually, you know, protecting the neighborhood. So that’s awesome. And before we hopped on here, I mentioned to you, you know, one of the things I’m personally passionate about is just the power of.

Ginger Faith (20:55.638)
Yeah.

Ginger Faith (21:01.654)
Right. Right.

Dylan Silver (21:11.747)
fanatical networking, call it, or being a networking junkie, guerrilla networking. And that’s how I’m sitting in this chair was through a cold call that I had made for a property that I had under an assignable contract when I was living in San Antonio. The property was in Azale, Texas. And I called who’s now my mentor. He wasn’t interested in the property, didn’t like my photos, told me I didn’t know what I was doing. But we somehow became friends. And then he referred me to Mike Hambright, who’s the owner of our podcast.

And now I’m sitting here in my mentor’s office in a ranch home in Denton. So for me, fanatical networking, as I call it, is just about doing everything that you can to put yourself in the room with people who are doing what you want to do or the information that you need. And you might not need it right then, but you might need it in the future. And from your career, it’s obvious that you’re a natural networker.

Is that is that a skill that you’ve honed over time or has it just been second nature to you?

Ginger Faith (22:14.822)
Yeah, it goes back to I love people. I really do love people. So, definitely their skills. I don’t think we’re all natural charmers. You know, hence it hence, you know, Dale Carnegie’s how to win friends and influence people, you know, I’ve done that in my 20s. And I realized, my goodness, I’m doing a lot of things wrong here, you know.

Dylan Silver (22:26.262)
Yeah.

Dylan Silver (22:32.384)
Yeah.

Ginger Faith (22:38.646)
And so I start so I start changing things and then change things again. And so what I am a natural is a learner. And I’m humble enough to try to make changes if I see I’m going in the wrong direction, which you know, I do. I was I was on a long drive to Los Angeles last week and in my meditation, I was really, you know, gender, you need to change a few things about this and that. like, yeah, like it just came up as a meditation. Like I’m still like, tweaking things. So

even my personality, you know, so. No, I don’t. think I love people, but I don’t think I’m a little bit more of a pleaser. And I’ve had to learn my way out of that because that’s not the place to be. And when it comes now customer service, that’s where you can be a pleaser. When you’re to investing, you don’t want to be a pleaser. You need to be a negotiator. need to be more emotionally level, more like straight playing field. It’s a whole different conversation. And so I would say that my

Dylan Silver (23:07.97)
Thank

Dylan Silver (23:13.142)
Thank

Yeah

Dylan Silver (23:21.986)
Right.

Ginger Faith (23:37.596)
skill sets were developed more being a negotiator over time and you know there’s still so much to learn but and there are people better than me of course but yeah so so there go just a natural learner.

Dylan Silver (23:50.869)
The thing that clicked for me, talking about like skill sets that develop, I was not a networker, but what I realized was that there were people charging for their time just to get in the room with them. And I was like, people can charge for their time and like people will pay that. And so then I realized like talking about the negotiations thing, I came from a car sales background. So we would do lots of car deals. It never occurred to me that that was like a transferable skill.

And a lot of it, a lot of it is. In fact, the book that was most beneficial for me was this book by, I don’t know if you’ve heard of it, Chris Voss, Never Split the Difference.

Ginger Faith (24:28.604)
Yeah,

Dylan Silver (24:30.657)
And it’s like a hostage negotiation background.

Dylan Silver (24:53.537)
Yeah, that’s that’s that’s right. That’s how it happened for me, too. My buddy, I was asking him, he was a manager at a Nissan dealer that I was working at, and I kept asking him, like, you know, what do I got to do to get more deals? And people would just say the same typical things. But he said, you know, check out this guy, Chris Foss. And then I saw him. He was already because the algorithm unites us. He was already like in my feed. So I was like, that’s that guy that I’ve been seeing. I just bought the book. I bought the book. I bought the hard copy.

Ginger Faith (25:18.858)
Yeah. Yeah.

Dylan Silver (25:23.529)
And you know, one of the things just about the book, this is real, real granular, but they talk about like radio FM DJ voice. So then I like would start doing that. And I was like, I can’t believe this is this is actually a thing. But like, yeah, you’re calm, they’re calm. No one’s freaking out.

Ginger Faith (25:32.691)
Right, right, right, right, right.

Ginger Faith (25:41.174)
You know, that’s a book you could probably read once a year. I said that’s a good one. I’m gonna go grab that off my shelf again. Yeah, that’s a good Yeah.

Dylan Silver (25:45.492)
Yeah, for sure.

Dylan Silver (25:50.465)
Yeah, me too. Pivoting here, you’re now in the commercial space, which, God willing, I’ll be a realtor here in April, provided that everything goes well on my exam at the end of the month. But everybody that seems like is getting into real estate wants to be an investor, wants to be in the commercial space. So how did you get into the commercial space?

Ginger Faith (26:14.198)
networking, how’s that? There you go. Networking. Now I’ll make a sidebar. I mean I bought a piece of commercial property years ago but it didn’t work out. I was a limited partner and the gentleman passed away and it was during the crash and so I lost my hundred grand and that was it. I never I never got involved again but I there’s a there’s a group called Scott Shield I go visit

Dylan Silver (26:16.916)
There it is, yeah.

Dylan Silver (26:35.796)
Mmm.

Ginger Faith (26:43.946)
the Commercial Academy. I met him in 2010, but I was too busy flipping residential, so I didn’t do anything about it. And then my girlfriend, who was a top-notch car salesman, decided to get into real estate, and she’s very strategic. And she joined, and within a couple of years, she found a 56-unit apartment complex that needed a ton of work.

And within like two years of starting the project, like I think it was a total of about four years tops between looking and then turning it over. She cashed out with multiple seven figures. And she had no experience and she was coming to me for advice as the deal was going on. And I’m helping her and I’m helping her and I’m helping her and then she cashes out.

Dylan Silver (27:26.792)
Unbelievable.

Ginger Faith (27:38.632)
She moves out of California, she buys 10 acres on the East Coast, and now she’s living her dream life as a private money investor. Now she really knows what passive income is, and she’s doing well. So when she left, I was like, hey, wait a minute. I know way more about real estate than she does. So I’m sorry.

Dylan Silver (27:43.921)
Wow.

Dylan Silver (27:59.741)
you

Dylan Silver (28:03.379)
It’s okay.

Dylan Silver (28:07.475)
But I feel like for a lot of folks who have these relationships,

People will.

I know that we got some dogs over there. We got dogs over here, too.

Dylan Silver (28:47.039)
Alright, we’re back.

Ginger Faith (28:47.058)
Okay, one happened again. I can be edited, I hope. She’s in the other room now.

Dylan Silver (28:51.964)
No, that’s that’s quite all right. So, yeah, so for for folks who have friends who are getting into real estate, you really never know what’s going to happen. Look at that. The friend ended up doing a deal which totally changed her life. What were you one of her mentors getting in? It sounds like it. It sounds like you were showing her the ropes. Yeah.

Ginger Faith (29:08.68)
I was absolutely I was you know, but she was sharp she could figure stuff out herself But I was there and you know when she was going over to crazy stress because it was a big project Come over for dinner and she was you know talking unpacking what was going on and I give her some thoughts and advice and stir in the right direction I get end up connecting her with a phenomenal attorney that really saved the day when she got involved with a unsavory partner in that so

Dylan Silver (29:19.196)
Yeah.

Dylan Silver (29:35.922)
Yeah.

Ginger Faith (29:36.734)
I was very instrumental and then you know she took care of me too because she said you know you might want to think about getting back involved with the Academy and I did and I was pretty blown away. You know was overwhelmed and like my god this is I’ve been in residential all this time but these people are taking on you know really big big money they huge deals that they’re taking out about a billion dollars a quarter in commercial real estate and I’m like what?

Dylan Silver (29:50.301)
Mmm.

Dylan Silver (29:58.076)
Excuse deals.

Dylan Silver (30:03.784)
Yeah.

Ginger Faith (30:05.268)
You know, so I realized like, I’ve really been thinking too small. I’ve done well. But in comparison to some of these people that just, wow, I need to start thinking bigger. And that was about a year and a half ago. And I had.

Dylan Silver (30:18.546)
I tend to think I tend to think that folks when when you’re talking about stressful things, it’s like it’s all stressful. So if it’s going to be stressful one way or the other, you might as well do the thing that’s going to be the biggest thing you could do. And that’s kind of the appeal there. It’s like, yeah, your friend, she had to deal with a lot of things, but now she’s, you know, holding notes and lending money in the East Coast.

Ginger Faith (30:42.792)
Yeah, right, right, right. Yeah, yeah, you just have to make sure you can support financially. So if you could financially support whatever you get into until you turn it, everything else you can figure out. You’re not going to go under, but people will go under if they can’t financially support it. If they bite up more than they can chew, you know, then they’re in trouble. There’s a there’s an opportunity zone fund. I just went to two things. I just with my friends, I just bought

a 30,000 square foot mixed-use property in Sacramento proper overlooking the capital is a former former Regis Hotel And we got together me, you know, they spearheaded it I became a limited partner with that. So I’m one of the owners. So that’s really cool. So then

Dylan Silver (31:18.504)
Wow.

Dylan Silver (31:28.669)
Yeah.

Ginger Faith (31:30.646)
And then in the process after that, I started connecting with some brokers in the area and I had a tour of Sacramento with one of the like literally the kingpin broker commercial in downtown. He leases everything, sells and leases everything. Very successful guy. So he took me on a two hour tour of some properties in Sacramento, Midtown and Sacramento proper. And one of the things I found interesting was there was this really big opportunity zone company. Okay. They bought two

magnificent properties in 2019. One of them I think is really interesting because it’s completely vacant, it’s 40,000 square feet, it’s absolutely stunning. It’s office space and then a rooftop bar, completely empty. And they bought it for five, like five and a half million and they put in about 13 million dollars in renovating it.

Dylan Silver (32:16.849)
Wow.

Dylan Silver (32:24.189)
Mm.

Ginger Faith (32:25.43)
and now they can’t lease it out to what the bank is now recasting their loan. Now they’re into it for what is it? 13 and it’s like almost 20 million, know, including varying costs, et cetera, And they’re selling it for like eight and a half million.

Dylan Silver (32:30.61)
Hmm.

Dylan Silver (32:35.766)
Right.

Dylan Silver (32:43.493)
Wow, so this was really a conglomeration of things rolling downhill quickly. It sounds like the bank put some restrictions on them. spent they overspent in rehab, which can happen and then the market where it’s at. So it’s they’re taking their losses.

Ginger Faith (33:02.489)
COVID, yeah, yeah. So that’s the dark side of thinking big. you grew up with a $200,000 house, you may be into it for 100 grand, right? So, but this is a whole nother conversation. And I think that’s why people don’t get into commercial real estate, it is a dangerous game if you don’t buy right, and if you don’t have enough financial backing.

Dylan Silver (33:08.893)
You can can get it wait a lot and you can lose a lot a lot

Dylan Silver (33:27.038)
Yeah, the leverage that’s there.

Ginger Faith (33:30.24)
to be very, very respected. It’s a game that needs to be respected. And yet there’s tremendous upside.

Dylan Silver (33:40.847)
Ginger, we’re coming up on time here, but with all your experience and the many areas of real estate that you’ve been an operator in, from talking with you, it’s clear that building these relationships, these strategic relationships, people that you trust and through mentorship and different opportunities and through a constant thirst for knowledge, you’ve been able to do everything that I could think of one could do in the real estate space or

part of almost everything. Would you say that relationship building is really the key to everything here?

Ginger Faith (34:17.334)
No, I think it’s a piece of the pie piece of the pie You need to analyze deals depends on what you it depends on the on the area right the cool thing about real estate the cool thing about real estate what I like to tell people is that you know if you have something if you find out what your natural genius is and Then you just you focus on your natural genius it can it can actually take you very far as long as you plug in the holes with competent

Dylan Silver (34:26.383)
Okay.

Ginger Faith (34:45.384)
trustworthy, high integrity people. Whether that be a VA, whether that be a partner, right? Because if you’re natural geniuses people and you can find somebody who like they’re just a numbers cruncher. They’re very comfortable crunching numbers and they don’t really want to be out there. Then you got rocket fuel provided you trust each other, you know. I’ve got friends like couples, you know the…

Dylan Silver (35:09.404)
Mm-hmm.

Ginger Faith (35:13.044)
the wife’s the number cruncher and the executor and the husband’s the, you know, go get a networker kind of thing or vice versa, right? And I’m doing both because I don’t have a partner at this time. But I have a lot of partners, not a single partner. So I end up hiring things out that I am not as good in. But at the same time, I…

Dylan Silver (35:20.336)
And you were doing both.

Dylan Silver (35:30.832)
Yeah.

Ginger Faith (35:38.582)
When it comes to the numbers, the buck stops here 100%. You’ve got to know your, you’ve got to be, know, Warren Buffett says everybody should have some accounting. It takes some accounting classes because if you want to make money, you’ve got to have, you got to be comfortable with numbers. And if you’re not comfortable with numbers, have a choice, two choices. You can get comfortable with numbers, you can learn, or you can not have money. you know, that’s really, right.

Dylan Silver (36:01.021)
Yeah.

I completely agree. My mentor and I have a phrase we call it asset management, which is like everything, everything is coming down to asset management, like your daily decisions. He was a he was he worked for Edward Jones before he got into the real estate space. So that was, you know, what he was doing. And it’s it’s spilled over to me because now I’m looking at everything I’m doing on a very on a low level, on a humble level and thinking like, OK, is this is this the best use of my time, my money?

And on a big level, evaluating deals is the same thing. you know, to your point, Ginger, it’s not just connecting and being able to do that and selling. It’s also deal analysis.

Ginger Faith (36:45.59)
For sure for sure yeah, yeah, it’s the most charming people go bust so

Dylan Silver (36:49.903)
Well folks,

Dylan Silver (36:54.172)
that way. Yeah, it can be a dangerous game. We’re coming up on time here. Ginger, how can folks get a hold of you?

Ginger Faith (37:03.762)
I’m just Ginger Crystal Faith, a real estate broker. I’m on LinkedIn. have a couple of… I’ve got a YouTube channel, Facebook, Ginger Crystal Faith Real Estate. It’s pretty easy. I’m the only Ginger Crystal Faith, I think, that’s in real estate.

Dylan Silver (37:20.921)
think so. I think so. I’ve only I’ve only ever heard of one of you. Well, folks, that wraps up the show here today. Hope you got some great value and know that analyzing these deals being able to connect with a lot of people can can help you start from just being someone on the outside to being on the inside to flipping 52 properties to being a real estate broker, mortgage broker and more. So until next time, this is Dylan Silver with the real estate

pros podcast and thanks for listening.