Unlock Your Real Estate Potential: 7 Strategies for Introverted Investors

John Harcar (00:01.029)
All right. Hey guys, welcome back to the show. I’m your host, John Harcar. And I’m here today with a good friend of mine, Leydi Zora. And what we’re going to talk to her about besides her real estate journey, we’re going to talk about really the power of relationships and really how to make that happen, especially maybe if you’re an introvert, right? Or someone doesn’t feel comfortable out in the spotlight. Remember guys, at Investor Fuel, we help real estate investors, our service providers, mean, all real estate entrepreneurs, two to five extra business.

We do it by providing tools and resources to grow that business you’ve always wanted to have and kind of in turn live that life you’ve always dreamed of. So lady, welcome to my show.

Leydi (00:39.714)
Hi John, I’m happy to be here.

John Harcar (00:41.949)
I was so excited when I saw you book. Just for some of the folks, we’ve done some business together. And I’m excited to talk about the power relationships because that’s kind of how we met. But before we get into all that, do me a favor and kind of give our audience some information about you, kind of your background, maybe how you got into real estate and what got you here.

Leydi (01:06.286)
Okay, well, yeah, my name is Lady. I’m originally from Colombia, South America, and I came here originally for, you know, my studies. I am an engineer by trade. And right now I’m full-time real estate, so that’s a story, but I’m an engineer by trade and came here, like I said, from Colombia.

The way I started in real estate was like a lot of people house hacking, right? Bought my first property and kind of rented out the basement to somebody else and kind of scaled from there while having my main W too. So.

John Harcar (01:50.469)
OK, very interesting. And a lot of folks, I mean, it seems like a lot of folks that I’ve talked to recently have got their start at house hacking. But let’s kind of back up a little bit. You were a college athlete, yes? And I think I recall Arkansas State.

Leydi (02:03.042)
Yes, tennis.

Arkansas State, yes, is when I first moved from Columbia to Arkansas, which I had never heard of.

John Harcar (02:17.335)
And then you studying engineering, was there any influences, anybody in your family, any friends, maybe someone that you knew at college that was doing any type of real estate that maybe planted a seed?

Leydi (02:33.612)
Yeah, I would say if I think about it, my parents, like, even though, you know, we grew up kind of middle class and things like that, my dad always tried to put savings aside to kind of have like another property as rental and things like that. In Colombia, it’s a lot tougher and maybe it’s not, you know, the rents and all that work very different in a way. But I think that that was part of

like what planted the seed, like you said, in my family.

John Harcar (03:08.509)
Did he ever take you on any appointments to see places or did he involve you in any of the stuff that he did for these rentals and whatnot?

Leydi (03:18.912)
Not necessarily. I would just say like this, it came more from like the importance of having a home, you know, so like I, when I graduated, I worked really hard to kind of buy my house, right? And then it turned into being able to house hack and kind of get in, start digging about real estate from there. But it wasn’t like I grew up with my dad as an investor or anything like that. Yeah.

John Harcar (03:44.637)
Okay, okay. Did you know about the house hack when you were doing the house hack?

Leydi (03:50.482)
No, I don’t even think that like expression really exists. Yeah, yeah. It was just like, Hey, how can I save money? And, you know, it was actually a friend of mine and she was looking for a place and then I kind of showed her my property and we started talking and she was like, Hey, what if I lived in your basement? And I was like, why not? yes. And yeah, exactly.

John Harcar (03:52.743)
It was a term. Yeah.

John Harcar (04:13.319)
Okay, yeah, out with the rent, you know?

What turned you from engineering to real estate? Was it a book? Was it a meeting? Was it something that you started studying, stumbled across or anything like that?

Leydi (04:31.266)
Yeah, would say the later one. I just started looking into it and for whatever reason, I do think real estate has a lot to do with numbers and things like that. And maybe that’s what I had an affinity for it. just, yeah, like there are so many unknowns, but also so many things you can create. And I feel like I had that side of me that maybe I wasn’t using as much at work.

John Harcar (04:45.213)
Mm-hmm.

Leydi (05:00.47)
It kind of planted that seed to look more into it and see how I could feel more.

John Harcar (05:07.109)
And you started off working a W-2 job and then doing real estate on the side. you get into investing, real estate investing, fixed flip, wholesale, or did you get into the traditional real estate of being an agent?

Leydi (05:21.07)
It was more the investing side. I actually got my license just about four and a half years ago or so now that I’m in California. But yeah, it was mainly as the buy and hold investor, more of the traditional way, conventional, know, the 20 % down and kind of go from there.

John Harcar (05:28.656)
Okay.

John Harcar (05:43.025)
Got it. So you saw someone paying your rent, living in your basement or helping with your rent in the bay or your payment in the basement. So you’re like, Hey man, I can turn this into a business. Let me get some more. What were some of the struggles when you started?

Leydi (05:52.534)
Yeah, yeah.

Leydi (05:56.814)
I would say like in terms of living or do you mean like starting as

John Harcar (06:01.829)
In terms of starting the investment journey of buying rentals and managing rentals or all those types of things.

Leydi (06:07.897)
Yeah, I would say one thing that’s important is kind of having that structure of like, let’s say if my ultimate goal is to get another property, right? How much do I need to save in order to achieve that? So being kind of structured and very organized with kind of keeping that as a priority because it’s very easy to, hey, you know what, let me go here or do this, do that. And then all of a sudden, you know, that bucket is not growing enough.

as you want it to.

John Harcar (06:38.013)
Did you reach out to any mentors to learn, I mean, to learn the rental game? Did you have any, you know, joined any masterminds? Did you do any, you know, course studies?

Leydi (06:49.166)
I joined a sub two, which is where we met that that’s now at two and a half years ago, two years ago, more or less. so that was my first mentorship. And I do think like, if I had joined perhaps sooner or like to other mentorships, maybe things will have scaled faster because in sub two, I got to meet a lot of people that perhaps because of

John Harcar (06:56.165)
Mm-hmm, I think so. Yeah.

Leydi (07:16.056)
the way I am right, like not necessarily outgoing and like extrovert, it’s harder to build those relationships. And so if I had started that sooner, perhaps, you know, who knows? There could have been relationships that I could have built sooner, but I’m not regarding anything.

John Harcar (07:26.897)
Okay.

John Harcar (07:34.269)
Were you buying your properties? mean, how many properties did you have prior to sub 2? Or has that been your particular primary way to buy property?

Leydi (07:44.065)
No, we have about six doors coming into SOC 2. It’s more than double now. So we’re growing, but not exponentially, but steady.

John Harcar (07:58.203)
What was the main reason for the big growth, the mania double 2X?

Leydi (08:03.766)
So the main reason I would say is relationships and being able to network with people that are actively doing the same. That way you get to have more exposure to things, Like kind of what you mentioned initially, like being able to be part of a community or of a mastermind or of a group where that’s kind of what people talk about. You can be…

exposed to a lot more of those opportunities definitely.

John Harcar (08:34.215)
Well, you being an introvert, mean, self-described introvert, what, I mean, it’s the, like you said, it’s not easy to go to it. I’ve been to these meetings, right? I’ve been to these functions, the events that they have. I mean, it’s not easy to go put yourself in some of those vulnerable situations. I mean, what kind of mindset things, tools, resources did you use to kind of help you break out of your shell?

Leydi (08:38.638)
you

Leydi (08:46.232)
Mm-hmm.

Leydi (08:58.506)
Yeah, I would say actually, I still struggle with that quite a bit, like trying to make the effort to go to a meetup or, you but I would say it’s like looking at the end goal more than just like, do I really like doing this or not? And a great example is that actually last week or the week prior, there was a meetup here, very close by, and I was like about to

you know, cancel and say, you know what, I can just go next time. But I just decided to go there and I met an appraiser who actually knew some lenders and also might be a good connection for some nonprofits that could help us with one of the projects we’re working on. And so I was like, you know, like I never thought I would meet you here, but I’m glad I came. So

John Harcar (09:32.253)
Yeah.

Leydi (09:56.078)
You never know who you might meet or how you can bring value to somebody else. And so just looking at it as like the end goal makes things worth it and getting out of the house.

John Harcar (10:09.393)
that well, no, I mean, and you know, it’s funny, a lot of people are afflicted by this, right, by that, that, that fear of putting yourself out there and some of these I was at the beginning, right? When I got into some of the bigger groups, I’m like, man, I don’t know if I, you know, I don’t want I can I bring value? Am I going to bug these people? But that’s how we met. And then what happened after we met? We did a deal together. Right. So that’s the that’s the power of it. Right. That’s the power of being able to meet. So let’s talk a little let’s talk a little about that. So

Leydi (10:23.726)
Yeah. Yes.

Yeah.

John Harcar (10:37.393)
Folks that are having trouble maybe getting out there and putting out there, what are some of the best ways that you’ve found to not only overcome it, but to just go that extra step, whether it’s do an extra meetup a week or do stuff like that. What have you found that’s helped you?

Leydi (10:55.534)
to like do more of it or

John Harcar (10:58.395)
Or just be more involved and not be held back and reserved and introverted, to be more out there.

Leydi (11:08.302)
I would say like it also, there is always like when you go there, there’s always good conversations and that’s something that I need to remind myself, right? Like I, thing that I do is I plan it in advance. So I get reminders and I guess mentally getting prepared that, tomorrow, right? Like I have this meetup and I’m more ready for it. But once you’re there, I would say the connections that you make are.

John Harcar (11:28.231)
Mm-hmm.

Leydi (11:37.666)
can be very meaningful and just having that reminder, it’s kind of like an incentive to keep going. Like today, there is one downtown LA and it’s gonna be horrible to drive there. it seems like pace is coming. So I know a lot of people are gonna show up. it’s gonna be worth it.

John Harcar (11:44.871)
Got it.

John Harcar (11:51.677)
405 traffic? No way!

John Harcar (11:57.527)
cool.

John Harcar (12:03.439)
Why was it important to you to have a mentor? In this case, obviously Pace and the sub two group. Why was it important to you as opposed to just kinda keep doing it on your own, man? YouTube’s got a lot of information.

Leydi (12:16.878)
I would say it’s going back to people with purpose, right? So like when you’re in a community for a specific thing, so in this case, real estate investing, it’s easier to find people that have similar mindset, right, or similar goals, or that can complement you. And so that’s what a community or a mentor

John Harcar (12:33.789)
Mm-hmm.

Leydi (12:43.362)
can help with. They usually have communities, they know people. And so that helps to make things easier because it’s not like we can’t do it all right. And there is always someone that’s going to complement especially if we want to like grow a business. Kind of like he talks about the integrator and the what is the other one? Like kind of like the visionary, right? The Asian. So

John Harcar (12:59.005)
Mm-hmm.

John Harcar (13:09.257)
the visionary in the

Leydi (13:12.575)
It’s not like even though you might be good at a little bit of everything that you will be able to do everything. So having that complement is really important.

John Harcar (13:23.377)
I think it’s, think really it is to just to learn from other people’s mistakes, right? Sure. It’s, it’s kind of the shortcut. You know what I mean? but in the case of, know, of, like PACE and the sub two group, it’s about having that community to, to reflect on, to, to, to get help with whenever you need it, right? If as long as you’re vulnerable, vulnerable enough to ask.

Leydi (13:28.738)
That too. Absolutely.

Leydi (13:42.646)
Yeah.

Exactly. No, percent I agree.

John Harcar (13:46.385)
What is your business look like today? What’s Lady doing today? I know you have some out of state stuff that you’ve told me before. So fill us in on what you’re doing.

Leydi (13:56.716)
Yeah, so still we’ve been focusing on single family homes. So I do think that and that’s one thing that let’s say Pesce says in his community, not trying to do everything at the same time. But I mean, at least when you’re starting, they say, like do 30 days or 60 days off something, right. But I would say for us, it has been single family. And so right now, the focus is to keep scaling with that.

And we also have a project in Southern California right now that’s going to be a development, small development type of project. And so kind of very excited about the next step of our journey. Ground up? Yes. So yeah, we have done like fix and flips out of state, but it’s going to be our first ground up.

John Harcar (14:35.101)
exciting.

John Harcar (14:39.783)
So is this your first development? Ground up?

John Harcar (14:51.869)
What, and I know you’re gonna be dealing with Omar. What are some of your fears? Let’s get vulnerable here. What are some of your fears about this property? About the project, I mean.

Leydi (14:55.747)
Yes.

Leydi (15:01.006)
About the property. I would say the project itself. mean, things can go wrong in construction, right? And I would say maybe right now, all the uncertainties about prices and things like that, that could affect our budget. And they want to be the underwriting. So, you know, guess whose fault is going to be if the numbers don’t work. But

John Harcar (15:20.261)
Right. Mm-hmm.

John Harcar (15:29.222)
Right.

Leydi (15:30.806)
But no, think I would say that’s a factor, something that really is unknown to us at this point to what’s going to happen, know, six months on the line or something like that. Once we have the permits and things really start, that will be, that’s the first one that comes to mind.

John Harcar (15:49.661)
Okay. And we know nowadays that it’s really sometimes not about who you know, it’s what you know, I mean not what you know, it’s who you know. We talk about, you know, hiring your weaknesses. So let’s say there’s some folks out there that, you know, they got a deal going and maybe they’re not good at one or two things. What are your strengths? What is the strengths that lady brings to the table? If someone wanted to like to JV or get together and do a deal with you.

Leydi (16:14.734)
So I would say my strengths are definitely the underwriting side, the numbers and making sure that a project is sound or that a property is going to work for whatever exit strategies that we’re trying to do. We usually do long-term rental type of exit strategies so that we can kind of not focus so much on the management side because it’s not as active and focus more on the acquisitions.

John Harcar (16:41.159)
Right.

Leydi (16:44.206)
But yeah, would say that or if somebody has a property that they want to sign or something like that, I could bring value by either purchasing it or, you know, connecting with somebody who might, which is one of the deals we did in North Carolina. don’t know if you remember. So that’s something that.

John Harcar (16:59.165)
Yeah, I do. I do very much very well. Where do you guys see your business going? You’re obviously you have the rental portfolio. You’re getting into ground up. I mean, where do we stop? Where do you guys envision yourself down, you know, year or two down the road?

Leydi (17:20.46)
Yeah, we definitely want to grow more. I found a lot of positive things in being local to the investment, even though, I mean, everything has its pros and cons, right? It’s easier to delegate or you’re forced to delegate when you’re out of state. And so that helps tremendously. But also being local, you have more control of things.

And so I think at the moment we’re going to want to explore that a little bit more with this project and see if we can scale that given that we will have kind of like the construction on like in house, right? And so that’s going to help a lot with having more control of things going well, or if they are not how to pivot because we have that in house.

John Harcar (17:57.329)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

John Harcar (18:08.667)
And I guess there’ll be a lot more answers or clarity after this first one is done. Yeah, so based on your experience and your time in the business and the industry, mean, let’s say someone’s wanting to get into real estate, whether it’s, know, wholesaling, know, flipping, build the ground. What kind of advice or tools or, you know, guidance would you give to someone that wants to kind of get started today?

Leydi (18:13.902)
Exactly.

Leydi (18:35.526)
I, what I’ve, what I’ve been saying lately, honestly, is the, the JV side of things. Instead of someone blindly getting in that just to get into a mentorship and think that, you know, things are going to happen just because you joined something. It will be the networking and meeting somebody that perhaps is actively like doing deals or buying whatever it is that you’re looking to do and see how you can bring value to them or how you can kind of.

Yeah. Complement something that they are doing instead of, yeah, like I said, looking to just get into something. And because you bought these, all of the sudden things are going to happen and it’s not the case. so I would say that definitely is the best way just shadowing somebody or helping someone on the side, right? Like you don’t have to quit your W2 to go do that.

John Harcar (19:15.815)
Jump in.

John Harcar (19:33.799)
Right?

Leydi (19:33.998)
And then you actually kind of get to see if you really like it because a lot of times it’s just a perception or an idea that we have that things are a certain way but when you get into into it you’re like this is not what I expected and you know I would say

John Harcar (19:49.767)
Sure. No, 100%. And I agree with that wholeheartedly. It’s learning from other people’s mistakes and avoiding those pitfalls, those landmines. And you might give up a little cash right off the bat, but it’s a lot better than paying for the mistakes later. Give up a little bit now to pay a lot later. And what would Lady need? What are some things that, if there’s folks out here, I mean, you’re giving some great value here and maybe someone wants to give back. mean, what could someone

Leydi (20:07.807)
Exactly.

John Harcar (20:18.845)
you know reach out and help you with

Leydi (20:22.286)
I would say right now what we’re mainly looking for is single-family homes like I said in out of state so for us that’s North Carolina, Tennessee, Las Vegas, Nevada and also we’re looking for properties in Southern California but that’s a little bit more of like a constrained buy box I would say like a limited buy box so you know if somebody has someone something here we could talk about it.

John Harcar (20:51.919)
Okay. And you said North Carolina, Tennessee, and Las Vegas. And Las Vegas. Awesome. Well, if any of you guys are out there in those areas and you got deals, work with her, man. I mean, it’s incredible. She’s great at what she does. If folks want to reach out to you about a deal, about maybe just some questions to ask you, I don’t know. mean, how do they get in touch? What’s the best way to reach out to you?

Leydi (20:52.078)
But yeah.

Leydi (20:57.322)
In Las Vegas, yes.

Leydi (21:18.158)
I would say the best way would be Instagram. So it’s lady, L-E-Y-D-I dot R-E-I. you know, I’ll be happy to connect with anybody questions or whatever I can help with. I will be happy to do it.

John Harcar (21:33.265)
Perfect. And we’ll put all the information in the show notes. So guys, if you’re out there and you want to get in touch, you’ll have the way to get a hold of her. Lady, thank you for coming on. It’s great to catch back up with you. And it’s been a while. Guys, I hope you enjoyed the show. I know I did. Hope you took some good notes. And reach out if you want to chalk or have any questions for Lady. See you guys on the next show. Cheers.