Subscribe via:
Show Summary
In this conversation, Laura Navaquin shares her journey in real estate investing, emphasizing the power of creative financing and community support. She discusses how she and her husband scaled their portfolio from four to 21 properties in a short time, the challenges they faced, and the importance of resilience and networking in the industry. Laura also introduces her new program, Beyond Commissions, aimed at helping real estate agents build passive income streams. She encourages aspiring investors to take action and explore creative financing options to overcome financial barriers.
Resources and Links from this show:
-
Listen to the Audio Version of this Episode
Investor Fuel Show Transcript:
Laura Navaquin (00:00)
Yeah, so ultimately, I would just like to further express to individuals that getting started with real estate investing is entirely possible with very little capital. And due to creative financing, I highly encourage anyone that’s interested in investing.to look into creative financing because it did wonders for us. And again, I’ve met so many people that have been sitting on the sidelines for five, 10 plus years with one property or just haven’t even gotten started because they’re waiting to see the traditional way. And it does work, but it’s slow. So it really being able to dive into creative financing.
opens up so many other opportunities whether you plan to scale five doors a year or 20 doors a year.
Quentin Edmonds (02:18)
Hello, everyone. Welcome to the Real Estate Pros podcast. I am your host, Q Edmonds, and I am super excited to be here today. We’re having some technical issues like our screen keep coming in and out, but this content that you’re about to getfrom this young lady is going to be so great that I got to power through. got to push through. I’m sending all kind of help screens out to see if somebody can help me out. But this content is going to be amazing. The value that she’s going to get is going to be awesome. She’s going to talk to you about creative financing. Creative financing has helped her out tremendously. And that’s something that she’s going to talk about, amongst other things. But I know that’s one of the main things that she’s going to give you that’s really going to be able to help you out today. And so I’m so excited to introduce you all to Ms. Laura Navaquin Miss Laura, how are you doing and did I get that last name right?
Laura Navaquin (03:10)
You did, you did. And thank you so much for having me here this morning.Quentin Edmonds (03:13)
Absolutely, I’m so glad that you’re here. And listen, I want to be honest, I kind of want to dive in. I want you to tell the people what your main focus is these days. You want to give us a little bit of an origin story. We would love an origin story of kind of how you got started into the real estate space. And also, if you don’t mind telling us what part of the world you’re in. And so, Ms. Laura, ma’am, you have floor.Laura Navaquin (03:34)
Thank you so much. Well, I’m calling in today from central Florida. And ⁓ just to share a little bit before I dive into what we’re currently into these days, share about how we got into real estate in the first place, because I never saw myself in real estate at all. So it was my husband who had an interest in real estate, ⁓ going back over a decade. And he kept talking about it.And to me, maybe investing in real estate one day was to have a second home that we rented out or went to time and throughout the years. And there was a conference coming through town at the time we lived in New York City. And I signed us up for it. We went to a four day conference and we were sold, ultimately myself as well.
So we ended up signing up for a mentorship and courses. And at that time, we were working extra jobs, jobs and gigs on the side to pay off student loans. So in order to sign up for these courses, it was a big ask for us. And we had to take out another loan to cover our courses. But we figured at that time, if we can just make this work enough to at least pay back that loan, we can say we tried it out.
So we started out with wholesaling because we didn’t necessarily have the additional capital at the time to start building our portfolio. We would go out and walk for dollars at the time and start working on our wholesales to make it work. And we did. And I really think it was that urgency under us ultimately to make it work, to pay back our loans that we did. In the first year, I can’t remember how many we did the first year alone. I think it was about eight wholesales.
But it really motivated us to continue moving forward that helped us pay off student loans, our credit card debts, traveled the world a bit before getting married, pay for a destination, wanting to have our guests come out and whatnot. It really encouraged us. And then in 2019, that’s when we started building our real estate portfolio. And we started building it the traditional way. So at that time, we had some capital saved up. Our first property, we bought cash because it was only about $30,000. It was a small little property.
and the outskirts or upstate New York. And that was our first go of adding a property to our portfolio.
Thereafter, we started growing in the next three properties. We were saving and saving, cashing out stock for those down payments. And we purchased those with traditional mortgages, so two conventional and one FHA. And it wasn’t until 2023 with the job that I had at the time, I was in the corporate world, health insurance.
I traveled frequently with my sales team and we had just had our second child and realized that I enjoyed what I was doing, but I didn’t want to be traveling on a weekly basis saying good night via FaceTime, missing out on my kids practices ⁓ that I figured I’ll leave the role and maybe take some time off and revisit looking for another role a couple of months down the road. But when I took that time off, it really turned on a switch within me to figure, let me use this time.
wisely and start working on building our portfolio further. And that’s when I leaned into creative financing due to a connection that I had from a community that I was in who was quite successful at creative financing. So I already kind of had some ideas of what it what pertained to, but didn’t necessarily know how to go in. And I really leaned on her to give me oversight on what these methods are, how to really use them. And it encouraged me to start acting with it. And
Ultimately, to my surprise, I’ve never gone back to a corporate role. It’s been about two, almost three years, but that’s because we were able to scale our portfolio from four to 21 properties via using OPM, which is other people’s money, and creative financing, pair those together, along with the BRRR method, which had us continuously recycling funds, so that we grew our portfolio, as I mentioned, from four to 21 properties in six, it was like 16, 17 months or so.
Quentin Edmonds (08:18)
Miss Laura, thank you. Thank you for the rundown. Absolutely awesome. I love it. You know, the intentionality to make sure you didn’t want to be in debt, want to pay back, you know, the student loans, the way you are, you know, navigated that. I love how 2019 you started building your portfolio. You was in health insurance. You was in a place where you like, I don’t know if I’m not doing this right. And then you can say to put yourself in position where paying off that travel a little bit.Cashing out stocks to really, know, power to dream. just love the way that y’all attack destiny, The moments, right? And I have a saying where I say destiny has no wasted moments. Meaning no matter what you go through in life, there is stops along the way to kind of fortify who you are now. And so I would love to know what has these moments taught you about yourself? While you’re building real estate, you’re making these decisions.
What has it illuminated characteristics that is illuminated about you? You know, I know some people is like it’s discipline. It’s consistency is that how to hold off on what you want the most? I mean what you want right now in the moment for what you want most so destiny has a way of revealing things to you. What has it revealed to you, Miss Laura?
Laura Navaquin (09:29)
Yeah, so I would say it’s a few different things. And one part of that, as you mentioned, is consistency. So when I left my corporate role, I would hear of other people speaking about how they would work two hours a day. And it was just kind of working for them. And that sounded appealing. But I knew that I had to show up each and every day for regular work hours to make sure that I was really turning over and bringing something out of what I was doing. I’ve Isay that consistency really helped us in that first year alone, which is getting things going and making things turn out. But the other thing is also stepping out of my comfort zone and really pushing myself out time after time. And I really say this throughout my career even prior to is that that brings growth and other opportunities. But then especially when you’re going into something that’s a little newer, a little out of your regular scope.
There are things that you’re uncomfortable with still. by pushing yourself to step out of those comfort zones, to grow, to see new opportunities, to meet new people. And I also feel that that really helped. And the last thing that I want to mention there is really resilience. with being a real estate investor amongst many other things out there, it’s not all
Rainbows and butterflies every single time there are hardships and things that arise and how are you going to get over them and continue your journey? Because that doesn’t mean it’s the end it’s not working out and you’re supposed to wash your hands and give up ⁓ It’s about continually finding resolutions to those and learning your lessons from those Incidents I wouldn’t call them incidences, but those are her it says as well and continue moving forward And I promise you as long as you continue moving forward you continue learning
You continue adapting and you continue growing.
Quentin Edmonds (11:50)
I love it. Yeah, I have a saying. It’s not my saying, but I’ve borrowed the saying trials come to make you strong. That’s why the trial come. And if you don’t let it break you, it will make you strong. It may bend you, but you won’t have to let it break you. Right. And bending is a flexibility is the point to be able to be malleable that you may bend, but you will bounce back. And so the trial comes to fortify you to make you stronger. Right. And so I love how you said that. And I love that. And I appreciate it so much.And I’m sure you know this, watching know it too, there are deals that don’t go the way we expect them to go, right? There are times when we have to pivot fast. There are times when we have to think on the fly. And so I would love to know as you was growing, what is some adversity that you bumped up against as you was growing from four doors to 21? I mean, has it been easy? the process seamless or was there some adversity?
Laura Navaquin (12:42)
Yeah, it definitely wasn’t all gravy, if you will. We were growing and I would say we grew rather rapidly and it was really exciting and it really kept the engine going as far as we can do this, let’s get the next one. And we got more comfortable with analyzing deals, making offers and closing.But no matter how well you analyze a deal, and that’s also why I stress that you need to add that padding for things to go wrong. And if things don’t go wrong, that’s just additional profit in your pocket. But we’ve had deals as well. A few of them. One in particular, we analyze a deal, we were rehabbing the deal or the property. And in the midst of the rehab, found out that there was a leak, thought, OK, no big deal, small leak, let’s get it repaired, had plumbing come in.
to find out that due to the plumbing system throughout the entire property, it was outdated, it had some issues, and basically had to replace the piping in the entire property so that we didn’t have to open up walls again in a couple months. And that was over like $25,000 over budget. So that also taught us very quickly to pad a little extra.
just to feel a little more comfortable in other deals that we make because we did have that property inspected. And that was just unforeseen issues behind the wall that we had no idea about. And that’s just one instance. have stories for days on end. just expressing that everything isn’t going to work out as you imagined. And you need to be able to bounce back, find solutions in the moment, and don’t let those moments break you.
that you just give up and you say that this isn’t meant to be because we still profited not as significantly for that from that property. And we ended up deciding to hold it instead of flip it so that we can let the market go back up and profit from it. Yeah, more so down the road.
Quentin Edmonds (14:37)
⁓ I love it. mean, I just love your perspective. I the way you put a plan in action. Of course, of action that you take. I absolutely love it. I’m sure like people are listening to you like, okay, you know, this makes total sense. And so I had to actually miss Laura. What is your next real goal? Were you looking to solve a scale next?Laura Navaquin (14:55)
Yeah, so a few things that we personally are looking to add to our portfolio again this year, we took it a little slower last year because we’re working on some other goals. We also added our fourth baby to our family. So we were a little busy. And but this year, adding to our portfolio again, as well as helping others get into investing. I go to so many different meetups and networking events. And some of the biggest challenges I hear from people is thatthey are scared or just can’t invest or will one day once they have enough saved up. And I am so ⁓ excited about sharing with people the possibility of creative financing. Because if it wasn’t for creative financing, I don’t believe we would have 21 properties in our portfolio currently and have been able to do the flips that we’ve been able to do. That really helped us acquire properties with very little to no cash out of pocket for each of those deals.
So I’m very excited about helping others get their investment journey started there. And then also, we recently launched Beyond Commissions, which is an entire program that we’ve been in the works of last year. It took about eight to 10 months or so in development, a little longer if you plan all the planning behind it and not the program development. ⁓ But building that out specifically for real estate agents and brokers and helping them build a fund and a portfolio that
gives profit share equity and helps agents not rely 100 % on commissions.
Quentin Edmonds (17:01)
Again, I love your course of action and I love how you naturally transition to, hey, I want to help people. And so I’m gonna listen to you very closely. You’ve been saying we, we, we, you started talking from jump about what you and your husband did together, like how y’all put this thing together. And like now you want to talk about helping people. So I want to talk about relationships for a little bit. Relationship within business, relationships and like your husband is your business partner.I would love to know what’s your perspective on how a healthy relationship looks within business, like a business relationship, and if building relationships with other people within business is important to you. So I would love to know your perspective when it comes to relationships.
Laura Navaquin (17:43)
Yes, definitely. And I think your community and your relationships is so beneficial. And for so many reasons, it’s not just for the next deal. Relationships. So when I say we, my husband and I are partners, we went in on this together. And I wouldn’t be in real estate if it wasn’t for him in the very beginning. But since then, we’ve grown our own team.thank them all the time as well because I can’t handle everything that we do all by myself. And then the other component to that when I say we is because I go out and they meet so many different individuals that are experienced or starting out at networking events, ⁓ different groups that I’m in. And it’s for the relationships that not just brings the next deal, as I mentioned, but also opens your eyes and introduce you to new opportunities, new partners, and those partners could be funding partners.
They could be partners that bring you in on a syndication deal or another opportunity, refer to you an off market property, which of course I love off market properties because the spread is that much more significant. So really leveraging and building those relationships because you don’t know what’s going to come from those relationships. They turn you on to a new idea. Just as myself was introduced to creative financing due to the relationships that I was building a few years back.
Quentin Edmonds (18:58)
Love it. Absolutely love it, Ms. Laura. Listen, let me ask you, is there any topics that you wanted to discuss that we have not hit on yet? Or, and is there any other words of encouragement, motivation, education that maybe you wanted to leave people? If it is, we would love to hear it.Laura Navaquin (19:15)
Yeah, so ultimately, I would just like to further express to individuals that getting started with real estate investing is entirely possible with very little capital. And due to creative financing, I highly encourage anyone that’s interested in investing.to look into creative financing because it did wonders for us. And again, I’ve met so many people that have been sitting on the sidelines for five, 10 plus years with one property or just haven’t even gotten started because they’re waiting to see the traditional way. And it does work, but it’s slow. So it really being able to dive into creative financing.
opens up so many other opportunities whether you plan to scale five doors a year or 20 doors a year.
I’ve known people have done 40 doors a year. So really opening up your eyes to that and with that I would even like to invite you over to ourselves because we have a community that we run and where we assist individuals with various different methods and strategies of creative financing, how to access OPM, how to marry the two together,
and then handhold you through the process. The other thing that I would want to mention and highly encourage anyone is just taking the leap. ⁓ Because with anything that you do that is new, you’re sitting by the sidelines and you’re a little fearful because of what might go wrong, ⁓ what people are going to think about you, you’re scared of losing money, you need to take the leap and…
Of course, educate yourself, but don’t sit by the sidelines educating yourself for 10 years either never making an action. Just take the leap surround yourself with the right community and start putting action into movements.
Quentin Edmonds (21:01)
I love it. And the interesting thing about the leap, the longer you take to actually take the leap, the bigger the gap looks to you. And it’s like, the longer you take, the more it’s like, this is a bigger leap. The next year is like, this is even a bigger leap. Two years is like, this is even a bigger leap. So the leap, that distance looks longer, the longer you take to actually take the leap. And so I hear you. think that’s amazing advice. Miss Laura, I thank you so much.Someone wanted to reach out to you, connect with you, collaborate with you, learn more about what you’re doing. How can they get in contact with you?
Laura Navaquin (21:35)
Yeah, so they can follow us on social media. Myself is my name, Laura Navaquin ⁓ as well as reach out to us on our website, which is join.realestatehive.co, and as well as LinkedIn, which I can provide you with our links to include in the show notes.Quentin Edmonds (21:53)
Absolutely, absolutely. So this is what I want to do. I want to say three things to you. First, I to thank you for your time because you know your time is very precious. It’s a precious commodity. You got four babies that’s depending on you. So trust a father, including your husband. If he ain’t anything like me, he probably a big baby. your time is very valuable. So thank you for your time. Two, thank you for your story. I believe everybody’s stories.impact people differently and can help them along their journey. So I believe our personal narratives are so important. So thank you so much for your story. And lastly, thank you for your perspective, for your mindset and bringing that mindset to this platform. I truly greatly appreciate it. Thank you so much for being here today.
Laura Navaquin (22:36)
Thank you so much for having me. I truly appreciate it.Quentin Edmonds (22:38)
Absolutely. So listen, y’all heard Miss Laura, you got a story, you heard the nuggets you dropped in. Definitely check out in the show notes, we got how to connect with the end show notes. But definitely make sure you’re subscribed here, because I promise you, we’re going to continue to bring up amazing people just like Miss Laura. So Miss Laura, thank you again. And so everyone else, we’ll see you on the next time.
