Don’t Wait for Tragedy to Start Investing in Real Estate | Sharon Restrepo’s Powerful Story

Sharon Restrepo (00:00)
waiting until a tragedy takes place in your life to do the thing that you really want. And so we, my husband and I, used to run, my current husband and I, we used to run the Florida Real Estate Investors Association. And you know, lot of people know what ARIA is. so when we were there, we ran that for, you know, 14 years. And the thing I would see,

all the time is people who would join this group to learn how to invest in real estate, to get started in real estate. There’s no excuse not to get started.

Q Edmonds (01:39)
Hello, everyone. Welcome to the Real Estate Pros podcast. I am your host, Q Edmonds, and I’m excited to be here today, have another fantastic guest who has a fantastic story. And I say fantastic because it’s intriguing, it’s encouraging, it’s motivational. And so that’s what I mean by fantastic. Some of the content is probably going to touch you.

And ain’t gonna touch you maybe, like touch me maybe in an emotional way, but out of so many pains come purpose. And I believe this woman has found her purpose. I believe that she is driven. She is driven to help others. And I just want you to be able to sit back and relax. should have double checked with her about her last name, but I’m gonna try and she can correct me if I’m wrong. But I wanna introduce you all to Ms. Restrepo.

Sharon Restrepo (02:35)
It’s Restrepo, but not bad, not bad. I am doing great, Quentin. It’s awesome to be here with you. I love this. This is great. I love what you guys are doing.

Q Edmonds (02:36)
⁓ Ms. Restrepo, please forgive me. me put some respect on your name, Ms. Restrepo. Please forgive me, ma’am. How are you doing today, my dear? How are you, ma’am?

Absolutely. But thank you so much for being here. You could have been anywhere else in the world, but you’re here with us. And so I value your time. I value you as a person. And I do, I just want to dive in, Ms. Sharon. I would love for you to tell the people what your main focus is these days. I would definitely would love for you to give us an origin story of kind of how you got from where you are to, you know, from where you are and where you are now.

And also let them know what part of the world you’re in. People love to know where people are geographically, especially if they can reach out to you and say, ooh, this person is close to me. You know, we can do business together, different things like that. So what you’re doing, your origin story and where you are. So Ms. Sharon, you have the floor, ma’am

Sharon Restrepo (03:26)
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

thank you so much, Quentin. Well, everybody, it’s awesome to be here with you. I pray that I share some value with you that just really changes the trajectory of your life where real estate investing is concerned. I know for me, I live, breathe and sleep real estate.

And so I love it. So I’m in North Carolina. We are in a town called Salisbury. It is actually in Rowan County. And so for those who are local, like Quentin says, we lead the Rowan County real estate investors meetup every month. And so you can find us on meetup.com and we’d love to meet you in person if you’re nearby. And so my origin story. Well, I have been doing real estate for over 25 years now. We originally started in South Florida where I was born.

⁓ But I grew up in a home of very, very, very, very, very, I don’t know, poverty minded, scarcity minded parents. And you you’re going to work somewhere your entire life and you’re going to save all your money in the mattress. And one day if you were fortunate, you’d be able to retire, right? And so ⁓ that is hard to break off. And so ⁓ I married young to kind of, I think, escape that.

I don’t know mindset. You really did feel like you were living under a thumb. And so I married a man that had a lot of dreams and I married young. was 16 when I met my first husband and he just dreamed of investing in real estate and having his own business.

But I was I felt like I was his roadblock and he tried really hard to come up with a plan that he could convince me to get behind and I was working for a commercial real estate investment firm and they were basically

doing real estate investments, but in large shopping center type properties. And I would see the money they were making. And I just couldn’t imagine that this is something that I could do. The mindset that I had was so very limiting. And you’re not that person, Sharon. You come from this life and that’s how it’s gonna be. But my husband just had big dreams. And so he came up with this idea that we would take our home that we had purchased as a pre-construction opportunity so we had equity. And we would put it on the market for sale and we would take the equity.

We would move into a fixer upper with the equity. We would live there while we fixed it up and then we would sell it, take the combined profit and do it again and again until we owned our own home free and clear. And then I would quit my job, get my real estate licenses and pursue this dream, right? So this was a long drawn out, very safe plan that I agreed to. And so I did go ahead and go to school at night. But when I did, you we’re talking a long time ago here, so you didn’t have virtual school, you know,

had to go in person every night after work and…

they had a list of things. wasn’t just getting your real estate license. They had the cam and the this and the that. And I thought, well, shoot, I must need all these things. Well, let me tell you, the only license you need is your driver’s license. And now thanks to virtual, you don’t even need that. I mean, you really can do it all, right? Virtually. And so I was like, all right, now we’re ready to list the house. And we listed with a realtor, the sign went in the yard. And two weeks later, when my husband was killed in a tragic accident, you know, at 4am, a police officer knocked on my door to give me the

news in my life completely changed at 25 years old. I really I was telling you earlier I felt like I had two choices at that time. One was to take my life because I

honestly didn’t know what I would do. ⁓ And the other was to pursue his dream of real estate investing on my own. And that’s what I decided to do, obviously. And it was the best thing that I ever did. I never realized that it would become my passion. I mean, I eat, breathe and sleep real estate. I am so blessed because I get to do what I absolutely love. get to help other people do it. Other clients do it. I get to help sellers get out of their circumstances and

⁓

I’ve done probably every different

type of real estate niche that there is. And so I was in South Florida for a very long time. I fortunately remarried an amazing man and together we do this ⁓ business of real estate in all things investing. cater to investors, ⁓ whether sharing, teaching, partnering, ⁓ know, all of those things. And we do wholesaling and flipping and keep rentals. And we also do a lot of being the hands and feet for those that

have the money but don’t want to get their hands dirty. And so whatever that looks like in the real estate world and I have been blessed to be on stages and travel and speak and share stages with some of the big names that people might not know today. But once upon a time before gray hair, that was the life before virtual, know, you physically went, you know, and so I’ve been all over the country and that was a blast for that blip in time that it was. And then I was a little burnt out from that.

and I came off the teaching platform, if you will, and I just focused on real estate. But slowly but surely over the last year, coming back out and sharing again, I work with a lot of 50 plus women who want to be confident in investing. And they’re not necessarily married, they don’t have the support of their husband, or their husband’s like, honey, do whatever you want. And so that’s kind of my niche with who I’m helping and teaching and sharing. ⁓

I love to do all that. And I would say you asked me a great question earlier, but the number one niche of real estate investing that I would advise anybody who’s looking to get started in real estate to pursue is the niche of wholesaling.

am a firm believer that wholesaling is the niche of the industry that allows you to learn every part of the industry, marketing, lead generation, filling out the paperwork, finding buyers. mean, everything, right? Analyzing how much work

the house needs, all of it without the risk of owning the home. And I think that you need to wholesale several, several homes before you actually do your first flip unless it’s a very light rehab. You know, I think that a lot of people get into flipping way too soon and quickly learn that they’ve got to hire five different plumbers for one toilet to get changed. just, don’t know what they don’t know and they don’t have the contacts yet. And so a lot of what I love about wholesaling is

through the course of doing the work, you’re meeting the contractors, you’re getting the budgets, you’re learning so much so that by the time you now ⁓ created the capital through your wholesaling profits, you have the funds to go into your first deal, hopefully all cash, and you don’t have the pressure on you of the private, know, high cost of money and different things. And so I really, really encourage people to…

start out with wholesaling. If they’re making a choice and that’s the question they’re asking, I’m a big proponent of that. So ⁓ that’s one of my top selling courses actually. And so yeah, I hope that answers your question there. Long answer for the short question, but I absolutely love what I get to do and ⁓ I’m happy to be here to share it.

Q Edmonds (12:03)
Yeah.

Absolutely, no, Ms. Sharon definitely definitely answered the question. mean, I love I’m a big I love stories. So we’re faith based. know, Jesus taught in parables and so stories just have a way of just planting seeds and people like me to have vivid imaginations as you talk out minds just kind of expand, you know, and just can see different.

pictures as you talk. And I know everybody’s not like that, but I know for me, but I just do know stories. Nothing in this world moves without story. Everything has a story component to it. So I’m saying that to say thank you for the gift of your transparency and vulnerability with sharing your story, sharing your journey, how you got from where you are. ⁓ I don’t know why I couldn’t get the statement out today, but taking us from where you were, there it is, to where you are now.

Sharon Restrepo (13:04)
You

Q Edmonds (13:07)
You know, even just talking about your parents, you know, just having them change your mindset from when you were younger, right? Because we’re such products of our environment, our mindset, you know, there are things are even, you know, that kind of baked in us from when we young, just from our mindset of just growing up in our environment, but even changing your mindset to get married young, know, married young, met your husband when you were 16 and then…

Sharon Restrepo (13:24)
Yeah.

Q Edmonds (13:33)
him just, and I love how he gave you the dream, showed you the dream and how you bought into the dream. Like he was like, okay, you as you was talking, I’m like, he like, okay, babe, like, okay, you know, I hear it, okay, you know, and you finally give into the dream to you now really having to run with his dream. And I have this saying, Ms. Sharon, that I say probably once a podcast, that destiny has no wasted moments.

Sharon Restrepo (13:40)
you

Q Edmonds (14:00)
Right? Meaning no matter what you go through in life, moments define who you are today. And it’s these compound moments that just as you keep going through life, you take on bits and pieces of the pain, you take bits and pieces of the success, the joy, and it kind of makes you the person that you are today. So Ms. Sharon, I would love to know just out of these moments in your life, even from your childhood,

Sharon Restrepo (14:20)
Exactly.

Q Edmonds (14:27)
to your young adult, to adulthood, to now helping 50 plus women. What have these moments taught you about yourself? Have they taught you resilience? Have they taught you humility, discipline? Like what has these moments taught you about your image?

Sharon Restrepo (14:41)
That’s a great question. ⁓ Well, mean, my friends say I should wear a shirt that says fear fears me because I’ll do anything. So I thought that was pretty cool. It’s not that I’m not afraid. I want to you know what I really want to encourage people. know and hopefully this isn’t going to answer your question. But what if I had to say what’s the regret? OK, ⁓ it would be

Q Edmonds (14:51)
⁓ boy. Yeah, I that.

Sharon Restrepo (15:09)
waiting until a tragedy takes place in your life to do the thing that you really want. And so we, my husband and I, used to run, my current husband and I, we used to run the Florida Real Estate Investors Association. And you know, lot of people know what ARIA is. so when we were there, we ran that for, you know, 14 years. And the thing I would see,

all the time is people who would join this group to learn how to invest in real estate, to get started in real estate. There’s no excuse not to get started.

have everything they need right there, but they would come for years and not do anything until …

There was a tragedy in their life. And my big thing, would always say, don’t wait for the tragedy. Don’t wait for the tragedy. Start now because the people in your life are here now. This is the reason you want to do it. But you know what their tragedy was. It wasn’t the loss of life, thank God. It was the loss of their job.

Q Edmonds (16:46)
Yeah. ⁓

Sharon Restrepo (16:46)
It was the devastating

loss of their job. And unfortunately, so many people, especially in America, put their identity in their job. And so when you lose your job, you feel like you just died. And so it feels tragic. And it feels like it’s the worst thing that could happen when in fact, it is the best thing that could happen because you’ve been showing up to learn how to jump into a new path for so long, but fear is keeping you bound. Well, God just got rid of that for you, right? And so now,

it’s time to take your hand off that doorknob from the past and just move forward. And so that’s my big, hey, don’t wait for the tragedy, right? Because I was so, so scared of saying yes to my husband to do this thing that he had to plan out this long-term way to get there for me to wrap my head around it because of my false beliefs of growing up under that poverty thumb, if you will, right? And

So when I finally said yes, my gosh, tragedy strikes. And if I would have said yes three years earlier, four years earlier, would things have been different? I used to think that a lot, right? And we can’t dwell on the past. know, one thing the Lord said to me is like, Sharon, I can’t take you forward if you’re staring in the rear view mirror, right?

Q Edmonds (17:58)
Come on,

come on.

Sharon Restrepo (17:59)
And so

we got to just take that off the vehicle and look forward and hit the gas, press the nitrous button and just go. And, one of the questions I think we can ask ourselves is if I knew I wouldn’t fail, what would I do? Because the likelihood of failure is so much smaller than we think. And so I think that throughout my life, starting from that moment of deciding I’m going to pursue his dream and

just walking through the unknown all the time. Every day was the unknown to me. I didn’t know. Listen, if I wanted information, I didn’t go to chat or Google. I went to the library. Right? I mean, it wasn’t like today. So I think there’s almost too much information that people don’t do anything. And so, but it doesn’t matter. We’re still human.

So we can turn it off and just move forward or whatever we’re going to do. Right. There’s enough information out there and there’s enough people out there willing to hold your hand that you can move forward in it. And so I think I just had to just, you know, walk through one door after the other and just figure it out as I went. You know how they say jump out of the plane and pull the shoot it on the way down. And, you know, I’ve just proven to myself it works out.

Not everything, not every decision has been successful, but even the negative ones. I’m still alive. I’m still here. I’m still eating. You know, I’ve got another great chapter for a book, right? Don’t do this. and so, you know, we just have to take it all. And I think it’s perspective and just say, I’m going to do this and keep, know, keeping your promise to yourself.

Q Edmonds (19:27)
You’re right.

Absolutely. Thank you for sharing. I think you put so many different things in perspective and you touched on, you and you might didn’t say like this, but this is what I synthesize. Sometimes we don’t, we don’t look to change until we’re uncomfortable. We don’t look to change until something catastrophic happened. And I think you said most of the time it’s like, what’s the loss of jobs. And, you know, my wife, my wife’s a counselor. I love my wife. She’s, she’s so exceptionally incredible.

And a lot of times, you know, me just supporting her, I’m kind of long for the ride, right? And so she does, she does like grief counseling and she’ll do like a grief group where just, you know, people come just from all around, you know, like you said, now we got this thing, you know, we can do online and so just people come and we just hold speech just to walk with them through that grief. But what I learned about grief is grief is just not the loss of a loved one. It is like the loss of a job.

Sharon Restrepo (20:25)
Right.

Q Edmonds (20:37)
is the loss of your identity. It’s the loss of your whole world kind of being shaken upside down. And you’re right, sometimes people don’t look for change until something catastrophic happened. And unfortunately, our human propensity is to look for comfort. Like most of the time, we will do things to be comfortable. That’s the safety net, right? That’s the security blanket. But scientifically, there’s a part of your brain

Sharon Restrepo (20:39)
Yep.

Yes, that’s the safety net. ⁓

Q Edmonds (21:07)
I’m not sure if it’s the amygdala itself, but there’s a part of your brain you never get to activate unless you do hard things. When you do something hard, it activates a part in your brain where you realize you can overcome more than you thought you could overcome. You know, and I think that’s why it’s so important for us to not avoid the hard things. We don’t have to wait until something tragic happens to show ourself that,

we can overcome hard things. You know, they have an acronym for fear is that it’s false evidence appearing real. You know, statistically things that we fear the most actually never happened statistically. But there are things that happen that when they happen, it pushes you to a whole other level. And so there’s, there’s this kind of dichotomy of, Hey, push yourself to do hard things.

Sharon Restrepo (21:46)
Right.

Q Edmonds (22:00)
But then also when tragedy does strike, know that you can get overcoming. Like we are designed, God has designed us to do hard things, to be creative, you know, to overcome adversity. And I mean, how many times the scripture talk about overcoming adversity, right? Trials come to make you strong. And so we are built to overcome. And so I just, I just love that you’re helping people, that you’re identifying people who have had these things come up that say, we can get over this, we can overcome it. And you’re leading by example. And I absolutely love that. Absolutely.

Sharon Restrepo (22:15)
Right.

I love what you said about the comfort zone. always say you will not live your dream inside your comfort zone. It’s not there. If you want to go find your joy, your purpose, and everything, you’ve got to get out of your comfort zone. Yeah.

Q Edmonds (22:37)
Ha ha!

You

would never live your dream inside your comfort zone. I’ve never heard those words put together quite like that. You know, I’ve heard similar things, but again, when people talk, my mind just imagines and yeah, that’s, that’s great. That’s great. Michelle, let me ask you, what are your goals now? You and your husband, y’all run this business together. You’re helping people, investors. What is the goal now? What are you looking to solve and scale next?

Sharon Restrepo (23:15)
The current big goal is reinventing ourselves in this new area. We haven’t been here long in North Carolina. And so we’re just doing the things that worked there. We’re doing the things that worked physically, virtually. And our clients are happy to follow us because they don’t care where the property is. They just want the return on their funds. And then the big goal is a hedge fund.

So we can take our investors and cater to them on a much larger level. Not so much ⁓ a lot of residential and some commercial, but more commercial. Creating projects and housing projects and meeting bigger needs. And so that’s the big dream and the big goal. And we believe that North Carolina plays a role in that. So we’re digging up the dirt here now and we love it.

Q Edmonds (24:03)
I love it. love it. I know we coming up on time, but someone like you, I have to ask this question because again, you know, lot of people watch that different parts of their journey and I just want to give them meat for the journey. Right. I love how you talked about being a hands and feet for investors. Right. And so I want to bring up the word relationship, relationship within business. I want to get your perspective on it. How is it important to you? How do you go about building it?

Just give me your perspective, Ms. Sharon, on relationship within this real estate space.

Sharon Restrepo (24:35)
Well, I think relationship is key, right? And I think the proof is in the pudding. When you do relationship right, and you’ve got clients that have been with you for 15, 16 years, you’ve proven that you care. And I think we’re very procedure-based. And so we… ⁓

want to always maintain communication with our clients. And so we’re super big on making sure our clients hear from us, whether we hear from them or not. And I have to say that is probably the number one reason that clients will stay with us. So whether it’s good news or bad news, we’re going to hear from us. You’re going to get updates. And a lot of the times they’re not even looking. They don’t even care what the pictures look like because we try to just say, hey, here’s what’s going on with your funds or whatever it is that they’re looking at.

receive a customized report of how their funds are doing on a monthly basis and there’s a lot of communication so they don’t have to wonder and You know the last thing we want to do is get a call from a client with something we should have

reached out to them in advance for to let them know. And so we just learned from that what makes them happy, what keeps them reinvesting with us. And, you know, they start through networking, you know, and I love the fact that you guys are faith based. So I’ll tell you this from a biblical point of view. ⁓ You know, the Lord had told us in this particular niche of the business that we were doing, you’re not going to advertise the world’s way. I’m going to bring you everybody.

You’re not going to have a marketing budget for this. And the key to that was stewarding your current clients well, right? Knowing the state of your flocks and stewarding them well. so, you know, his law says what you steward well will multiply. And that’s exactly what happened. And so he said, stop looking outside your farm for the other cows, right? And take care of the cows inside your gates and take care of them so well.

that I can’t help but multiply what you’re doing. And so that is how I can speak to relationship, right? Take care of your flocks so well that you can’t help but walk in the blessing of multiplication. And what does that look like for you?

Q Edmonds (27:01)
person that can walk scripture without pounding it open people’s head. I mean you just beautifully laid out kingdom principle. Like just beautifully. So one thing I mentioned when I talk about relationships, Ms. Sharon, is community. Common unity. And we know the Bible talks about we thrive in community. And so I love how you talked about serving your flock. Serving your community.

Sharon Restrepo (27:09)
Thank you.

Q Edmonds (27:28)
And when you serve those people well, you just said it so adequately. You can’t help but be blessed. And so I, you know, I try to drop sprinkle these low keen principles, tell people community ⁓ business that has the foundation of servitude has no choice but to thrive. It’s just a principle that’s been too long in play. Can’t help but thrive. so Ms. Sharon so well said, ma’am, listen, if someone wanted to reach out to you.

Sharon Restrepo (27:33)
Mm-hmm.

Thanks

Q Edmonds (27:57)
connect with you, collaborate with you, learn more about what you’re doing, how can I get in contact with you Ms. Sharon?

Sharon Restrepo (28:04)
I’d love to answer that question. So if you are a woman of faith over 50 and you want to thrive in a community of women who are doing their God thing, then check out KingdomLegacyCollective.com. That is our community of women who are thriving with God as CEO. All right, KingdomLegacyCollective.com. If you want some free information, you’re new to investing and you want to learn some more about it, I’ve got a great book.

that is 10 chapters called exposing the truth behind the lies of real estate investing. it’s based on the top 10 questions I would get from audiences when I spoke across the nations years ago and what to do.

so that you don’t lose your butt in real estate and what to do so you don’t not start. Right? And so you can get your free copy of that at sharonexposesthetruth.com. And lastly, if you are interested in wholesaling as a niche and you are interested in an A to Z how to do it course, then check out masterwholesaling.com. Watch the training video there and I just pray all of this blesses you.

Q Edmonds (29:19)
Miss Sharon ⁓ allow me to say three things to you sincerely. So one, thank you for your time. Could have been anywhere in the world, but you’re here with us. So I value the fact that you gave us your time. So thank you for your time. Secondly, thank you for your story. Thank you for your gift of transparency, your gift of wrong ability. I told you I believe stories plant a seed.

Sharon Restrepo (29:33)
pleasure.

Q Edmonds (29:43)
somebody come in water, but God gives the increase. mean, that’s what scripture says. Some plant some water, God give the increase. So I believe what you telling your story, either one you planted or two you watered. And I just thank you for the chance for you to come and share your narrative, share your story, share your testimony. I greatly appreciate that. Lastly, thank you for your perspective. I thank you for your mindset, the way you think and bringing that mindset to this platform. You paid for your mindset.

the way you think, the way your mind has developed to where it is now, you’ve paid with experience, you’ve paid with laws, you’ve paid probably with money and so many other resources. So thank you for your mindset and bringing that mindset to this platform. I greatly appreciate you Ms. Sharon thank you for coming through.

Sharon Restrepo (30:28)
It’s been my pleasure, Quentin. Thank you guys so much for having me.

Q Edmonds (30:31)
Absolutely. So listen, please look into the show notes, get in contact with Ms. Sharon, get the exposing the truth behind the law of real estate investing. Check out the kingdom legacy collective. Hopefully I’m saying all these things right. As she was saying it, I was trying to write it down and make sure I got it because I need y’all to definitely connect with her. Look in the show notes, those things in the show notes, but definitely make sure you are subscribed here because I promise you we’re going to continue to bring up amazing people just like Ms. Sharon.

So ma’am, thank you again. And everyone else, listen, y’all have a fantastic day.