From Corporate to Real Estate: 5 Key Strategies for Successful Investing

Christian (00:01.848)
Hey everybody, welcome back to the show. Today we have a special guest in the building. Her name is Candis Conley. She’s a highly experienced residential and commercial real estate professional and investor and a consultant with over 20 years of hands-on experience and she is located in the Atlanta market. Candis, without further ado, why don’t you just introduce to the audience, you know, who you are, you know, talk about your background and just how you got here. Super excited to have you on the show.

Candis Conley ~ High5atl.com (00:27.926)
Thank you, thank you, excited to be here. So yeah, so I’ve been in real estate since actually 2000. So I began, I bought my first property in 2000 when I was still in corporate America. And about three years later, my builder husband, he was a builder husband at the time, he was like, hey, why don’t you?

leave corporate and get your real estate license and you know, list, you know, list these homes I’m building. And so I literally left corporate America at the time I was a regional marketing director in the assisted independent living space throughout the Southeast and I left corporate, got my real estate license and he and I just really just dived in and building new construction and subdivisions and all that kind of good stuff. So since 2003,

since I left corporate, I have been full-time real estate. So went through a divorce, don’t have a daughter or husband anymore, but still work in that space. And so it’s just over the years, just doing all of those things parallel over the time just gives me a very unique expertise and knowledge that I’m able to use to consult with clients.

for myself and in both spaces, residential and commercial. So I feel really blessed to be able to have this journey and be in real estate full time for this amount of time. And, you know, I’m just excited to share, you know, my knowledge and expertise at this point, you know, with others to get there faster.

Christian (02:11.597)
That’s right. I love that. I love that. It’s definitely quite the journey. let’s talk about that, right? mean, cause you’ve worked in both residential and commercial real estate. So could you maybe just list out maybe what are some of the, you know, the biggest differences and maybe, you know, the overall strategy between the two, maybe talk about the cons, the pros to residential and commercial.

Candis Conley ~ High5atl.com (02:31.68)
So that’s a very good question. So they’re vastly different. And someone like myself that does both, that’s really not looked like in the commercial industry, you’re either all commercial. You don’t really dabble between the two. But things have changed where agents are doing both. But commercial is just a completely different ballgame. Everything’s negotiable.

A lot of things are not on MLS or in a database. A lot of things are kind of like word of mouth referral deals and everything is negotiable. And the value of commercial real estate evaluating those assets, it’s a little bit different as well. You can, there’s not a particular type of mile radius. You can go, you can go a longer period of time back to look at other sales. So it’s not as straightforward as residential.

However, residential commercial is easier entry to get into as an investor. You know, I share with my first time homebuyers or any of my clients, I share with them the same strategy that I had. Look at your first property as an investment property. Say, hey, you know, it’s not going to be your, you know, it’s not going to have everything that you want. You got to give, you know, make some compromises and say, hey, I’m going to be in this house three to five years. Then I’m going to upgrade.

I’m gonna rip this one out and then I’m gonna keep going. And that’s how you can build, begin building your wealth in real estate and building your portfolio if you go in with that mindset.

Christian (04:08.407)
That’s awesome. So would you recommend, you know, for someone maybe, you know, that’s just getting in the game, right? For new investors, would you recommend them starting with residential or just jumping straight into commercial real estate?

Candis Conley ~ High5atl.com (04:21.27)
Well, so on the investment side, I think that it will depend on where they’re at and what resources they have. You know, what resources do you have? Where’s your mindset? Because commercial is, that’s a bigger bear to take down, it’s a bigger animal. However, it’s a little bit interesting, it’s a little bit easier to get $2 million than $200,000 sometimes. Because…

You know, if you have an asset that is income producing, is really based on the numbers, if the numbers make sense, it’s easier to get funding for commercial versus residential. So I think it just depends on the person, their mindset, their goals, and what resources they have. If you’re just starting from just ground zero, residential for sure, and then you can work your way up to commercial.

Christian (05:16.629)
definitely agree with that 100%. So what are maybe some financing strategies or creative deal structures you’ve put into place that have helped you close maybe some of your real estate deals?

Candis Conley ~ High5atl.com (05:29.418)
Very interesting question. So I would say, so I do JV partnerships. So I help various investors, whether they’re wanting to transition to get into real estate full time, know, JV partnerships in active participation or silent participation. So I have one JV partner, he was transitioning from corporate America, he was wanting to get into investing full time.

pulled together his resources and we literally bought a house. We funded it with the hard money loan, but we funded all of it with the credit card. So he had literally paid 50K, $50,000 consulting fee to my business. I liquidated those funds and then we used those funds for the down payment and holding costs to buy and fix and flip a property. So.

Christian (06:24.107)
What? Wow.

Candis Conley ~ High5atl.com (06:24.778)
You know, it’s literally using the resources. So that’s what we did. We literally bought a house and funded it with credit cards.

Christian (06:35.693)
They don’t teach that in school, do they? So could you walk us, I mean, how did you go through that? mean, did you learn from somebody on how to leverage and be able to do that? Or what’s the story behind that?

Candis Conley ~ High5atl.com (06:37.375)
No, they don’t. They don’t. They don’t.

Candis Conley ~ High5atl.com (06:52.95)
You know what, it’s really, I think, I can’t remember exactly. I mean, I’ve heard that concept all the time. You hear that concept a lot of times when people talk about business funding and they talk about this, that and the other. And a lot of times what they’re talking about is, you know, building your business credit, getting business funding or leveraging your personal credit to get credit lines. So it’s like, what do you do with that?

Christian (07:05.047)
Sure. Sure.

Christian (07:16.909)
Bing.

Candis Conley ~ High5atl.com (07:19.914)
You know, and so with this particular, and so when I take clients on and we work together, one of the things that we have is we have a resource, we have a discovery call, and we talk about all your resources. What do you have? Like I talked about that earlier, when you’re talking about you’re going to invest, what are your resources? What do you have access to? So when we, in our discovery resource meeting, he talked about he had lines of credit. He had, I think he had an upward of about 100K.

And he was already leveraging his credit for real estate. And so, I just came up with that strategy and literally once he paid that invoice, to square, we pay the merchant fee. It was like a $1,400 merchant fee. we, and then it was the funds were liquid in my account. And then we just use those funds for the down payment and the holding costs.

And then we also had credit lines on standby for the construction costs and the takeoff because we know with our money loans, they pay with reimbursement. So we also had to make sure that we had the money available to buy the materials and the things and have our contractors lined up to get paid to be reimbursed. We will pay a portion upfront. They’ll get paid the rest when the job is complete.

So it’s really just all about the art of the deal, the deal structure, just all of those things that I’ve just learned over the years. know, nothing can replace the time. You know, I’ve, you know, the L’s, the W’s, well, the lessons, the, all of the things, you just learn that art of the deal and how to structure the deal and, you know, making, you have to account for the cost of the money. When you’re looking at any deal, the cost of the money,

Christian (08:55.405)
That’s right.

Candis Conley ~ High5atl.com (09:10.878)
is a part of it. So he had a credit card that for six months he had 0 % interest. We were able to leverage that.

Christian (09:20.555)
Wow, and you took advantage of it. That’s the way to do it. mean, and this is the thing, I think it’s so important, especially right now in the landscape of real estate to where, you know, there’s a lot of people that are hung up on the idea of, well, I don’t have any money, right? I don’t have this. it’s, no, you can one, get one thing for free and that’s building relationships, right? Relationships are gonna be the lifeline to your business in anything, right? You have to treat them with care and hold onto those people like it’s life or death.

Candis Conley ~ High5atl.com (09:22.666)
Yup, we did.

Candis Conley ~ High5atl.com (09:39.764)
Yep.

Christian (09:46.966)
Right. And also it’s getting creative, right? It’s speaking with somebody like yourself that has the experience and has been able to take down, you know, different deal structures by utilizing, you know, creative models. Right. And it’s a lot of people will sometimes turn down deals because they don’t know how to, you know, obviously take it down as far as an acquisition. Right. So I think that’s incredible how you were able to pull that off. And, you know, I’m interested to know, you know, let’s pivot a little bit here. You know, how can people use, you know, with retirement, right?

Candis Conley ~ High5atl.com (10:03.786)
Yep.

Christian (10:16.567)
Can people use a self-directed IRA to help them retire with real estate? Can you walk us through some of that?

Candis Conley ~ High5atl.com (10:23.51)
That’s a very good question. And I just recently attended a master class about this that was hosted by a Vanta IRA. Now, listen, I’m just giving that, you know, they seem to be a great resource and that’s all that they do. That’s all that they do is self-directed IRAs. So one of the things, one of the things why that is so important is because a lot of people have built this

retirement and you know, times have changed like the world that our parents that they know that they wanted to teach us about is not a world that they lived in and it’s not a world that any of us have lived in. We’re navigating as we go. Okay, so the mindset of thinking that I just want to have these funds over here and just let it sit. That’s really not the best usage of your retirement.

And a lot of times it’s not serving you well where you’re not literally don’t have enough to retire to maintain the lifestyle with inflation and all of the things. So you think about, okay, what can I do now is to analyze your retirement fund and say, okay, what can I do to grow this money? And so literally if you have some money, you can allocate some funds to a self-directed IRA and invest those monies.

through the IRA and everything is done through the IRA. You buy the property, you pay all of your fees through the IRA. You can have rental properties, you can flip properties, you can do tax deeds, everything with that money and grow that money and let it sit there and be under that tax free shelter. And I believe, don’t quote me on this,

Because I’m not a tax expert, you got to get with those experts. But I believe if you let your investments, if they’re vested for over a five year period, then they’re not subject to taxation, which was mind blowing. So, so my role, how I can help people do that is help, you know, connect with those

Christian (12:22.049)
Wow.

Yeah.

Candis Conley ~ High5atl.com (12:32.918)
tools and be the consultant, be the liaison that’s helping them identify those investments, manage those investments and analyze those investments. So a key thing too is making sure you understand what the investment is to make a decision if this is a good investment or not.

the deal is bad from the beginning and you need to kind of look at everything from the beginning and not sort it out as you’re going. So that’s one of the things I’m able to do as a consultant and a value add is really consult and look at all these things before you jump in a deal. And then you lower your risk, you understand what you’re getting into and you could grow your money tax free in your self-directed IRA. And then they pay all their fees.

My commission, my consulting fees, that’s just included and the IRA pays it out. They’ll just pay it out. And the investor is holding the profit, all of the things in that tax shelter. So, yeah.

Christian (13:27.917)
Wow.

Christian (13:34.35)
Candice is dropping a million dollars worth of game here, ladies and gentlemen. If you haven’t paid attention yet, now’s the time. That’s incredible that what you’re doing there, Candice. something that you mentioned in there was just talking about planning for the future, right? And you and I were talking offline before we started recording and you were mentioning a pretty bizarre statistic that you’re looking at here the next 10, 15, plus 20 years out.

Could you maybe share what you and I were discussing about that statistic? And I think people should know about this.

Candis Conley ~ High5atl.com (14:09.942)
Thank you. Yeah, it’s quite staggering. So I do a lot of masterminding and investing in myself. You know, you have to be the teacher and the student. And so I’m a part of an amazing group of realtors, brokers, real estate professionals called the wealthy group and through ESP Realty. And so we literally mastermind twice a week. So we know what’s going on with

people, know, everything that’s going on. And there was one statistic that’s out there and we’re seeing some of these things in the marketplace, but there’s one statistic that came out in 2017 and it stated that if the current trends continue in the year of 2053, the average net worth of a black American household will be zero or negative zero. And it’s like, wow.

Christian (15:06.669)
I’m home.

Candis Conley ~ High5atl.com (15:07.048)
And so we’re in a time now where, you know, each generation should be better than the one before, but we’re seeing things go down in Black America and it’s for a number of reasons. So it’s like, hey, what’s the solution? Let’s talk about this. one of the things that is two things that I’ve seen in the marketplace. So I’m in Atlanta, Georgia, and Atlanta is like a prototype city for a lot of things. And one of the things that Atlanta is a prototype city for

is investing new construction to buy new home, mean, build new homes to rent. You have builders that are building whole new subdivisions, everything strictly to rent. And you have a lot of hedge funds that have been buying up single family properties. And so one of my contractors, had, his daughter was renting a house. I don’t really work with the rentals.

And I was helping one of my contractors in in two whole counties in the metro Atlanta area. It was not one private landlord. It was all corporate landlords and that was mind blowing. But it’s telling you the telltale sign about how the entry for the traditional starter homes. A lot of hedge funds they’re taking their buying. They have taken advantage of those opportunities. They bought those properties many times paying more than market value.

And so it’s cutting some people out of the entry for their first time home buyers. And that’s one of the contributing factors that in that statistic that your net worth to be zero to negative zero, if you’re not being intentional about buying. A lot of people are preferring to rent. You know, a lot of people will prefer to rent the brand new apartment, then get that house that they have to compromise on.

Candis Conley ~ High5atl.com (17:36.584)
Hello?

Christian (17:38.178)
Hey, you dropped there. no. That’s all good. We can edit that out. if you want, Candice, what we could do is we could just like start that section over here now and just keep it going. We could just start that subject over if you want to, if you’re open to that. And then we can re-edit that and add it on to the original clip. Cool? Cool. So let’s start that over. Awesome. All right. So.

Candis Conley ~ High5atl.com (17:39.828)
Bye!

Candis Conley ~ High5atl.com (17:54.612)
Okay. Okay.

Candis Conley ~ High5atl.com (17:58.846)
Okay. Yep.

Christian (18:04.631)
Candice, so I know something you had mentioned offline, you and I were talking about it, that you brought up a really pretty bizarre, pretty concerning statistic. And I would love if you could share that with the audience because I feel like this is some information that people need to be aware about.

Candis Conley ~ High5atl.com (18:23.326)
Yeah, thank you. you. So yeah, I, you know, you have to be the teacher and the student. So I’m intentional about masterminding and just staying, you know, in the loop. So I have like two groups that I kind of, you know, intentional about about doing that. And one of the groups, it’s like a group of nationwide real estate agents, brokers, professionals, and we literally mastermind twice a week, Monday and Friday.

And we’re seeing a lot of trends out there where a lot of people, young people don’t want to buy. They prefer to rent the nice new apartment instead of buying a house because of the mindset of not wanting what they can afford. Also seeing in Atlanta, where I’m at, Atlanta is a prototype city. There’s a lot of hedge funds and there’s a lot of investors that actually build new construction to rent out.

you will see beautiful new construction, single family town home communities, strictly built to rent. And actually one of my contractors, I was helping his daughter find a rental property and in two Metro counties in Atlanta, Georgia, like the whole county in the 1600 price point, it was not one private landlord. There were all corporate landlords. And that was mind blowing in two whole counties in that affordable housing price point. And so,

There was a statistic that came out based on a study in 2017 and it stated that in the year 2053, if these current trends continue, the average net worth of a Black American household will be zero or negative zero. Now let’s think about this now. The average net worth of the average Black American household nationwide would be zero.

to negative zero if these trends continue, these things that I see these trends happening from masterminding with other agents, brokers, and we’re talking and we’re able to see the big picture. Now I have sold several homes to hedge funds in the metro Atlanta area over the years, right? But on the flip-hand side, to see how that has had an impact on the housing market is something different. I’ve sold plenty of houses.

Candis Conley ~ High5atl.com (20:49.086)
But then to see that there’s no private landlords, it’s pretty mind blowing. So I’ve actually started an initiative about that called Love and Real Estate. And it’s really to kind of talk about these things. And because the wealth, building wealth and transferring wealth, it starts with our families. So that’s the Love Foundation. And then the second part is real estate. Like real estate is amazing industry. know, and it’s not a…

Christian (21:08.781)
That’s right.

Candis Conley ~ High5atl.com (21:17.3)
get rich quick, like, you know, sort of thing, but it definitely you can build and transfer wealth with real estate. And so I started that initiative monthly meetups, meetings, just, you know, to bring awareness to that topic and have solution. So we, you know, it’s, you can talk about a problem, but I’m bringing solutions and awareness so that we can make everyday difference and how, you know, leading by example.

you know, and bring awareness to this, you know, because it’s pretty staggering and it’s serious. So I also do masterminding with a former state senator in Illinois, Dr. Pat. She also does a similar masterminds. She does, she’s a life coach. She’s an evangelist in all of those things. And she does love health and wealth, but she had a statistic that

in five years with everything that’s going on that is going to be like middle class like eliminated and people are going to go into poverty. Especially if we see a lot of things happening, policy changes and all of these things, which I do think is time we do need to have some policy changes. We do need to have some changes. But if you don’t acquiesce to these changes and you’re not aware and you’re depending on these things, you’re just going to go straight. You’re already in the

you’re already hanging on in that poverty line. But when you don’t make any adjustments, if you don’t understand what’s going on, you’re going to be deeper in that hole. And it’s hard to get out. So it’s just bringing awareness, education, understand that we are in control of our own lives. Nobody’s coming to save you. Okay. Nobody’s coming to save you. You to save yourself. But I want to bring awareness, you know, that you understand

Christian (22:41.858)
Yep.

Christian (22:46.817)
Mm-hmm.

Christian (22:59.181)
That’s right. Nope.

Candis Conley ~ High5atl.com (23:09.59)
and get in position to save yourself and your family.

Christian (23:13.185)
Gosh, Candice, I loved everything that you said right there. And I really appreciate you even sharing something like this, because I do feel like a lot of people are on auto mode right now, right? They almost have analysis paralysis, you’re overthinking it. And it’s like, you don’t have time to really overthink what I need to do here to improve my life and my family’s life and set myself up here for the next rest of my life, ultimately, right? And a lot of times, if you wait too long,

Candis Conley ~ High5atl.com (23:23.666)
Yes.

Christian (23:40.99)
You know, your window is only so short than this time we get here, right? And I just think it’s so important to get with someone like yourself and you gotta set a plan, right? Even if you, someone out there that just might feel nervous or just, you all these thoughts, right? Self-limiting beliefs, right? And no, you don’t know what you don’t know.

Candis Conley ~ High5atl.com (23:57.524)
Mm-hmm.

Christian (24:00.438)
And you never know if you could reach out to somebody, they’re gonna show you, hold your hand and really walk you through the process on how to get you to that next level and get that freedom that you’re looking for. Because as you just said it, mean, no one’s gonna save you. I you do ultimately have to put in the work to make these things a reality, but how much sweeter is it when you have somebody that has the experience, it can help you speed up that process without making the same mistakes that you went through. Because you went through the 20 years, you made the mistakes, you learned from the mistakes,

Candis Conley ~ High5atl.com (24:22.43)
Yes.

Yes.

Christian (24:29.813)
and now you’re here, right? So you choose your poison, right? mean, sure, you could go on YouTube and, you know, do that, but you’re gonna have to, you’re gonna have to shift through so many different things and there’s no clear, you know, guide from A to Z, right? On a processes to, you know, to get there, right? So, but.

Candis Conley ~ High5atl.com (24:31.432)
Yep.

Christian (24:48.011)
you know, everyone has to make their own decisions at end of the day. But you know, as long as you’re educating people, such as you know, what you’re doing, you’re hoping that it can get out to the audience and people that are listening to this are going to take something from it. Right. So I think it’s incredible. Let’s talk about, you know, that Candice, I mean, you know, you’re doing a lot of things with helping people as far as that. So I want to give you the opportunity to kind of share, you know, a little bit more in detail of what that looks like and how people can can work with you.

Candis Conley ~ High5atl.com (25:00.616)
Mm-hmm.

Candis Conley ~ High5atl.com (25:17.044)
Thank you. So the first thing is just making the decision about real estate. Wherever you are in your real estate process, just make a decision that I want to grow in my investing in real estate. I’m making the decision. Either I want to get in, I want to start, or I want to maximize my real estate.

portfolio or where I’m at. first is making that decision. And then the second thing is for us to have, you know, discovery call, we have a consultation and we, we talk about all of those things and then we develop a strategy based on, you know, where you’re at, your resources, what your goals are. And then we just come up with the roadmap and I help you facilitate that roadmap. But the first thing is to really just make a decision.

and then reach out and find those resources. There’s several people that offer the same type of things, mentorship, programs, education, JV partnerships, financial literacy. There’s so many resources out for these things, but first you gotta make a decision that you want it, and those resources are gonna come to you.

that you have to make that decision that you’re saving yourself and your family and you’re leading by example. And so that’s how it starts. Make a decision, reach out, set up a discovery call. It’s simple as that. And then, you know, even just with the discovery call, a simple conversation, you could get some insight on where to go, where do I need to go? And that’s free. You know, that’s free. A free no obligation consultation discovery call.

Christian (27:03.885)
Mm-hmm.

Candis Conley ~ High5atl.com (27:09.35)
about building wealth with real estate.

Christian (27:13.741)
I love that, I love that. where do people need to reach out to exactly, Candice? We’ll definitely drop those links and where do people can find you in our YouTube.

Candis Conley ~ High5atl.com (27:21.172)
Okay, so yep, so you can reach me on high five ATO. That is my general website. So you can just send a message there regarding what you’re looking to do. You can also find me on Facebook, Candis Conley, and also on Instagram. So my Instagram name is Cashflow Candis, because I understand you get the cash flow out of real estate.

And the link in the bio is there. It has different business consultation questionnaires or just the link to schedule a discovery call. So you can do a business, real estate business consulting questionnaire that we can kind of deep dive a little bit, or you could just simply book the basic discovery call. And then from there, we just, it’s no cookie cutter situation or thing, but we just start there and have the conversation.

Christian (28:17.165)
I it, I love it. Well, Candice, thank you so much for joining us today and taking the time out of your day to join in and drop some bombs of knowledge. I definitely learned a lot from you and I know the audience is gonna gain nothing but value from this as well. So guys, be sure to reach out to Candice. We’ll make sure we drop those links in our description. But Candice, just wishing you nothing but the best in your future’s endeavors and I know you’re gonna go out there and continue to kill it.

Candis Conley ~ High5atl.com (28:24.18)
you

Candis Conley ~ High5atl.com (28:40.34)
Thank you so much, Christian.

Christian (28:42.457)
Of course, of course, my pleasure. Well guys, hope you enjoyed today’s show as much as I did and as always my friends, we will see you on the next episode. See you on the inside. Take care.

Candis Conley ~ High5atl.com (28:52.02)
Bye!