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Show Summary
In this episode of the Real Estate Pros Podcast, Paige Hernandez shares her journey as a mortgage originator and her focus on investor-friendly financing, particularly in the short-term rental market. She discusses the unique challenges investors face, especially when scaling their businesses, and emphasizes the importance of creative financing strategies like the BRRR model (Buy, Rehab, Rent, Refinance, Repeat). Paige also highlights her initiative to support women in the mortgage industry through her organization, Notorious, which aims to empower female professionals and provide them with opportunities for leadership and growth.
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Investor Fuel Show Transcript:
Paige Hernandez (00:00)
well it my lesson was a lot of times becoming a vessel for the energy right and say You know when we hold so tightly onto things and we think that they’re ours Nothing in this life is really ours. Even our ideas are not ours. Like I had read this book This is what I knew about notorious. I’ve read this book called big magic It’s written by Elizabeth Gilbert in this book She talks about divine ideas and she says here’s the deal if you’re given a divine idea and you don’t move on itsomebody else is going to take it. That’s why you always have that. Everybody has the thing where like, ⁓ I thought about that and I didn’t move on it.
Quentin Edmonds (02:08)
Hello everyone. Welcome to the Real Estate Pros podcast. I am your host, Q Edmonds. I’m excited to be here today, excited to be with you. And I’m excited about the guests that I have. I can’t wait for us to pick our brains, see things through her lens. She’s in a mortgage game. And so definitely know what she’s doing. And I’m gonna let her tell you everything she’s done, all about what she’s done. And so I am so happy to introduce you guys to…Miss Paige Hernandez. Miss Paige, how you doing today,
Paige Hernandez (02:38)
I’m good. Thank you for having me.Quentin Edmonds (02:41)
Absolutely. No, thank you for being here. I appreciate it. And listen, Ms. Paige, I want to dive right 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 of how you got into real estate, how you got into what you do. We would love to know that. And then if you don’t mind, tell them what market you’re operating in, what part of the world you’re in. So Ms. Paige, you have the floor, man.Paige Hernandez (03:02)
Thank you. So I’m a mortgage originator. I’ve grown up in this business. My mom opened our mortgage company in 1993. And so I’m in one facet or another.probably done every single thing in mortgage and in real estate. And spent most of my career on the lender side and then went and had some, I got married, had some babies and I was a state home mom for about eight years. Decided to jump back into the industry and went out, my real estate license. I did real estate for a little bit and then really found that my skills and my knowledge played better on the mortgage side. So transitioned over to mortgage and.
Over time, my business really started to evolve and lead me along to work solely with investors. Part of that reason is I was doing fix and flips with my stepbrother at the time, and then I was buying a short-term rental. And sharing that process with my clients then opened me up to doing financing for them. And so now, years later, just focused specifically on investors. We do a lot of debt service. We do a lot of fix and flip.
And then we also, you know, ground up construction that kind of leads you out into other things that they’re doing too. So some ground up construction stuff, some commercial stuff, a little off the beaten path stuff. ⁓ But by and large, it’s a lot of, you know, debt service, short-term rental around the nation. ⁓ Particularly right now, one of the avenues that I’m seeing a lot of growth in our business is in using that BRRR model.
made famous by bigger pockets, the buy, rehab, rent, refi, repeat, combining that with short-term rental provides a little bit, you know, creating opportunities for them because opportunities are kind of few and far between at the moment in some of your markets. And so do a lot of that. Also, ⁓ over the past handful of years, ⁓ I started an organization that supports women in mortgage. It’s called Notorious. You can go to Notorious WMN if you’re in mortgage and learn about it.
But that organization specifically is really to highlight the female voice in a very male dominated industry and provide more opportunities for them. And also to provide a female model for success, often as women in real estate, women in mortgage, women investors, our responsibilities as wives and mothers tend to be a little bit different than our male counterparts. And so our business model and what success means to us is often very different.
And so being able to have a community that then highlights that is something I’m very much focused on.
Quentin Edmonds (06:21)
I love it. So thank you. Thank you for your journey. Thank you for telling us where you are now. Thank you for talking about notorious. I absolutely love it. So I’m listening to you talk. Mom started the business in 1993. You kind of just was raised up in it, right? And so I have a saying where I say destiny has no wasted moments. So of course, you know, it makes sense to kind of where you are now because destinyAnd that moment kind of raised you up in it. But I also want to know what other skills can you give language to that you have that kind of make you who you are now? Like, how did you pick things up like from when you were younger and you know, like they’re transferred to who you are now and made you the woman you are now and the business woman you are now.
Paige Hernandez (07:08)
Yeah, so for good or for bad, I have this personality type that ⁓ it’s kind of like a puzzle. I’m like a puzzle person. And so sometimes it’s like obnoxious where, you know, we go out to eat, and I walk into a restaurant and then all of a sudden, if they have a certain whatever, I’m like reworking the business plan in my mind, right? I’m like, ⁓ this could fix this, I just went to a restaurant that I had actually grown up.in my twenties going to this place. It was like a bar restaurant. It was by Dennis Rodman. It’s in Newport Beach and a new company had bought it. It’s at vacant for years. A new company bought it. They made it into like a members only restaurant. And so when I walked in, I was like, okay. Yeah. I mean, I’ve been here so many times growing up. It looks different. Okay, great. And then when I was looking at it, was like, there are 14 tables in here. And then my mind’s like, how, well, how do you cover the expenses with 14 tables? So I’m like, this doesn’t make sense.
I need to take, I’m sorry, I’m like here for a holiday party. So I’m like, I need five minutes. Cause now I got to figure this out. So I’m like, let me walk around. Where is the money coming from here? Cause like in my brain, even with a members only membership, it still doesn’t work. does a pencil out. And so then I look outside and they have like this floating deck ⁓ in like their dock space where usually there’s like a massive yacht there. But instead they took a floating dock and they can now sit.
I don’t know how many more tables outside. So now I’m like, ⁓ okay. Now the numbers start to make sense, it shows up everywhere. Like if there’s a problem, I’m like, I have to personally solve it. I can’t get off of it. good or for bad. If you have that personality, you’re like, yeah, girl, I know you. So there’s that. And I think like as entrepreneurs, like that tends to be one of the things that were
we’re really good at is like solving problems. And, you know, we have a personality type that can like, we can withstand the normal day to day that can sometimes it really sucks most of most of time, but like the win is so good. And it’s like, almost like your personality profile is probably very prone to addiction because of how the brain lights up and how you can withstand struggle. ⁓
So those are just things that innately I carry. And so, I mean, they’re good when you can channel them in the right place. ⁓ They can be toxic if you don’t. it’s like living on the edge sometimes in your business of being able to take those things that are, know, really great qualities when they’re channeled in the right space.
Quentin Edmonds (09:39)
Yeah, no, I was laughing because you described my wife. That’s how my wife is. Anywhere she goes, she can just figure things out. she see things. Yeah, so I get it. So that’s not my personality, but I do have a personality that has that personality.Paige Hernandez (09:56)
Youknow what makes it really hard for people like us? We can’t just enjoy things. Like if we do something and we like it, then we’re like, we got to make a business out of it. And it’s like, no, stop it. don’t have to, not everything needs to be a business. Like you can just do something because you like it. But our brains immediately are like, Ooh, I really like this. Now they’re like, how do I run the numbers?
Quentin Edmonds (10:17)
Yeah, yeah, No, I hear you and that’s something that has to be self-managed and like you say it could be it’s like you’re getting your curses like we’re making your superpower Also could be your kryptonite. So yeah Absolutely get it. Absolutely get it So I’ve been I have to ask as you were building even with this trait Have you faced any adversity as you was building have you bumped up against it?Paige Hernandez (11:16)
My friend. You know Every year it seems like there’s a new lesson to be learned and we often are like relearning the lessons. Like we learned it to one level, but then it shows up again and it’s like, okay, well here we are. learning it in a different capacity. I really noticed it when I started Notorious because I think I got very proficient with mortgage.And when you’re proficient at what you do, a lot of times you’re not stepping out into that unknown and really stretching yourself. And so when I decided, you know, we had, I noticed there wasn’t enough female leadership. was like, I’m going to basically, I would look at events and it’d be like 90 % male was the lineup. And so I just got fed up when it was like, fine, I’ll do an all female event. And so at that time, when I did that, like I knew I did not, I didn’t have the resources. I didn’t have the capital.
Like I didn’t even have a personal website for mortgage. Like how am going to do an event? Like this is so far outside my comfort zone. And so that first year was really battling my own self and my own limiting beliefs. And I had the opportunity that year to really strengthen, you know, my own mindset and then my own spiritual belief around, you don’t get.
gifted with a plan without the resources to do it. so yeah, it was like a beautiful experience to go, well, Paige, you spent so many years really fine tuning your belief system around success and around, you know, channeling with God and all of this. And like, you got a little lazy. Now you really going to get an opportunity to put this back into practice. And so that was such a cool experience, you know, to you. A lot of times it’s like, we don’t step out in faith and like,
because like it’s easy for us and it’s like, well, you can’t allow God to show up for you when you’re doing everything on your own. You’re proficient. It’s like when you step out in that place where you know, you don’t have the resources for it. You have no other choice but to really dig into like, I must be provided for because I’m not giving this without that. And so that was like the first lesson. That was like that year, the whole year. And there were times like people would come and they would say some wild stuff of like,
their own limiting beliefs around whatever it was. And I had to be really strong and like, well, that’s great for you, but I’m not available for your limiting belief. So you can think that, but I’m not available for that. And so that was like that whole first year was really my own mindset. Year two of building Notorious was very different. Now that it was proven, then it was me battling everybody else. And so when you have success, this was, don’t know if I’d ever experienced it to this level.
⁓ when you start to have success, there are people around you that will not be, they’re going to be very triggered by it because it’s their own limiting beliefs that are being, you know, being triggered. It’s their own, ⁓ scarcity mindset that there can only be so much success. And like, if somebody else has success, then it takes away from theirs. And one of the things that I saw is as my influence started to grow, that really shook a lot of people. ⁓ and there’s a, mean,
I shared with you the things that people had said about me and like the attacks that I personally got. I mean, it was a wild experience to go through. And then even that like my lesson in that was I had to reflect back on like times in my life where any up level I had had what had pre like predated that up level in business or in life. There was like a mass clearing out. was like God would come in and be like, we are clearing people and things.
out of your life because you can’t go where you were supposed to go with those that there. And so it always felt like a lot of loss in the moment. was like relationships, opportunities like, and then my life would up level. And so that’s kind of how like this past year as these things were starting to happen, I was like, all right, God, like I see you like take it away. And like a lot of my ⁓ lesson this year was not holding on so tightly to.
you know, relationships and opportunities and things and people and just allowing that energy to come in and do what it was supposed to do and knowing that, you know, all of those things were happening, even if they didn’t feel good in the moment, because it’s the setup for where I’m supposed to go and trusting in that. So that was year two, and then we’ll see what year three brings. Like, I don’t know.
Quentin Edmonds (16:22)
Yeah. ⁓ Miss Paige, you said so many great amazing things. I love how you talked about your interaction with God. Like I heard my mentor say like this, like when God gives you something, you got to hold it like this is not intended to be held like this. It’s to tend to be held like this because all he’s asking you to do is steward it. So he’s actually to do it, the opportunity, stew with the friendship.And when you hold it like this, you allow him to put it in your hands and take it out if he wants to. Yeah. When you hold it like this, you just balancing what he gives you. You’re just doing it. You’re not holding like this. You’re not taking it like this. You’re like, okay, God, you gave me, I’ll steward it. I’ll balance it. But if you want to take it away, you go ahead and take it away. And that’s what it sounds like. That’s one of the realizations that you came to. It’s like I’ll steward it. But if you take it away, okay, let me let it go because just how you gave it, you’ll give me something else. That’s what it
Paige Hernandez (17:20)
Yeah,well it my lesson was a lot of times becoming a vessel for the energy right and say You know when we hold so tightly onto things and we think that they’re ours Nothing in this life is really ours. Even our ideas are not ours. Like I had read this book This is what I knew about notorious. I’ve read this book called big magic It’s written by Elizabeth Gilbert in this book She talks about divine ideas and she says here’s the deal if you’re given a divine idea and you don’t move on it
somebody else is going to take it. That’s why you always have that. Everybody has the thing where like, ⁓ I thought about that and I didn’t move on it.
You all have that happen to you. And it’s because this is a divine idea. It’s coming to the world. And so you get the opportunity to take the action. And if you don’t, I’m going somewhere else. And so that was how I like distinctly felt with, you know, building notorious, like, this is bigger than me. And so, okay, here we go. We’re going to take the, take the stamps. But I never even today still don’t feel like it’s
Like I don’t have ownership over it. I’m just the vessel for it. And you know, that is the challenge sometimes when we hold on so tightly to everything that we have, we don’t allow one God to show up for us. And then we also there, there is no movement. Like nothing can come to you if you are holding on so tightly. And so same thing with like sometimes money, we do that with money. It’s like we hoard all of our money. We don’t want to spend it. And it’s like money is just an energy. And so if we can start, you know,
moving the energy, you get the opportunity to receive. And in fact, I would be willing to bet I mean, there’s times at which I’m like, the reason why you’re not receiving is because you’re not giving it’s like you first have to create that vacuum, you have to create some space that allows you to get more. And so we often want to hold on to everything that we have, because we treasure it so dearly, but we’re not allowing something bigger and better to come. And those are just foundational belief systems that
I mean, at the end of the day, like you get to choose what you believe and like you can choose something that either serves you or doesn’t serve you. And so you can believe that you’re not going to be blessed in a bigger fashion or you can choose to believe that like everything is happening in your highest favor. And so if it is a clearing out, yeah, does it suck in the moment? Yeah, I don’t feel good. But if you know that it’s there to make space for something bigger because you don’t have the there’s only so much capacity. Right. So we have to be able to move it.
And once it moves, it’s like you create this vacuum of being able to attract your attract back to yourself a better and a higher and a more, you know, in alignment opportunity for yourself. Sorry, I just like going on preaching moment.
Quentin Edmonds (19:58)
I was just, you took the words out of my mouth. Cause I was going to say, if I was in church, this is the moment where I would be standing up saying amen. Amen. But you, but you’re spot on. You’re spot on with what you say. Like you are spot on. I’m not going to even try to say it any better than you. Cause you just said it so eloquently. And so I love the way you thinking. I love your perspective.Paige Hernandez (20:06)
I don’t know.Quentin Edmonds (20:24)
So I have to ask you, what’s next? What’s the next goal for you?Paige Hernandez (20:29)
Yeah. So I would really like, so we have our notorious stuff. So last year we launched a podcast and magazine and a YouTube show. You guys can go to like, I don’t know, YouTube and type in notorious WMN. It’s called standout. And we don’t really talk mortgage, but it is about being a female in business and entrepreneurship and what those challenges and limiting beliefs and how do you overcome? So you can go check that out. And then as far as mortgage goes, you know, I,And sometimes at my capacity, as far as me, so I’d like to really look, I’m one of my like, things I focus on every year, like tagline in the back of my head is more money, less effort, more money, less effort. that is the business plan I want. So I know a lot of times people like get out there and they’re going to tell you like they coach you and they’re like, get up earlier, like 5am club. I’m like, I’m not about it. Not about the 5am club. I’m not like
I am at first short, you have to earn your street cred and you need to earn your stripes in any business so that you know what you’re doing. But there comes a point at which it’s like, I don’t want the business plan that is working 10 and 12 hour days. Like I’ve done that before. I want more money with less effort. Please show me that business plan. And so that’s where I’m looking at. Like, how do I streamline what I do? Do it at a bigger capacity? Like, I don’t know what lifestyle you guys like.
I mean, I wouldn’t work if I didn’t have to, but here we are. So if I can work the least and make the most, that is where I want to be on that side of the business plan.
Quentin Edmonds (22:10)
my goodness, I’m loving this conversation. You are absolutely correct. More money, less effort. Like we want to work once and get paid, get paid, get get Not work, work, work, get paid once now.Paige Hernandez (22:24)
Like it’s so funny when I watch like what’s out there in the world as far as like coaching and classes and like someone’s like really glorifying the grind and I’m like nah brah like I don’t want that like even in my industry there’s like always this conversation around you know units versus volume so how many how many loans you can do how many units versus volume and from a company standpoint the company makes morevol makes more money if the workers do more units. So of course I’m going to promote more units. I want my staff to do more units, but your stuff don’t get paid that way. Like your salespeople get paid off a volume. And so you’re just really making them a slave to your business because you want more money, but they don’t be making more money. So I’m always like, no, like why are we sell like there’s even like, you know, celebrating high volume. I’m like, this is no, I’m not celebrating.
absolute opposite of that. I want the least amount of units. want like if I could get my business to like work where I don’t have to work so hard, like that is the goal. And I don’t know for anybody that tells you that’s not the goal. I kind of feel like they are becoming a slave to their business and like that’s not where I want to be.
Quentin Edmonds (23:40)
I can say so much more on that, but I’m not because I was on my own rant myself. But it’s so refreshing to hear you talk. It’s so refreshing to hear your mindset. Listen, Ms. Paige, if someone wanted to connect with you, collaborate with you, learn more about what you’re doing, how can they get in contact with you,Paige Hernandez (24:02)
Yeah, so I’m across all socials, Paige Taylor Hernandez. You can find me on like Instagram and Facebook and also on LinkedIn, but I don’t really like LinkedIn. I think it’s boring over there to be honest. If we’re being honest, pretty boring over on LinkedIn, but I’m across all socials. You can find me there. You can also go to my website, it’s paigetaylorhernandez.comyou know, fill out an intake form, I’ll give you a call back. But yeah, social works great for me. I kind of hang out there, all my business comes from there. So you know, feel free to hit me up. If you friend request me. No, I don’t really do the friend request option very often. ⁓
Quentin Edmonds (24:46)
That was that no, no, we put in the stamp. She don’t be the friend request. That was the alarm. So don’tPaige Hernandez (24:50)
Sothere is so if you send a friend request, send me a message to like, Hey, I heard you on blah, blah. That way I do that. Um, I also, this is going to be, I don’t know, hot take of how I do business differently. I like, do not answer my phone. Like my voicemail says, listen, if, uh, please don’t leave a message. Cause we do not answer it. We do not return phone calls here. Um, messages are not checked. If you are a client of mine, go ahead and text me. If you are not a client of mine, please do not text me.
I don’t take meetings. Like I’m here to make money. I’m here to support my clients. And outside of that, I’m not here for, you know, a sales call. Like too many people trying to pitch you all the time and it’s a big, huge distraction. And so I don’t really answer my phones. I tell clients like you need to be texting me or hit me up in messenger if you want a response, cause phone calls do not go answered.
The anti-sales model that you don’t answer your phone I’m like no.
Quentin Edmonds (25:54)
Well listen, Ms. Paige, ⁓ my goodness, I got to say thank you. One, thank you for your time, because of course time is valuable. We just talked about it. We want to work less and get paid more. So your time is very, very valuable. So thank you. Thank you for your story. Thank you for the gift, what I call the gift of your vulnerability, the gift of your transparency, just sharing with us today. Appreciate that. And Ms. Paige, thank you for yourMindset your perspective. Thank you for bringing that mindset to this platform. I greatly greatly appreciated this was fun. Thank you so much Absolutely, well listen You heard miss Paige Normally, I’ll be saying check her out. You know check her out check them out. Give them a call get in contact Well, listen, don’t call, know, just you know Reach out in other ways. Don’t leave a message. Don’t text
Paige Hernandez (26:29)
Thank you for having me.Quentin Edmonds (26:47)
Definitely check out the tutorial. Did you give up? Did you give the podcast? Did you tell them where to go for the podcast? Yes.Paige Hernandez (26:52)
You can get all podcast platforms. It’s called Standout by Notorious. It’s across Apple and Spotify or all those things.Quentin Edmonds (27:00)
Okay, so definitely go check out on the podcast do that. Yeah, definitely do that But definitely make sure you are subscribed here because we’re gonna continue to bring up amazing people Just like miss Paige and so thank you so much ma’am. I greatly appreciate you and everyone else. You’ll have a great day
