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Show Summary
In this episode of the Real Estate Pros podcast, host Q Edmonds speaks with Iris I Romero, a seasoned real estate professional with over 30 years of experience. Iris shares her journey from law school to establishing her own brokerage, emphasizing the importance of financial literacy and community support. She discusses the challenges faced during market crashes and the necessity of having systems in place to navigate these difficulties. Iris highlights her commitment to teaching financial literacy, especially to children, and her future goals of building a community outreach program to help those in need. The conversation underscores the significance of knowledge, community, and the pursuit of quality of life through financial education and real estate investment.
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Iris I Romero (00:00)
I am going to introduce you to the Soldier Sailor Act that protects our military community from this type of situation. And we’re gonna have 24 hours to rectify this wrong that you’ve done on this soldier. And obviously that went to higher chains in this bank, but within 24 hours, he was out of foreclosure, the force place insurance was removed, the monies that were due to him came back. And on top of that, I finished my mission by saying, ma’am, let me have the rest of his bills like car payment, credit card.Quentin (02:10)
Hello everyone. Welcome to the Real Estate Pros podcast. I am your host Q Edmonds. Excited to be with you today. have someone, listen, that has a wealth of knowledge who I’m sure you’re going to get so much value from. ⁓ Listen, I’m let her talk about what it is that she do. I think she’s going to do a way more eloquent job than I could. And so I would like to introduce y’all to Ms. Romero. Ms. Iris, how you doing today, ma’am?Iris I Romero (02:38)
Quentin, I’m doing awesome, man. This is ⁓ a time that we have great opportunities if we actually seek these opportunities and learn to recognize these opportunities. So I’m feeling awesome,Quentin (02:40)
That’s good.Awesome. Awesome. love it. Well, listen, I want to dive right in. I want you to take us into your world. I want you to let out viewers know. Give us a short version of what it is that your main focus is these days. If you want to tell them a little bit about how you got started, I’m sure they would love to hear that. And then also what markets you’re operating in.
Iris I Romero (03:09)
Awesome. I started this business in this business, I would say between 30, 35 years ago, and it was not in sales in real estate. I relocated to Miami to go to law school. I was at a real estate law firm where I actually started learning the meat and potatoes of real estate, which is title, which is a great thing to have. And once I did that, I had a hedge hunter come in and they actually built me up and took me away to finance, which is the second greatest asset in real estate. Learning finance is very important. And then after that, I’m not much of a corporate America. I went on my own, I opened my own brokerage firm and I excelled at this brokerage firm, thinking always outside of the box, financing and always keeping in mind what the mission is. And if it’s residential ownership,it’s residential ownership of that house for that specific client. You cannot put and think that every single one is cut with the same pattern. Every person has different challenges. Everyone has different assets and you’ve got to learn to recognize those and deal with what you’ve got. And with that said, it took me in after the ⁓ crash that we had, it took me into sales, which is the third.
biggest asset in real estate. You and I both know knowledge is king, first of all, and building wealth through real estate and smart money habits. It’s what I dedicated my time for my personal knowledge and teaching this to agents that have come through my doors, friends and families. This is something that you want to get out there because the more people know about these strategies, the better it is for our community.
always thinking one thing, time is the most valuable asset that we have. We can’t get it back. And nowadays, time is so important to spend with friends and family. So if we get into the habit of building proper wealth through real estate and smart money habits, we can all have that. Everyone’s line and target, by the way, is different.
We don’t all have to have $20 million in the bank. We don’t. And that’s not what we’re searching for. We’re searching for quality of life. Am I right or is this not what you and I search for?
Quentin (06:32)
Absolutely.Hmm. Absolutely. No, you’re absolutely 100 % correct. We’re looking for quality of life. I love how your community approach, how you want to make sure that you strengthen people around you. You strengthen the community around you. And I absolutely love that. And I love your transition. I love how you, you know, you’ve built yourself to where you are, you know, starting back 33, 35 years ago to where you are now. And so listen, one thing you mentioned,
before we got on here, you mentioned systems. And so it’s not always easy in this climate. So what’s been the key or the systems to keeping that machine running smoothly?
Iris I Romero (07:13)
It’s very important to maintain your, your, your goal and you must always have your systems in place, no matter for what that is. And guess what? Our parents used to tell us, and we thought they were joking. They were always just trying to, you know, mess with us, not write them down. If you do not write that business plan, whether it’s, ⁓ acing the exam.where there is getting into whatever you want to do, you gotta write it down. Put the business plan in front of you, start executing it. If it’s something not working, tweaking it, pivoting, moving forward. But if you just sit around and expecting, that makes you a great dreamer. But a dream without motion and action, it’s just a dream. That’s why it’s so important to write it down. Write everything down, no matter what. Strategies don’t come out of the blue. It teaches you. Life around you teaches you. And sometimes, most of the times, heck, you can’t control what’s around you. You can’t control it. But you gotta learn to pivot real fast. And that’s one of the things that we are not taught in high school, We’re not taught in school. You tell me when was the last time that…
Quentin (08:29)
Yeah.Iris I Romero (08:37)
you learned any type of financial literacy in school. This is not something that is taught to us and not everyone is going to go to college. And let me tell you, some of my worst clients are doctors. They’re brilliant, but they have zero financial knowledge because no one takes the time to do this. And financial knowledge and making these small habits as young as, believe it or not, three, four, five years old.Those are very important. A lesson that I taught my son when he was in elementary school was I taught him how to learn a business and I taught him about finances. I was the bank, I was the one that bought the candy, but I also have a payment that he has to repay an interest. He had to know how many units were in that bag, how much he was going to sell those candy pieces.
to get a profit. Because sometimes we get so focused in what we do and what we’re doing, we forget the most important person, us. If we don’t pay us first, then we have no business. So I said, make sure you put this. And I taught him how to diversify, how? Getting your friends now that were into this to come to you and now work for you and you now fund their business, now you become the banker.
Quentin (09:44)
Yeah.Iris I Romero (10:35)
So it’s a lot of different things that we could do with our children. We could do with our families because today it is a village and we all need to contribute to that family. Mom and dad are out there working, bringing in the main beef and potato, but the kids need to have those also. Why? Because that lawn has to be done. If someone, we’re paying someone to do it when we have kids at home. Why? Why are we paying someone to clean the house? Teach those kids. Now,Quentin (10:36)
Yeah.Iris I Romero (11:06)
teach them those lessons, but also teach them finances as they’re doing it and having them grow their business. So these are habits that have to come from young to build them because they only get stronger and better. And those are things that I always try to teach. Never live above your means. If you stay always under the radar and learn to save, but you don’t save to save, we save to invest.if we do not save to invest that we don’t grow wealth. And you know the difference between a rich man and a wealthy man.
Quentin (11:42)
Starting.Iris I Romero (11:43)
It’s generational. The rich man has the money today, but the wealthy one, their grandchildren would have that. Why? Because you gotta learn the rules of the game, guys.Quentin (11:45)
Wow.Yeah.
Yeah. No, I love it. mean, I love everything you’re saying. I love how you teaching yourself, your son, financial literacy. And I love one of the things that you said earlier on, we were talking about pivoting fast. Like sometimes you have to learn and pivot fast. And that’s something that we talk about here on this podcast is that everybody, you know, sometimes most people focus on a success, but they don’t show the journey until to get to success.
And so, I was wondering if you could tell us a moment when things got real for you, maybe when Adele went sideways, maybe a time when you had to pivot fast. Do you mind sharing a story like that with our viewers?
Iris I Romero (12:35)
Absolutely. When the market crash, ⁓ I only had one type of client, which was a very wealthy type of client that I was doing financing. I had a lot of real estate that I had purchased and I also had a ⁓ Passofino Horse Farm. So was raising horses and that’s a very expensive hobby by the way. And unfortunately,because of the jumbo loans being frozen, I could only survive in my business, because I did have, always have a plan of this happening. We just didn’t have such a global plan to that happen, and it happened. So ⁓ I was in chaos, and I was very close of losing my primary home and some of my investments properties, because if that tenant stops paying, you can’t pay that mortgage.
That’s why it’s so important to have a property cash flowing property and saving money for those times. So at that time, ⁓ I had to pivot. If I was not able to maintain my business, my office in Coral Gables, the rent was extremely expensive. Now the legal knowledge that I had afforded me something very important in my real estate lease with that company, by the way, because
Quentin (13:44)
Yeah.Iris I Romero (14:03)
In all of my commercial leases, if I represent the tenant, I always write a little clause there stating that if the property sells, I have six months that I can tell the new buyer that I will not be staying as a tenant. And people don’t understand why, and that’s because on any sale, taxes, insurance, and everything goes up. That means that on the type of lease that I had a triple net, my expenses were gonna go up.So I was only there for another three months and I was able to get out of the lease. And then I was praying saying, what do I do? Those horses have to eat every day. They don’t care about the economy. I had a three-year-old baby boy. My husband at the time was working with me. He had to go back to what he did before, which was he was a general manager of a hotel in Miami Beach. We know that that doesn’t pay enough to cover all those expenses. So I started out
Because of that knowledge, someone came to me and I still don’t know and I know that it was an angel. They came to me, a lady, was a Spanish lady that didn’t speak a word of English. She came to me because her son was a military ⁓ officer and he was losing his house. The reason why he was losing his house was because he was out at war. So his mom had power of attorney. The banks asked her for proof of insurance
She had no idea what the letter stated. She kept sending her monthly payment like she was supposed to. When she tried to call them to ask them, no one would speak with her even though she had power of attorney. So one thing led to another, they forced placed insurance. They forced placed insurance, mortgage went up. She kept paying the same amount because she was not aware of it. Eventually they put her in foreclosure. Somehow she got a hold of me. She literally came to my house.
and I told her, I’ve got you. So I called the bank and I sent power of attorney and then I expressed myself very simply and I very eloquently put not to antagonize them and I said,
I am going to introduce you to the Soldier Sailor Act that protects our military community from this type of situation.
Quentin (17:01)
Hmm.Iris I Romero (17:06)
and we’re gonna have 24 hours to rectify this wrong that you’ve done on this soldier. And obviously that went to higher chains in this bank, but within 24 hours, he was out of foreclosure, the force place insurance was removed, the monies that were due to him came back. And on top of that, I finished my mission by saying, ma’am, let me have the rest of his bills like car payment, credit cards.because under that Soldier Sailor Act, I’m able to put it at a 6 % interest rate and I reduced all of this. Now, she says, how much do I owe you? And I said, ma’am, I can’t charge a military soldier for this. So I didn’t. And then she recommended another ⁓ soldier, her daughter, and I’m going, am I ever gonna make money? But you know what? I learned so much about how to deal with the banks and…
Quentin (17:39)
Wow.Wow.
Yeah.
Iris I Romero (18:03)
That led me to pivot. I am going to help my community get out of this situation because attorneys were charging so much money that people couldn’t afford and the ones that they couldn’t afford were going under the cracks. And I started doing mortgage modifications and ⁓ that led to mortgage modifications. If you could afford to keep the house under proper guidelines or let’s sell this propertyQuentin (18:07)
Yeah.Iris I Romero (18:34)
and keep a lot of your equity before you lose the property and lose your equity. And that’s how I pivoted and all we have to do, like I said, because I practiced jujitsu, all I have to do is one more second without being tapped. And that’s what I did. I pivoted to that and I was able to put income into this because I recognized the need and I was able to put income that was at a lot. No.Quentin (18:46)
Mm.Mmm.
Iris I Romero (19:03)
but it was enough to keep my family afloat. But where I succeeded was my community, especially my military community, were now having a breather and I was able to help them out. Because we’ve got to get back. Don’t ever forget that.Quentin (19:20)
Yeah. No, I think I hear you very clearly. And I told you, I love the way you focus on the community. Can’t say it as eloquently as you said it, but you pretty much were saying there has to be a passion. There has to be something, a passion, purpose that kind of keeps us going. And I hear it. I hear it with your business. I hear why you’re doing what you’re doing. You’re serving people and I absolutely love it. So listen, I want to ask you this. What is the next, what are you most focused on scaling next? Like what’s the next real goal for you?Iris I Romero (19:48)
I’ve accumulated ⁓ my residual, what I call my residual income, which is very important. And now I’m able to have the time and the passion to continue what I do, which is I want to teach everyone who wants to listen financial literacy and how to accumulate wealth in the fastest way that I know.that has been proving to me on how to build wealth has been through real estate. I dabble into the crypto, but that’s not what I do best. What I do best and where I’ve gotten my results have been in real estate and financial literacy. So I am actually working right now, I’m working on a book that I want to release about this and the book.
If you were to see it, you say, okay, what is this? Remember what I said a little while ago. Financial literacy starts very young age. So my book of financial literacy is actually for children. It’s not for adults, but adults will get a lot out of it. Why? Because it’s so important. And on top of that, I am building that book, but I’m also trying to build a community unity out there outreach where
people that are right now going through a lot of hardship can contact that community and together all these types of different avenues of resources and so forth can go in there and we can help. Remember the Jiu-Jitsu rule, all you have to do is live one more second. So if we can get you over that little hump into that community building it, that’s where I believe that
My journey is taking me. It’s taking me. I’m not saying that I’m leaving the game because I love the game. I’m saying that it’s now time for me to my diversification right now. More importantly for me, it’s in my community because I’m seeing what’s going on around it. And if I don’t do something about it, then I’m no better than the person that is trying to keep the other ones down. Knowledge is king.
Quentin (22:02)
Yeah.Iris I Romero (22:12)
And that’s what I’m trying to do. I’m building this community with strangers from all different walks of lives, putting them together so that we can do something productive. And by the way, what you’re doing today is so important because these types of podcasts that you’re doing, this is not just how to make money. Anybody can make money. It’s how to build it.recognize it and share it. We have got to get back into the old ways, which is you make it teach those to do it. Why do you want to keep everything to yourself? When is enough going to be enough? Again, it’s time and quality of life. And last I heard my quality of life is with my friends and family. And this is what my journey is taking me.
Quentin (22:58)
Yeah. ⁓Iris I Romero (23:09)
for the next part of face of my life is doing that. My son is 20 years old, he’s in college, he’s doing awesome and I am so proud of him. And I see through him different things obviously because his way of being introduced into this business was not something that came.out of a stranger. He’s been involved in real estate his entire life. For God’s sakes, one of my offices when he was born was his room because I had to work and he was there. So he grew up learning this. But I am so excited to see with the community aspect how his journey is going to take off knowing that mom always taught to always learn it, make it yours, succeed.
Quentin (23:41)
No.Thank
Iris I Romero (24:02)
teach it and pass it on forward. And I’m looking forward to that.Quentin (24:07)
Yeah, yeah. I love it. I mean, I absolutely love it. I love, again, your community approach. I love your son. He’s so blessed and what you’re doing with him. And then just just what you’re doing, just wanting to teach people, make sure people are financially literate, build in a community. And you want to partner with people who want to help other people that’s in hard times. Right. And so I see it. I see what you’re doing.I see how relationships are important to you. so I just really, I just thank you for what you’re doing. I thank you for your focus, for the systems you have in place and just overall, just your integrity with what you’re doing. And so thank you so much. listen, before we wrap, if someone wanted to reach out to you, connect with you, learn more about what you’re doing, what’s the best way for them to reach out to you?
Iris I Romero (24:58)
They can send me an email. My email address is my full name, Iris I for Yvette, Romero at gmail.com. My company is Sky-Land International Realty. I am always available. Anything that they need, any question, I am available. And what I tell people, don’t wait for the problem to contact me.When you see that there’s a concern, that’s when you contact me because that’s when we have options. When we have a problem, we have only a few solutions and sometimes maybe not. But when there’s that anticipation, that’s when you have so many different options. So they can reach out to me there for sure.
Quentin (25:46)
Yes, is, Miss Iris.Iris I Romero (25:46)
I wanna thank you for what you’re doing. This is awesome, like I said before, you’re doing something that we need more of this in our community. And I love the way that you approached me, the way that your podcast, I did some research on you. Man, you’re awesome. And I really wanna thank you and I appreciate you. And I see you and I see what you’re doing and it’s awesome.Quentin (26:13)
Ms. Iris, you did me to what I was trying to do to you. I was supposed to sing your praises, but I humbly thank you. I take serious what we do. And so thank you so much. And same to you, thank you for what you’re doing for your community. Thank you for building legacy for your family, building that wealth that’s going to sustain your children and your children’s children. So I applaud you and what you’re doing and what you’re building.I humbly receive it and then I throw it right back at you. So thank you so much, Ms. Absolutely. Absolutely. Well, listen, y’all got it. I told y’all at the top why I was excited. Y’all see why I was excited. And so listen, all I want you to do is hit that subscribe button. That way you can come back in and you can continue to just get this value from these amazing people, just like Ms. Iris, that we’re going to continue to bring on. So Ms. Iris, thank you again.
Iris I Romero (26:44)
Thank you so much, brother. I appreciate that.Quentin (27:08)
And to everyone else, we will see you on the next time.
