Master Your Mindset: 5 Essential Steps for Property Management Growth

John Harcar (00:01.115)
All right. Hey guys, welcome back to our show. I’m your host, John Harar. And I’m here today with Christine, Christine Wong Tai. Hope I said that right. and besides her real estate journey, we’re going to talk a little bit about, know, how she ultimately discovered her niche and what she calls, what was it? Low effort, high return, real estate. guys remember at investor fuel, we help real estate investors, service providers, really all real estate entrepreneurs, two to five X their business.

Christine Wong-Tai (00:09.816)
Yeah, you did.

John Harcar (00:30.663)
by providing the tools and resources to grow the business that they want to grow, which in turn helps them live that lifestyle and that life they’ve always wanted to. Christine, welcome to our show.

Christine Wong-Tai (00:41.336)
Thank you so much, John, and thank you for having me. Really excited to chat with you guys today.

John Harcar (00:44.339)
Yeah, I know. Yeah, I’m excited to talk about your journey and talk about this low effort, high return. Because mean, frankly, that’s what everybody would like to have. But before we get into all that, talk about, get into the weeds, tell our audience a little bit about you, kind of your background, how you got into real estate, and kind of what brought you here.

Christine Wong-Tai (01:06.222)
Alright, so guys, we’re gonna have to go back a little bit to 2011 because that’s when I purchased my first duplex in Brooklyn, New York. And quite frankly, the… I can’t say that I went in with a true strategy or goal. I sort of grew up with this notion from my Chinese parents that you gotta buy a house.

was never justified why, never given more than an explanation. You just gotta buy a house. So once my sister and I entered the professional workforce, within a year I think we had under each of our belts in terms of like professional experience, my mom said, you guys now have to buy a house. And so we did that in 2011. It was the duplex in Brooklyn. My parents live in one unit and we have tenants in the other. And from then we just, we were landlords.

managing the property and whatnot, really didn’t fully understand what being a landlord was, what’s involved aside from finding tenants, but there’s so much in the day to day. So we really just learned by doing along the years. My husband and I then started to…

I think what I to say in maybe like 2016 timeframe, we purchased our first apartment together. That was a primary residence. We later sold that for a profit and then purchased a bigger property, which is the one I’m in currently. But in 2015, our daughter was born. And while I was on maternity leave, I discovered bigger pockets.

and was listening to a podcast full of inspirational stories of different people finding financial freedom through real estate. And so I was inspired, I was motivated, and honestly, I was at a point in my life where I said, I want to be home with this precious life that I just birthed, and I don’t know how. I mean, my job, certainly, at the time, was not paying me enough for me to do that.

John Harcar (03:20.252)
Mm-hmm.

Christine Wong-Tai (03:27.682)
So I was inspired, but then didn’t really take action. Didn’t really take action or come up with a plan.

John Harcar (03:31.154)
Got it. Like most people. Like a lot of people, yeah.

Christine Wong-Tai (03:36.194)
Yeah, so then comes, then came the birth of our twin boys in 2019. Yes, twins right before the pandemic.

John Harcar (03:43.494)
wins.

I have twins, I have twins and I’m a twin. I, yeah, you know what the first thing my mom said when I told her I was have twins, she’s all, ha ha, payback, you know what? But she was right, but it’s precious and that’s a whole nother podcast that we could talk a lot about that. But congratulations.

Christine Wong-Tai (03:52.054)
You know the adventure is beautiful.

Christine Wong-Tai (04:07.914)
yeah!

Thank you, thank you. But yeah, I want to say when the boys were born and the pandemic hit, I actually work in healthcare IT. It was difficult to navigate. It was really difficult to navigate when COVID hit. We were in lockdown, everyone starts working from home, we’re fed lots of information, whether it be right or wrong information, we were just fed lots and lots of information.

John Harcar (04:21.201)
Okay.

John Harcar (04:38.972)
Mm-hmm.

Christine Wong-Tai (04:41.198)
And I again came that desire for financial freedom and how do I do it? So I want to say towards the end of 2023, my motivation is super high. So it’s just reignited once again. And I’m like, I’m going to do it this time. I’m just going to do it. And I started, I ended 2023 with the

intention of, you know, expanding into real estate more, doing more real estate investing, not fully defined, just very high level at that point. I joined a real estate community and found like-minded members and other students who were at different stages of their own journeys, but we guided one another. I was able to contribute. I was guided by others and I partnered with some people too.

started 2024 and I said, am going to expand to 80 doors because I want to retire from corporate within five years. just talking to the mentors at the time, they said, well, for you, that’s gonna be about 80 doors. I was like, okay.

John Harcar (06:04.956)
they did your freedom number type of

Christine Wong-Tai (06:11.518)
I don’t think it was the freedom number exercise more like I said I wanted to make a direct offset for my current corporate salary. And that’s how they said that, well, for you, then that’s going to be about 80 doors. My freedom number is different. And actually, I’ll tell you a little bit how later on in 2024, I actually discovered I’ve already hit my freedom number, which was a wonderful revelation.

John Harcar (06:38.994)
That’s awesome.

Christine Wong-Tai (06:40.66)
Yeah, it was. It was an enlightening moment, honestly. Just going back to early 2024, I’m on this journey to acquire 80 doors. It’s not going as quickly as I liked at all. I don’t think I was moving as quickly during the winter months when it was slow. I was learning about

John Harcar (06:58.62)
Why not?

Christine Wong-Tai (07:10.114)
this, I started investing out of state and very micro-focused on Cleveland, Ohio, because I went and did a Google search and looked up what are the top landlord-friendly towns to invest in for real estate. And Cleveland was one of those cities and towns that just sort of like consistently came up across multiple sources.

And I also connected with a great local resource there who was able to supply me with on the boots, on the ground, boots information. They also helped me really a lot with doing drive-bys of different properties that I was interested in putting offers in on. it just worked out really nicely in that way. I learned a lot about Cleveland in the process. And but yeah, wasn’t once, I think,

mid-February time frame came, I saw the competition tick up significantly. So while I’m working… February of 2024. Yeah, that’s still… So that’s when, you know, the competition picks up. I’m not able to move as quickly. One being out of state, having to go through my realtor and just needing to like book and schedule time. At that point, very quickly…

John Harcar (08:10.812)
Sure. February of this year.

24 I still okay

John Harcar (08:28.306)
Mm-hmm.

Christine Wong-Tai (08:34.222)
We moved from, okay, yeah, you can go see the house in two days to you need to put an offer just to schedule a showing.

John Harcar (08:41.436)
just a schedule of showing, yeah.

Christine Wong-Tai (08:43.918)
Yep. So we started getting into the process of doing that a little bit more. And honestly, John, I grew so frustrated. I was constantly browsing all of the engines available. At least that’s what it felt like. I was looking at hundreds of properties every single day. I’m sending things back and forth to my realtor and, you know, connecting with different investors and

John Harcar (09:00.412)
Mm-hmm.

Christine Wong-Tai (09:12.886)
Nothing was sticking. So I was chatting with the Boots on the Ground partner and I said to her, I was like, I’m really frustrated. This really isn’t moving as quickly as I like. And she said, well, would you consider a pivot in trying something different? So I’m like, is it still real estate? Yeah. I know someone who’s raising funds for a boutique hotel.

John Harcar (09:39.373)
Mmm, okay.

Christine Wong-Tai (09:41.078)
Yes, her name is Britt. And she’s like, I can connect to you if you like. So I said, sure. We hung up. was a Friday afternoon. By five o’clock, I was chatting with Britt. And by eight o’clock, I was chatting with the firm that hosted the funds. was there. Yes, it happened very, very quickly.

John Harcar (10:01.04)
Hmm. Let’s do the find, okay.

Christine Wong-Tai (10:08.782)
I received all the information about the fund and the investment properties and whatnot. Did my reviews over the weekend. Within a month’s time, I was wiring money into my first syndication. After just doing like the due diligence and whatnot.

John Harcar (10:18.566)
Mm-hmm.

John Harcar (10:28.784)
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Tell our folks out there that might not know what a syndication is and a fund is and those type of things.

Christine Wong-Tai (10:37.044)
yes, yes. So I would say syndications, by the way, this is where I will reveal real estate syndications are what I deem the low effort, high return real estate deals. This is exactly where I have found my niche in real estate. And the way I like to describe a syndication, if you were to think of like a circle or pie here, right?

There are two groups of people within that circle. There are the general partners, or frequently called GPs. They are the actual operators of the properties. They run the day to day, they manage the operations, they do the hiring, they do the advertising, marketing, et cetera. And then there are the limited partners.

often called LPs or sometimes called equity partners, and that’s the group that I joined. And there, your responsibility really is bringing the funds to the deal in exchange for returns.

John Harcar (11:50.835)
Okay. What in all your research, know, I mean, obviously you were, were, well, let’s go back actually a little bit. Let’s, I’ve never forgot to ask my first question. My normal question is besides, mean, obviously buying a home and, know, you, it sounds like you house hacked a duplex with your parents living in one and then renting out the other one. What other, or were there any other influences in real estate? A podcast you listen to, an event you went to, a book you read.

Anything that kind of kickstarted the real estate journey.

Christine Wong-Tai (12:23.47)
I would say definitely the Bigger Pockets podcast that I discovered while I was out on maternity leave with our first child, that really like ignited the motivation and just realized that this was out there. And I kind of silently followed Bigger Pockets quietly for a long time. During the pandemic is when I started to see more influence.

from other real estate investors really showing up on social media, honestly.

John Harcar (12:58.61)
Yeah, everybody’s pinned in the house. They’re doing podcasts.

Christine Wong-Tai (13:02.31)
yes, yes, they’re painting their houses, they’re flipping, they’re showing the before and after, and just showing different size of it. And I said, well, why can’t I do that? I’ve, why not?

John Harcar (13:07.686)
Mm-hmm.

John Harcar (13:14.002)
Outside of bigger pockets that you seek in the, you mentioned a real estate community and I’ll talk, I wanna talk to you real quick about why that’s important as well, but outside of the podcast, did you search out any other communities, masterminds, coaching groups, things like that?

Christine Wong-Tai (13:31.894)
I did join one, it’s the more than money community that Ali and Josh from the Phi couple started.

John Harcar (13:42.811)
Okay.

Christine Wong-Tai (13:44.182)
I think they the part of that one with John and I apologize but I’m forgetting his last name.

John Harcar (13:51.566)
That’s okay. It’s okay. So then why was it important for you to find community?

Christine Wong-Tai (13:58.018)
I didn’t feel like I knew how to do it if I kind of scale if I’m doing this out of state for the first time. I live in New York and I had already pre-made up my mind. I’m absolutely not going to continue investing in real estate in New York. Just based on my experience, I find that there’s a lot of additional administration that I find unnecessary. Also, it is a very

John Harcar (14:05.126)
Mm-hmm.

John Harcar (14:24.508)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Christine Wong-Tai (14:27.864)
pennant friendly state and it doesn’t favor the landlord.

John Harcar (14:28.934)
Yes, I was going to say, I don’t like landlords. It’s like California, know, landlords aren’t friendly. Anyways.

Christine Wong-Tai (14:36.308)
Exactly. Exactly. so and that’s what sort of, you know, motivated me to do my start my search with. Well, if I’m going to go out of state, first criteria is it has to be in a landlord friendly state.

John Harcar (14:49.052)
Perfect.

So how did you find this community? I mean, was it just an online community? Did you reach out to someone specifically?

Christine Wong-Tai (14:59.182)
I had been following Ali and Josh for a while and then I scheduled some time with Josh just to chat about the real estate journey, what my goals were and whatnot. And then he said to me, we actually have a community. If you’d like to learn more, like here’s some more details around the community. It was several hundred members large at the time. there was quite a bit of…

I think they said that they already had several members also who were investing in Cleveland. So I said, OK, great. Establish investors. Ideally, maybe I could just plug and play. Ideally.

John Harcar (15:34.371)
okay.

John Harcar (15:43.293)
Sure, yeah, know, 100%. And nowadays too, we’re in the world of not necessarily what you know, but kind of who you know, because through that who you know, you can learn from their experiences, mistakes, avoid those pitfalls, right? So community is very big. So what do you think in your overall journey, like some of maybe struggles were, as you were starting or as you were growing?

Christine Wong-Tai (16:00.854)
Yeah

John Harcar (16:09.82)
You know, maybe mindset things that help you kind of make those pivots and whatnot.

Christine Wong-Tai (16:17.396)
gosh,

Christine Wong-Tai (16:22.028)
I think I had to… I remember…

I would say one of the big lessons learned for me is that you cannot just chase the big numbers. I think I didn’t realize it at the time. I thought it was like just what I was supposed to do because I was trying to get to 80 doors. But I didn’t I have to admit that in retrospect, there was a bit of me that’s like, want to be that girl that’s zero to 80 doors in less than a year. And

Like that was sort of just the wrong mindset going into it. I had to acquire that.

John Harcar (17:04.966)
Right. Why is that the why was that the right? Why was that the wrong mindset? Like what would have been the right mindset?

Christine Wong-Tai (17:12.962)
I think the focus really has to be finding the right fit for yourself. And, you know, the out of the active managing of rentals for me, that’s not it. That’s not it. The goal originally was 80 doors. I went two doors in out, like out of state, and I honestly was scratching my head and like, I get myself into. Really found myself second guessing a lot of the work.

John Harcar (17:25.778)
Mm-hmm

John Harcar (17:37.232)
Right?

Christine Wong-Tai (17:42.592)
I put in, I’ve analyzed hundreds and hundreds of properties. And when I go back, I’m like, did I not cross my T somewhere? I not cross dot my I’s? But I did. Everywhere I looked. But that’s just part of, I think, actively managing a rental and the different things that come with it. And there’s so many things. There’s so many.

John Harcar (17:54.588)
Yep.

Christine Wong-Tai (18:12.226)
different activities that come up and it’s all part of that investment package.

John Harcar (18:17.051)
Mm-hmm.

part of the journey. You know, it’s like you don’t you don’t know you like Brussels sprouts to eat Brussels sprouts, you know, and you tried the Brussels sprouts and you’re really not liking the Brussels sprouts too much, you know, with that, you know, with that.

Christine Wong-Tai (18:21.838)
I’m gonna be home.

Christine Wong-Tai (18:31.99)
I think that’s a beautiful, beautiful analogy, honestly.

John Harcar (18:36.978)
But you gotta get out there and try it, right? And also too, mean, out of state stuff is difficult and at least you had someone in the market that helped you. And I know that for my out of state investing, it was important to find that person you could trust in that network. How did you find that person again? Was that part of that training or that group?

Christine Wong-Tai (19:01.29)
It was, it was. as you remember, one of the first things they encourage you to do is, hey, introduce yourself. What are you here for? What are you trying to do? And what I was a big fan of, I love doing the one on one connections. I’m much better at connecting in that particular way one on one. So I would schedule these one on ones with all the different investors in the group. And when I came.

John Harcar (19:10.183)
Mm-hmm.

Christine Wong-Tai (19:28.27)
across this person, we immediately just connected. She was so eager to provide value. was boots on the ground. was like, I just want to learn. And I’m happy to do, I’m happy to do drive-bys, provide information. And then we just started building out the resources together.

John Harcar (19:47.794)
Very cool. Was she a realtor? Was she an investor?

Christine Wong-Tai (19:51.95)
She was an investor who originally started wanting to do residential real estate too, possibly even commercial. However, she pivoted to self-storage.

John Harcar (20:00.178)
Okay.

John Harcar (20:05.02)
Well, nice. Yeah, that’s a lot of people I’ve heard are going to self-storage. It’s been become popular. Well, in our last couple of minutes, let’s kind of just touch on, you know, your low effort, high return stuff. How does someone go out there and find this indication that they can invest in?

Christine Wong-Tai (20:21.624)
To find the deals, I recommend networking. I think that networking and really putting yourself out there, telling everybody you know, want to invest in a real estate syndication, really, really helps. And just being incredibly repetitive about that. Because once you do your first and you start to to know others, it really becomes easier.

People start to bring you the deals when they have the next one. And there are always more deals to do. So I definitely recommend networking and just advertising everywhere you can. Send me your deals and make sure like just making sure people know you are a real estate investor and this is where you want to focus.

John Harcar (20:53.042)
Right.

John Harcar (21:15.154)
Perfect. Any, you think there’s any other advice that you might give someone looking to break in and whether it’s doing out of state rentals or investing in syndications. mean, what other advice you think you might give to help someone be set up for success?

Christine Wong-Tai (21:32.654)
Oh, I think it has to start with mindset. I’ve seen and I’ve been there myself. OK, I’ve I started with the motivation back in 2015 and I didn’t take actual action and put a plan and a road map in place until end of 2023. That’s a lot of great years lost. So.

John Harcar (22:00.039)
Yes.

Christine Wong-Tai (22:01.078)
I would definitely say that if you look for the advantage that you bring to the table and start with a real estate strategy where that advantage can be applied. And then just get started. Just do it. Get out there, connect with people. But it really starts with mindset. A lot of people I talk to start with, I don’t have money.

John Harcar (22:19.89)
Perfect.

Christine Wong-Tai (22:31.15)
There’s plenty of people out here starting with zero down. Find out how they’re doing it. You know? And then get out there and just copy paste because that’s what a lot of us are out here doing. We found others who are already doing it. There’s nothing really miraculous or new that any of us are really doing. We found someone else who’s already doing it. We’re perfecting it. We’re making it our own. And…

John Harcar (22:36.262)
Yep. Yep.

Christine Wong-Tai (22:58.658)
and then we’re just doubling down on whatever works the best for us.

John Harcar (23:02.322)
it. Such great advice. Such a great podcast. I appreciate you coming on here on and sharing all that stuff. If there’s folks out of your own here that maybe want to work with you, you know, maybe have a deal that, you know, they’d love to have you look at or just kind of talk, you know, reach out and talk to you. What’s the best way for them to get in touch with you?

Christine Wong-Tai (23:21.934)
I am super active on Instagram under the handle compoundingpenny, so feel free to reach out, send me a DM. I’d love to connect. And, you know, in addition to just reviewing any deals that you might have, if you want help reviewing your deals, I love looking at them. I love looking at them. It just gives it gives me more practice as well.

John Harcar (23:43.229)
That’s awesome guys take advantage of it man if she’s looking for if she’s looking to help you with your deals, please you know, it’ll only help you get better and you guys can all learn in the process. I enjoyed this show Christine. Thank you again for coming on and guys will see you on the next one. Cheers.

Christine Wong-Tai (24:00.45)
Thanks so much.