Mastering Real Estate: Essential Strategies for Investment Growth

John Harcar (00:01.21)
All right. Hey guys, welcome back to our show. I’m your host, John Harcar, and I’m here today with Lenore Mohr. And what we’re going to talk about is besides her incredible real estate journey, talk a little bit about why, you know, realtors need to work with investments and investors and about a course that she put together, which is really cool. Remember guys, that investor fuel, we help real estate investors, service providers. mean, all real estate entrepreneurs, two to five X their business.

We do it by providing tools and resources to help you grow that business you wanna have and in turn live the life you wanna live. So without further ado, Lenore, welcome to our show.

Lenore Mohr (00:38.37)
Thanks, John, I’m glad to be here.

John Harcar (00:42.704)
Awesome, and I’m looking forward to talking more about your journey. And before we get into all that, why don’t you tell our folks about you, right? How you got into real estate, a little bit about your background and what got you here.

Lenore Mohr (00:56.302)
Great, yeah. So it started in 2016 when I decided to become a real estate investor. And after years of being in Hollywood, you know, I was a producer, I was at the studio system, TriStar, Columbia, Fox. So I was always used to working with big budgets and understanding how to manage projects. My dad was an architect, so was something that I always knew I wanted to get into. And then I shifted into the nonprofit world for three years and really wanted to be of service. So I gave back to my community in Pennsylvania.

And that was one of the most rich experiences I’ve ever had. But at that point I was like, okay, what do you want to do, Lenore? And so what I really wanted to do was to get into real estate investing. So I actually invested a bunch of money. You you have different paths to figure out how to do this. For me, I’m big on education, right? I’m big on mentorship, education, just diving in deep and executing, executing, executing.

with a company that provided those tools. And the only thing I remember hearing somebody in the room say, one of the coaches was buy as much as you can as fast as you can. And I was like, okay. So after I understood the concepts of how to run numbers and how to look for deals, and I set a very clear intention, things started coming to me.

John Harcar (02:11.804)
You

John Harcar (02:18.854)
Right?

Lenore Mohr (02:22.35)
deals started coming to me, opportunities started to come to me. And I’m a firm believer in once we set an intention and we put it out there and we’re very clear on our goal that things come to us, opportunities come to us. So I had my first, the first one’s always the critical one, right? So the first one was the huge learning lesson. You remember your first one?

John Harcar (02:36.945)
Yes.

John Harcar (02:43.014)
Yeah.

John Harcar (02:47.227)
Let’s talk about some of learning lessons. mean, I think that’s what folks need to hear.

Lenore Mohr (02:52.384)
Okay, so the first one, I acquired this education. I’m in the middle of it though. I mean, no, I’m in the beginning of learning, but I’m okay learning and executing. Like I learn and apply, learn and apply. So I’m like learning, learning. was in a room full of people, a couple hundred people. And of course I raised my hand and asked a question because I think when you’re in a room like that, you want to stand out a bit. It’s not something I try to do. I just have a question, but I ask a question. I am listening to what’s going on. I contribute to that question. And from that, several people

came up to me afterwards and one of them being a contractor and he says hey I have all these you know I have properties I have properties that I’m doing I’m looking for the money can you get the money and I was like this yes yes I can get the money because I have taken this course

John Harcar (03:38.023)
Yeah, yes, I can do that.

Lenore Mohr (03:40.352)
Yes, you know, I mean, you have that moment where you say to yourself, what am I going to say here? And answer is always yes, I can figure that out. I’ll find that out. And I it’s not like I was blind. I had some coaching that I could go into. So I figured out the money piece. I figured out a hard money lender. I use somebody else’s W-2 income to supplement to make sure that we had the money we needed. And then we were getting ready to come to the closing table. And I didn’t know like all the closing costs that are getting added on there, even though I’m ready.

John Harcar (03:50.013)
Mm-hmm.

Lenore Mohr (04:10.316)
my numbers, I’m still learning. Right? And I was like, my gosh, I need about $50,000 to gap this and to get us going with construction money. So I called up somebody, I was like, what am going to do? And I thought, that I remember that woman said she had money, but it was going to cost me. There’s always an opportunity costs when you don’t have experience, it’s going to cost you money. Right? It’s going to cost you time and it’s to cost you money. So I called

her up borrowed money from her and she said it’s gonna be at 18 % interest and maybe was 15 felt like 18 % interest non-amortized which means which means if I borrowed it for three months or I borrowed it for 12 months doesn’t matter you have to pay for the whole year of amortization right the whole year of interest and I was like okay just here’s the deal you’re not gonna make a lot of money you might not make any money however you’re gonna have your first deal under your belt

John Harcar (04:48.615)
Oof.

John Harcar (04:56.317)
doesn’t matter. Right.

Lenore Mohr (05:08.076)
And I was like, yeah. And that first deal, learned a lot. I learned a lot. And so that first one, you get a little confidence. You’re like, okay, I get it, right? I understand. And so from there, I bought another one. got a sheriff sale and then I bought another one. then three, four, five, six, I had four going at once. Two in Pennsylvania, two in New Jersey. And I’m just rolling with it. And I’m hiring contractors. that one doesn’t work. this one doesn’t work. Wait, what do you mean I just lost money on this material or that?

John Harcar (05:17.735)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Lenore Mohr (05:38.032)
learning right I’m creating documents I’m documenting my system so I’m like how am I doing this how can I hone this to get better at it how can I I quit it I quit my job at some point I was like I can’t do both right if I could go back and do it again I would probably have kept my w2 job

John Harcar (05:41.32)
Sure.

John Harcar (05:48.584)
Mm-hmm.

John Harcar (05:52.55)
Right.

Lenore Mohr (05:56.954)
and figured out and I was still working 100 hours a week probably at this point right but I would have figured it out because I really would have liked income to come in and be steady because in the beginning you’re like I’m gonna make so much money well yes and no you make some money and you lose

John Harcar (06:03.698)
Mm-hmm.

John Harcar (06:11.025)
You right.

Well, because we see on the online piece of everybody showing how great it is and the deals and how great it is until you actually get in there and you realize it takes a little bit longer and there’s a lot more involved than what everybody shows.

Lenore Mohr (06:29.45)
Absolutely. And I think one other thing I would have done differently is I would have called somebody like me now, you know, having 40 renovations under my belt, you know, I have 24 doors. I would call somebody like me and say, hey, I found a great deal. Would you partner with me? don’t know that percentage is. Can we do a couple together? Because that way now you get all my processes and systems. You see how I run a deal. You see how I manage the construction.

piece. You see how I put it into rotation and get it ready for sale. You learn so much. So I think if I would go back in time, I would have aligned with that woman that’s that loaned me all that money and said, hey, can we do this together? Right? That’s probably what I would

John Harcar (07:14.493)
sure, show me how.

Most people don’t want to do they’re afraid to have to give up some equity or give up some money in the deal as opposed to well, what is this knowledge going to save me and and how much is it going to make me too, right? There’s a cost.

Lenore Mohr (07:35.118)
100%. 100%. I think we have that, you know, it’s that lack mentality, which don’t let me forget to talk about mindset because I’m doing all of this before I adjusted my mindset.

Right? So I realized at some point like, oh my gosh, it was a friend of mine named Chris Morales. He was one of my mentors. And the funny thing is, is he’s a lot younger than I am, decades younger than I am. But his mindset was so strong, think and grow rich, know, just studied it and practiced it every day. Didn’t use certain words. very, he had a steel trap mind when it came to how he was looking at his life, how he was approaching his life.

John Harcar (07:51.155)
Mm-hmm.

John Harcar (08:07.474)
Yeah.

Lenore Mohr (08:19.95)
he started saying, this is what you have to do. So all of that was happening. I’m making money, losing money. I lost a lot of money in New Jersey because I had to fire two contractors and I ended up taking over the whole job myself. Where at that point, now I’m on house number five maybe, we popped the top off of a ranch. Yes, well, okay, I’m a backyard investor.

John Harcar (08:37.851)
And are you in these markets?

Lenore Mohr (08:44.702)
I don’t believe in investing in a property or a neighborhood you’re not familiar with. I say that now. Back then, I invested in New Jersey, which I could drive to, it an hour away. However, I didn’t know it as well. So everything that I was learning in Pennsylvania, which was quite simple, I don’t need an architect. I can do my own plans in Pennsylvania. We’re not an attorney state, so you just need a realtor to

John Harcar (08:46.194)
Okay.

John Harcar (08:59.26)
Mm-hmm.

Lenore Mohr (09:14.646)
to take you through that transaction, I lost money in New Jersey because I didn’t understand the process. I didn’t understand how much longer it was going to take me and all the more hoops I had to jump through like impervious surfaces and things that nobody talks about in Pennsylvania. So that’s how I lost money in New Jersey. It was the last two transactions I ever did in that state, by the way. I stuck to Pennsylvania after that. So for me, rule number one.

John Harcar (09:28.722)
Right.

John Harcar (09:36.595)
Hmm.

So I think he said earlier.

go ahead, I’m sorry, go ahead.

Lenore Mohr (09:44.15)
No, said you think you said earlier that.

John Harcar (09:49.01)
I was going to say earlier, I think you said you have like 40 doors right now or you’ve done 40 renovations, you have 24 doors. Just kind of wondering what does your business look like now? What’s your operation look like now?

Lenore Mohr (10:00.514)
Great question. in 2020, 2019,

I started realizing that I was going to get a divorce. And I was like, oh my God. So I unwrapped everything, all the finances. And I separated all of our finances. And at that point, I was like, listen, you keep all your retirement funds. You keep all that. You know, there was concern over the liabilities that we had transacted in New Jersey.

So I said, I’ll take on all of that. I’ll take on all the liabilities. All I wanted were these four little properties that we had bought. And this friend of mine, Chris, had sort of walked me through that process. They weren’t cash flowing. They were upside down in equity. So I’m taking on liabilities, and I’m taking on these four properties. But I knew that that was part of my plan.

John Harcar (10:32.947)
Mm-hmm.

Lenore Mohr (10:53.006)
So when I split up all the, when I looked at my net worth, because I started running my net worth every week, every week, I did all my assets, all my liabilities, down to the penny in every single bank account, all the different, what is my current market value on these properties, everything, every single week. And I was like, oh my God, my net is minus $47,000. So I went, I cried, right? All that work, all that time. And I was like, okay.

John Harcar (11:13.478)
Right.

Lenore Mohr (11:23.0)
What are you gonna do about it? So I had recently got my real estate license, which I swore I’d never get. So I got my real estate license. So I started to have some income on the realtor side, right? I’m like, I will never get my real estate license. But I had all these people come to me and say, all these realtors say, can you teach me to do what you do? And I said, I’m…

just learning myself, but what do you mean? They’re like about investors and investment properties. How can I buy investment properties? How can I work with investors? And I was like, huh, put that, you know, in the back of my mind. And I started to look at, okay, all these things are coming together, right? have now clients from bigger pockets are calling me up and saying, Hey, heard about you in the Pennsylvania market. I’m looking to buy properties there. you be my realtor? I’m like, yeah, sure. So I started to develop processes, buyer intake forms, tenant letters,

communication. I started to figure out my process in order to help this for all my investors. I’m like, man, I can actually help people build long term wealth, like change their generational trajectory from helping them build their real estate portfolio. At the same time, build my own, right? So I started with step one, helping all the investors and creating these things and running my four little properties that weren’t making any money still renovate

John Harcar (12:16.968)
Mm-hmm.

Lenore Mohr (12:44.585)
properties on the side so I was still doing that.

And then I was like, okay, so where did that take me to today? So today all of that took me to in 2021, I bought 11 properties because I had to. I said, how am going to take my minus net worth? And my goal was a million dollars in net worth. I was like, I don’t, I feel like I could do this. And I just put my head down. My daughter was going to college. I had no money in the bank for her to go to college. I remember teaching something in a financial mastery class.

that I had taken six times and he actually asked me to start teaching it with him and two other guys and I was like sure and the one thing was is you know people they save money for college right you save let’s say 250 000 so you have 250 000 a year one you have this much year two you have this much and it goes down and down until you have zero and what we taught in this financial mastery class you have rental income and you have five thousand six thousand dollars a month guess what that equals the amount that you’re

John Harcar (13:39.537)
Right?

Lenore Mohr (13:47.424)
you’re gonna need to pay for your kid for college. So at the end of college, not only you left zero, yeah, all that rental income every month goes to college, but at the end, you go back up to having rental income. And I was like, just do that. So I did, I bought 11 properties. It took me a year to stabilize them. I had enough cash and I paid down cash for her for her first year.

John Harcar (14:10.151)
Awesome.

Lenore Mohr (14:14.87)
And then it was just from there, it was okay. Now I have these rental properties. I looked at my net worth and I started to do the BRRRR method, right? So I would buy it, renovate it, because I learned how to renovate, because that’s what I was doing. I would refinance it.

John Harcar (14:27.208)
Mm-hmm.

John Harcar (14:33.681)
Bright.

Lenore Mohr (14:34.858)
and get it rented, sorry, get it rented, get it refinanced, and then repeat. And so I actually pulled $125,000 out of one house. So I went to refinance it, and I was like, they were like, well, there’s an extra 125,000. I’m like.

John Harcar (14:47.271)
Incredible.

Lenore Mohr (14:52.46)
and that’s tax free dollars. Remember, when you renovate something and you refinance it and you pull that money out, that is tax free dollars. That’s like, know, bells go off in my head. I’m like, okay. So I took that, started to continue to pay down my liabilities, continue to reinvest it into other properties. Like I was on a roll that year. One year I worked to sell those properties. And so today,

John Harcar (14:57.405)
Hmm?

John Harcar (15:19.539)
Incredible.

Lenore Mohr (15:20.426)
I know, then I moved to Florida because my daughter went to college down here Florida and I said, okay, I took off a little bit of time from all the real estate activities. Now I’m self-managing all my properties and I created the course that I always dreamed of, which was to teach realtors how to work with investors and invest. Yeah, because I feel like every investor, if they’re aligned with a certified investment realtor and that’s what I created,

John Harcar (15:39.238)
Awesome!

Lenore Mohr (15:48.6)
They’re going to have the same success that I started to do for my clients. Right? And I watched their portfolios double and triple and quadruple because they had somebody with them as a realtor who understood the business, who understood their business, who understood their vision. We’re going to say something.

John Harcar (15:59.934)
Mm-hmm.

John Harcar (16:05.915)
Right. Yeah, no, a hundred percent. so with this course, what kind of specifics are you teaching folks as far as to be that certified investment agent?

Lenore Mohr (16:17.772)
Love it. So thank you for asking that because there’s six modules. Module one is mindset. I had to get my mindset totally adjusted in order to go from minus $47,000 to a million dollars in net worth.

I had to create new habits. I had to look at my limiting beliefs and get raw and real and like, my gosh, these things are running in my head. I might as well get them out and turn them into empowering beliefs. And so I read every day. I meditated every day. I did gratitude statements every day. I only in the car, I only listened to like Tony Robbins and know, Grant Cardone and Mel Robbins and like I’ve so many books that I read and listened

John Harcar (16:48.669)
Yes.

Lenore Mohr (17:05.072)
and I just filled my mind with such different language than I was used to hearing my whole life. So module one in my course is because it all starts with mindset. And then module two goes into the language of investment. We have to understand what the language is, what our investors are saying, what’s cap rates, what’s cash on cash return. You know, what’s important to you as an investor? Everybody has a different path. How can I help you to find that? And so what are your opportunities?

John Harcar (17:14.578)
right?

Lenore Mohr (17:34.954)
that we’re gonna get out of that. I teach like how to write an offer that wins, how to write, you know, how to present a listing, right? How to work out, I have a spreadsheet that I’ll give you and you just plug in all the numbers, you figure out what the cap rate is, what the purchase price is. Now your investor’s like, like would you buy this property at this price? No, it’s gotta make sense, right? We put all, it’s just numbers, just numbers. We put it into a mathematical equation, we come up with a purchase price, like I’m like this

John Harcar (17:35.709)
Right.

John Harcar (17:44.168)
Mm-hmm.

John Harcar (17:58.246)
Right. Yep.

Lenore Mohr (18:04.848)
I’d buy that property at that price. Maybe we’re a little bit higher because we might negotiate a little bit. We are in the ballpark, right? So getting real on that. I go through, I actually hired a videographer to take me through one of my properties and point out what I look for. And I call it the walkthrough of wealth.

John Harcar (18:09.619)
Mm-hmm.

John Harcar (18:14.962)
Right.

John Harcar (18:24.977)
Cool.

Lenore Mohr (18:26.37)
So you look at the exterior, how many windows, what’s going on, what’s going on with the foundation, let’s go into the basement if there’s a basement. Let’s look at the mechanicals, let’s look at the kitchen, what do we need to do? Is this a rental property, is this a flip? Those are different decisions on your renovation costs. And then I go through, let’s see, so I figured out that I was actually doing a plan where I had a plan for these investors that I created.

John Harcar (18:27.677)
Nice.

Lenore Mohr (18:53.74)
and I would walk them through this plan. didn’t know I was doing it, when I sat down for my course and analyzed it, I came up with a plan. So for example, I said to you, John, how many investment properties do you want to buy this year?

John Harcar (19:01.393)
Mm-hmm.

John Harcar (19:09.149)
Five.

Lenore Mohr (19:10.318)
I’m like, that’s great. That’s a really good number. But here’s what I’m thinking. I think we should double it and say 10. Here’s why.

If we shoot for 10, I know you’re gonna hit five. You might even hit your 10. You might hit seven or eight, but if we shoot for it, we’re gonna have a different plan. We’re gonna have a different approach. We’re gonna look at it differently. We’re gonna look at properties a little bit differently, and we’re gonna figure out that financing piece and how you can do it. Are you ready for that, John? Are you ready for looking at how you can buy 10 properties this year?

John Harcar (19:44.103)
Sure, let’s do it.

Lenore Mohr (19:45.582)
But it’s, usually one of those things where.

John Harcar (19:49.971)
Probably a little bit more resistance than that.

Lenore Mohr (19:53.774)
No, not really. mean, I think I learned a long time ago that if you’re gonna shoot for a goal and then you double that goal, you have a different plan. Always.

John Harcar (20:05.619)
Yeah.

Lenore Mohr (20:08.012)
I’m going to call a couple more people. I’m not going to give up when I see something. might go, have, you know, I think I can buy those property. You know, I just, maybe I’ll just go look at one more. Maybe I’ll just run some numbers on a couple more. Maybe I’ll do this. Just a couple more, just a little bit, because every, everything that we do in life, everything that we want to achieve and it feels sort of big, just a little bit, just a little more, just a little more. And all those little more pieces add up to something where you’re like, wow.

look what I just did. Look what I just accomplished. When you look back, you know, it’s the whole gap in the gain philosophy. I’m taking strategic coach. I’ve had a lot of coaching. So strategic coach Dan Sullivan teaches the gap in the game. You read it. And it’s, you know, we should measure backwards, right? We don’t, shouldn’t measure the gap. We should measure the gain. Let’s measure backwards. And so all those things, you know, I mean, we all have that imposter syndrome once in a while we all have that, my gosh, I didn’t hit

John Harcar (20:50.257)
Right. Yep. Yep. Of course.

John Harcar (21:00.573)
Mm-hmm.

Lenore Mohr (21:07.824)
goal and but we did hit our goal we just moved our goal at some point that’s what happens to a lot of us we like yeah I blew past that I’m good and I’m kidding we never celebrate we never stop and say hey John it’s Lenore let’s go out for a drink cuz I just hit that goal

John Harcar (21:25.245)
Smell the roses.

Lenore Mohr (21:26.754)
Yeah, I just hit that goal that I’ve been trying to hit, but it doesn’t feel like it’s far out anymore. It’s here. And so when it doesn’t feel like it’s far out anymore, we’ve a tendency just to be like, well, that yeah, I did that. So it must’ve been easy, right? I watched my daughter who’s 22 walk on fire at a Tony Robbins event for UPW for Unleash the Power Within. I walked on fire like five times. She did it for her first time. And I came up to her and I’m like, my gosh, how was it? And she said,

John Harcar (21:42.824)
Yeah.

John Harcar (21:50.515)
Mm-hmm.

Lenore Mohr (21:56.64)
said, we didn’t have hot coals. Our coals weren’t hot. I was like, really?

all the coals are like 300 or 400 degrees. You know, and you had hot coals, you had put yourself into a state of mind that allowed you to walk across those hot coals. So to her, well, the coals were broken because I did it. I accomplished it. It wasn’t hard. It didn’t burn my feet. So therefore, the coals must be, mustn’t have been hot, you know? And I think that’s how we look at life. We just think, oh, I achieved that. It couldn’t have been that big of a deal. So I’m not even gonna celebrate it. Let’s blow by it.

John Harcar (22:13.651)
Hmm.

John Harcar (22:20.444)
Right.

John Harcar (22:27.73)
Wow.

John Harcar (22:35.057)
Yeah, yeah, no, and that’s a shame that we do do that. If there’s folks that are out on your listening and they, you know, they want to get in touch with you and find out a little bit more maybe about your course, maybe they’re not comfortable working with agents or investors or, you know, they just want to pick your brain about something. How do they get in touch with you?

Lenore Mohr (22:52.354)
Yeah, that’s easy. So Calendly, if anybody has ever used the Calendly app. So it’s calendly.com, C-A-L-E-N-D-L-Y.com, backslash Lenore Moore, which is my name, L-E-N-O-R-E, M-O-H-R. So then it just pops up on my calendar. You can set up a 15 minute call, a 30 minute call. I’ll talk about anything. And you can also follow me on social. Just look up my name, Lenore Moore.

John Harcar (23:21.213)
Cool.

Lenore Mohr (23:23.108)
Instagram, Facebook, I think there’s TikTok. I have a social guy. He says, shoot something and I’ll throw it up there. So that’s how you can get a hold of me.

John Harcar (23:32.403)
Love it. Love it. Well, Lenore, I appreciate you coming out and coming on here and talking about, you know, your journey and all the stuff you shared. It’s incredible. Guys, I hope you all took notes. You know, I I jotted some stuff down that’s really going to help. But guys, hope you enjoyed our show. Hope to see you on the next one. Lenore, thank you again for all your insight.

Lenore Mohr (23:56.93)
Thank you, John, so much for having me. I love this. I love being able to just learn something and then teach that back and share my information and my knowledge, because that’s really all we’re here for, right? Just to help each other out.

John Harcar (24:10.727)
Yep. Yes, ma’am. All right, guys, we’ll see you on the next one. Cheers.

Lenore Mohr (24:15.608)
Bye, John.