Why Patience Pays in Real Estate Investing | Charlie Woods on Buy-and-Hold Wealth Building

Charlie Woods (00:00)
getting our investors to lend their money at 10 % and on as a private money first on traditional real estate is a solid investment with reasonable growth. That’s fine enough for most people. It’s amazing and it’s amazing how many people out there still need to get schooled on this concept that they can put their money somewhere and get 10 % guaranteed and their collateral.

is real estate that will be liquidated in the event that we need to foreclose.

Scott Bursey (02:00)
Welcome back to the Real Estate Pros Podcast. I’m your host, Scott Bursey. We’re kicking off another fire episode and today we’ve got a guest who is dropping serious knowledge bombs on how to truly empower your portfolio. We’re talking about the financial and strategic fuel you need to dominate the market. Joining us is Charlie Woods, the force behind Empower. Charlie’s bringing the kind of insights that turn good investors into great ones. Get ready to level up, Mr. Woods.

is in the house. Charlie, we are so pumped to have you here. Thank you, sir.

Charlie Woods (02:31)
Yes, thank you.

you Scott good to be here appreciate the invite.

Scott Bursey (02:38)
And for those who may not be familiar with your journey, please tell us how did your career began and what is your main focus now?

Charlie Woods (02:47)
Sure my career began in lending back in 2003 and just in the refi boom and here in California and it’s gone all the way till now where we do our own private money ⁓ lending and investor guidance on investor properties residential and commercial.

Scott Bursey (03:04)
Awesome. And Charlie, let’s dive right in to the core, the meat and potatoes, if you will, of what our listeners want to ⁓ find out. What is the single biggest strength real estate entrepreneurs have in

economic climate in your view, Charlie?

Charlie Woods (03:25)
Well, know, the buy and hold has worked the best for our most of our clients. You know, that’s where you see the most gain. So just be patient and know that your investment’s gonna go somewhere at some point. ⁓ You know, chasing the market and doing fast turnarounds isn’t always the best in our area because we have a really expensive inventory ⁓ and financing being the cost that it is right now. You know, you’ve got to make sure you’ve got a slam dunk on a flip or short-term real estate investment to make work, but.

Here we’ve seen and everywhere in the country, if you can hold long enough and parlay your investments into other real estate purchases, generally you’re winning.

Scott Bursey (04:02)
You bet. And what’s the most common blind spot or weakness you see in otherwise successful investors right now, Charlie, in your eyes?

Charlie Woods (04:13)
⁓ Well one is the patience like I’m saying being able to hold through market turn downs and being able to ride the wave till you’re getting your equity back. ⁓

Don’t be too rushed because oftentimes you’re leaving ⁓ profitability on the table but sometimes you need to get out and there’s other things you need your money for and whatnot so I’d say number two is just the lack of creativity. ⁓ There are a lot of seller finance deals out there there’s a lot of secondary financing, private money financing. If you ask the first three banks or first three brokers that ⁓ you talk to about how you’re going to acquire your next real estate investment and they say no they’re

probably someone right around the corner who can give you the right answer who can show you how to get to where you need to be.

Scott Bursey (04:59)
Absolutely, I couldn’t agree with you anymore. And Charlie, this is also what our listeners really want to know. Where is the untapped opportunity in the market right now that most people are overlooking?

Charlie Woods (06:01)
Sure. ⁓ Well, we’re working on some multi-family, like lower income neighborhood stuff right now. A lot of people are really scared of that segment, you know, ⁓ dealing with what they might think are like less desirable tenants or whatnot, but there’s just so many people needing housing right now that don’t have the wherewithal for a normal path toward, you know, even rentals. So the market is huge for filling ⁓ your lower end real estate with

with quality tenants that might even be subsidized by the government or other nonprofit organizations.

Scott Bursey (06:36)
stood

and Charlie if someone’s listening to this and they’re thinking this is someone I’d want to partner with or learn from what do you want them to know about your business first?

Charlie Woods (06:48)
Well, that we’re family run, family owned, we’re a single entity, we’ve gone through… ⁓

gross and back over the market turns, essentially we’re the same core of just a few people that really have a lot of experience in our area locally and in our own investments throughout the country ⁓ and even international. ⁓ So we have created a family where we have clients we’ve been taking care of for 25 years that have gone from, had no real estate assets at all to now millions of dollars in real estate assets just by simply following

our help and guidance and that’s what makes us feel most proud of what we’ve been doing.

Scott Bursey (07:32)
Could you tell us about your global perspective, please, and strategies?

Charlie Woods (07:37)
Well, you know, we’ve seen a lot of growth with Airbnb, right, over the past, you know, 10, 15 years. So, you you find something where you can have fee simple real estate, where you actually have solid ownership in another country, like Costa Rica, for example. And you can own that with a solid deed and then rent it out on a short-term basis, utilizing either companies here or local companies that can find short-term tenants for you. It’s been a real good solution to investor success.

Scott Bursey (08:08)
And Charlie, know, no business is perfect. What’s one thing that you’re still figuring out or that you’re focused on recently here?

Charlie Woods (08:18)
Yeah, it’s hard to scale. When you’re trying to teach someone else what you do and try to get them to help other people, it doesn’t always translate. And you have to go through…

If you’re lucky, you get it right on the first try. with us, we found we have to go through lots of different people and lots of different partnerships to try to find the right people that can carry our genuine presence through to new clients. right now, we’ve just trained a couple of people and we’re going through the process of trying to show them all the ins and outs and try to help our clients and try to help them bring in their own community. And it’s been a great process. We’ve been at it for a long time. ⁓

rodeo trying to teach somebody the real estate ⁓ arena but ⁓ I think we’re getting better at it.

Scott Bursey (09:07)
That’s pure feel right there. And I got to ask you, what do you feel is your biggest opportunity right now? This could be, you know, like a market shift or a new offering or, just a part of your business that you’d like to double down on.

Charlie Woods (09:11)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah, you know, our own investments, know, because funny as it seems, we’re talking to other people about how to grow their assets and income, but, you know, focusing and making sure we take advantage of the opportunities we see, which is one of the best things about being a real estate broker, right? You get to see the deals first and you get to cherry pick them. So don’t be afraid to take those, take those properties or take those, you know, loans or whatever you want to do and get into them. Cause that’s your advantage of being in the hot seat.

and then you can pass them off whenever you want to any of your clients.

Scott Bursey (09:51)
Couldn’t to,

absolutely, absolutely. And Charlie, any challenges you’re watching closely, this could be a market risk, competition, access to deals or capital, you know, that sort of thing.

Charlie Woods (09:56)
Mm-hmm.

⁓ Yeah, well just watch out for being in the stock market long term. It’s always a roller coaster as everyone knows. You don’t need to tell anybody that. ⁓

Interest rates don’t seem to be swinging that much, but there’s always that challenge. ⁓ So, you know, if you’re not in for the super long term, you can’t just hold and hold because it always wins, then just make sure you have some sort of exit strategy because things are going to fluctuate big time this next year or two at least, you know. Be ready.

Scott Bursey (11:12)
Absolutely, let’s

zero in here just a little bit. What is the biggest external threat that Empower is helping clients ⁓ right now? What’s your main focus in helping your clients right now at this stage of the game?

Charlie Woods (11:28)
Yeah, well guess the lack of availability in ⁓ decent interest rate savings vehicles, know, or safe savings vehicles, you

getting our investors to lend their money at 10 % and on as a private money first on traditional real estate is a solid investment with reasonable growth. That’s fine enough for most people. It’s amazing and it’s amazing how many people out there still need to get schooled on this concept that they can put their money somewhere and get 10 % guaranteed and their collateral.

is real estate that will be liquidated in the event that we need to foreclose

them. So it’s just a solid investment that few people have ever been dissatisfied with.

Scott Bursey (12:10)
And what strategy are you employing over the next 18 to let’s say 24 months, Charlie?

Charlie Woods (12:19)
Well, you know, continuing to watch the market and ⁓ continue to ⁓ investigate with all of our partners and any and all potential strategies that can help our investors. ⁓ You know, watching our local MLS every day, looking at all new properties that are coming on and looking at the other sales. ⁓ And then continuing to correspond with lending institutions that have more creative options for people to do like…

partial dock, no-dock loans that have high equity on property and continue to find other local investors that are willing to help ⁓ newer real estate investors ⁓ get in the game.

Scott Bursey (12:59)
great perspective. And if you could distill the Empower strategy into one key piece of advice for scaling quickly, what would it be, Charlie?

Charlie Woods (13:10)
⁓ Build your personal credit and financial profile to become ready to qualify for a conventional real estate loan. ⁓ Get in the market and be patient enough to wait for your equity to build so you can parlay that into a real valuable real estate portfolio for yourself and your family so you’re protected.

Scott Bursey (13:37)
Great advice. And on that note, what other type of advice would you like to leave with our audience here today? Our listeners, any golden nuggets?

Charlie Woods (13:49)
Well, you know, in general a lot I’d say.

Get up early in the morning and give yourself an hour to ⁓ collect your thoughts or at least minimize them so that you can better focus the rest of the day before you get inundated with your emails or your scrolling and whatnot. ⁓ I’m finding in any and all areas of life this is helping so many, so many people ⁓ as they’re realizing that this is valuable tool that you can get information and insight on on multiple apps, websites, Google searches, whatnot for meditation. So that’s a big thing.

So utilizing those community strategies of being involved in the Chamber of Commerce, making sure you’ve got a direct line to your clients, ⁓ that you’re updating them constantly with blogs or information about other successful strategies in real estate or opportunities, and making sure that they bring in the people they know and their families and friends because that’s how you organically and healthily grow as a business, just by word of mouth.

But take some time for yourself because if you never do, you’re going to regret it.

Scott Bursey (14:50)
Absolute

you may burn out, but

preparation is the key nugget that I’m taking away from your golden words right there.

Preparation, preparation, preparation. And then of course allow yourself that work-life balance perhaps. Is that a fair assessment?

Charlie Woods (15:44)
Mm-hmm.

absolutely, yeah, you’ve got to have balance. ⁓ Work, ⁓ family and personal. ⁓ My mentor has that triangle as an example and make sure you have strength in all those areas so that you have the balance and you’re not overdoing it one section that’s going to burn you out. You’d be surprised when you get done that you take a break for a minute and get back to your work.

Scott Bursey (16:14)
Speaking of which…

Absolutely, absolutely and Charlie is there any groups that you’re involved in peer groups networking groups things of that nature where you can collaborate with people like-minded individuals like like yourself?

Charlie Woods (16:34)
Well, like mean, like investor fuel is always a fantastic resource. ⁓ But ⁓ locally we have ⁓ North Coast Builders Exchange, you know, is another place where we can find, you know, lenders, contractors, investors, ⁓ and the Chamber of Commerce. We also have been involved in B &I groups and ⁓ Rotary as well, even though it’s primarily a service organization, you know, you can’t help but find other experienced, ⁓ you know, real estate investors in there that you can trade, ⁓ you know, trade secrets with. ⁓

Yeah, all very successful avenues.

Scott Bursey (17:06)
Charlie, this has been just a great conversation packed with real fuel for our pros. And if our listeners want to collaborate with you, ⁓ follow your journey. What is the best way for them to reach out?

Charlie Woods (17:22)
You can reach out to us at [email protected]. That’s easy to remember. [email protected] or directly at myself 707-360-2205. Happy to take them direct.

Scott Bursey (17:38)
Charlie Woods everybody. Charlie, thank you for joining us today.

Charlie Woods (17:42)
Thanks, Scott.

You’re the man. Thanks, Scott. Appreciate it.

Scott Bursey (17:47)
We appreciate you and we appreciate our listeners. If you got value from today’s episode, please subscribe. We’ve got a lineup of exceptional guests, just like Charlie, who are making huge moves in the market. Until next time, keep your standards high and your vision clear. We’ll see you in the next episode, everyone.