
Show Summary
In this episode of the Real Estate Pros podcast, host Micah Johnson interviews Jessica Naioti, a financial advisor turned real estate investor. They discuss Jessica’s journey into real estate, the importance of balancing financial advising with real estate investing, and the significance of building a strong foundation for success. The conversation highlights the value of networking, navigating challenges, and the role of personal development in achieving freedom through real estate. Jessica shares her insights on strategies for success and her future opportunities in the industry.
Resources and Links from this show:
-
Listen to the Audio Version of this Episode
Investor Fuel Show Transcript:
Jessica Naioti (00:00)
love that you brought that up because, you know, to be quite frank, I mean, it didn’t take very long for, you know, some sort of, I guess, burnout for me to experience. You know, when I first bought all of these houses, you know, in the first few years, they were making all this money and I’m learning on, you know, managing the team and everything.And then, you know, one bad tenant ⁓ in a storm, you know, really kind of just bottomed me out. And like you had said, you know, I had to really wonder to myself, why am I doing this?
Micah Johnson (02:12)
Hey everyone, welcome to the Real Estate Pros podcast. I’m your host, Micah Johnson. And today I’m joined by Jessica, who’s been making some serious moves in the real estate investing space. Jessica, welcome in, glad to have you. Absolutely, I’m excited for you to be here. I think our listeners are really gonna take away some value of one, your real estate journey in particular, and just how you’re going about it, making sure that you’re creating a real business that’s sustainable for yourself and your clients.Jessica Naioti (02:24)
Thanks Micah, thanks for having me.Micah Johnson (02:40)
So let’s dive in there. For people who may not know you yet, what’s your main focus right now and what markets you’re operating in?Jessica Naioti (02:47)
I’m a financial advisor by trade. I’ve been doing that for about 12 years and I got into real estate about seven years ago. So balancing the two between tax efficiency and, and scaling has been quite fun. Good dance.Micah Johnson (03:04)
How well do those two mix? Financial advising leading into real estate investing. What was that? What strengths kind of came with that?Jessica Naioti (03:11)
So I was trained in like tax perfect retirement. So a lot about kind of the tax end of investing. And when it came to real estate, which kind of just fell into my lap, I noticed like the scaling, the deal cycles, things like that were great, but there’s also an enormous amount of, you know, financial liability, protecting the assets that is alsoyou know, for sure needed in order to build wealth and make it permanent. So. ⁓
Micah Johnson (03:46)
Great points. Well, let’s backup there. You said real estate fell into your lap. Tell us about that. How was what was your journey into the industry?
Jessica Naioti (03:54)
Well, I moved down to Florida in September 2019 and I knew I needed work quick and it was going to take some time to build my financial business, which thank God I humbled myself to this cleaning job because I had no idea COVID was about to hit and I would no longer be able to meet people.⁓ And there would be need for a cleaner. A good one. So I met this man, Rick Nassenstein, ⁓ and he kind of showed me his property. I started giving ideas for the marketing. He told me about his journey to short-term rentals. He had also been a CPA by trade and bought a house for $40,000.
and flipped it and continued to do that for you know a while. And I took notes.
Micah Johnson (04:47)
Right? Right.Love that. You never know where the opportunity is going to come from, especially in real estate. It really is a who you meet kind of world because no one would know what it really is until you meet somebody in it. It’s not like it’s even with all the gurus that talk about it, like the real version of real estate is learned by somebody doing it. And once you meet them, you realize, whoa, this is a whole different world. I remember meeting my first investor and realizing, holy cow, this is amazing. I started as a realtor in 2014.
and I met my first investor in either late 2016 or early 2017 and I was just like, ⁓ my God, this is so much fun. This is so much fun. This is way more fun than showing people retail houses. I can sell one guy a hundred houses or a hundred people one house, one, which one would I rather do? And then just that learning the next level of, okay, hold on, you can actually keep some of these. This is what you’re doing. man, this is fascinating. Hold on, you have way more control of your life than I realized.
Jessica Naioti (06:36)
The freedom, yes.Micah Johnson (06:40)
Right. And in all the ways, real estate is such a big umbrella that it allows you to find your way through it and just connect in ways that, you know, lot of folks get started in single family residential and then realize, okay, I don’t really want to do that. That’s not my thing. Or even if they stay in there, like in your world, we’ll dig into this next, the particular strategies that you’re using, but there’s short-term rentals, midterm rentals, long-term rentals. There’s, there’s all kinds of different ways to build your real estate business for you. What is that main focus?Jessica Naioti (07:11)
I mean, you know, I was taught very traditional when it comes to finance and investing. So, I mean, the way that I was taught, you know, life insurance, savings, emergency funds, realistically, I need to make sure that I have those bases covered for me to feel good about investing anything else. But onceyou know you’ve accomplished that. And I’m not, I have friends that have like the big spreadsheets and they’re very nitty gritty on things. I do a lot of, a lot of averaging. But, you know I definitely feel like having that kind of structure and that security in order to build, because the bigger and the stronger the foundation, the bigger and stronger the house. You know
Micah Johnson (07:57)
Exactly.Jessica Naioti (07:59)
we want to have a big strong house so that when the mortgage rates go down or the market has shifted that we have the financial strategy kind of solid because that’s very important with real estate. Just in case people aren’t paying or taxes are high, there’s so many different variables.Micah Johnson (08:19)
Right.Right, there’s so many things to pay attention to and you nailed it there with what you just said. I’m trying to remember what it, it threw a thought in my head and I thought the same, I thought about something else you said. made me, it made me lose the thought, but it’s, it goes back to this, that.
mitigating stress in real estate, any entrepreneurial journey really is is one of the things you have to learn how to do. And I like the fact that you focus on, how do you create that stability first? How do you create that foundation that you can actually stand on? One of the coaches I work with, he calls it stable planet. He says, you you can’t go explore the whole world in the universe if you don’t have one to come back home to, because eventually you got to recharge your batteries, you got to come back home. And that stable planet is that place where you
can go and feel at ease, feel relaxed. You’re not pushing stuff on the edge. And that’s where he really leads into that. Okay. What’s behind you? What’s your floor really like? And he’s very much on raise your floors, not your ceilings. Ceilings, you can push those things so high, but when you fall off a canyon, that hurts. You fall off the curb, you can get back up from that. That one, that one you can recover from. So I love your focus there because
Jessica Naioti (09:22)
Mm.Micah Johnson (09:35)
There’s enough stress already in what we do. There’s tons of uncertainty and anything that you can get nailed down to know, okay, rainy day hits, I’m good here. If something really bad happens, I’m locked up there. I’ve got all my bases covered, so now I can go play the game even better.Jessica Naioti (09:38)
Mm.Mm-hmm. Yeah, I think that like we were talking having all those different places and all those different, you know, locations. Sure, there was there was a great part of that. Like I was taught, you know, diversify, diversify, diversify. And that is true. But there is definitely something to be said about that mitigating stress, because
One thing that I know now that I didn’t know seven years ago is, having a million dollar portfolio, that sounds dreamy until you’re paying like so much a month and you’ve got all of these different issues and a roof is leaking. it really, you know, I love that, you know, we can have no ceiling, but make sure that we’ve got enough.
Micah Johnson (11:09)
Right?Jessica Naioti (11:21)
people around us, enough money saved up and enough strategies to make sure that ⁓ we, and enough faith, because there are certain things that will go on in this world that it’s like, we don’t understand like the storms. And as long as we have the right network, as long as we have, you know, those things to make us solid during those stress, it’s a cakewalk. It really is.Micah Johnson (11:45)
Yeah.It gets way
easier. One of my mentors is very big on this. If the solution to your problem is in your phone, you don’t have much of a problem anymore. Go put the people you’re going to need in your phone so you can call them, but then actually call them when it gets hard. Reach out to them, have those relationships in place. Cause that has been the number one thing in my life that’s changed it is building those relationships. As I’ve gone through real estate, it just taught me this is a relationship business.
Jessica Naioti (11:55)
Hmm.Micah Johnson (12:16)
100%. I can’t do any of this on my own. You can’t even close a house by yourself. You need in Florida, title companies, lenders, inspectors. There’s like so many people involved in a transaction where it’s like, okay, if I don’t have these people, one, I’m just flying blind and I have zero desire to fly blind in a real estate deal. And two, I’m adding way more stress to my life. And that coach that I worked with that talked about the stable planet,Jessica Naioti (12:17)
on the universe.Micah Johnson (12:44)
Stress is burning energy and we don’t have, we have finite amounts. How much are you actually adding to your life? Cause he’s, he’s in his late seventies and what he talks about is how many entrepreneurs burn out in their mid forties, early fifties, whether that’s physically, mentally, he’s like a lot of people. He calls it blowing up where their life just blows up because they push for so hard for so long in such a stressful way. only ends one way. You have to.Jessica Naioti (12:47)
Hmm. ⁓Micah Johnson (13:12)
Because like you’re saying about the money, that’s something a lot of folks don’t think about. We play with ridiculous numbers in real estate, like millions and billions, those numbers, like I don’t think about them. I think about them completely different than when I used to think about them.One of the guys I know who’s a really successful investor in Phoenix, he talks about this. goes, I got, know, how many people can handle a three or $400,000 a month overhead and sleep well at night, right? There’s a certain level of risk that you can take. And it’s a really a personality thing as you grow. And it’s something to grow into where…
It costs money to make money, especially in real estate. You’re borrowing money. You’re not using your money all the time, especially as you grow more and more into it realize, OK, these partners that exist, different sections that I’m in. But I could beat that horse for a long time of mitigating stress because it’s when people get into real estate, so much, quote unquote, passivity is sold. And there’s some that’s in there. But most of our strategies, require
Around the clock care. You gotta be on top of the ball or things can get away from you quick.
Jessica Naioti (14:18)
And I like that you brought up kind of like the network because one thing I think I’ve realized in my adult life is that the most powerful resource is humans. It is the people that we have around us. You know, there’s givers and takers and sometimes all of us are both of those at other times, but most of us are mostly one or the other.And I think that what I found is like philanthropists and every six really successful person that I want to be like are givers. when, when they, mean, this is just karmic science, you know, when, when you see people that are giving free education and opportunities and working on themselves and trying to give that, you know, to people that want it, it’s like the blessings just come for them, you know, but
you know, to also be careful because there are people that will take advantage of that too, insurance companies. I’m just kidding.
Micah Johnson (16:01)
No, actually here in Florida. No,it’s true though. One thing I love about real estate is the amount of abundance mindset that does exist in the super successful because they’ve all learned the same thing. The process is the shortcut. There’s a way to do this. It’s not new. We’ve been doing it a long time. There’s a process and a system. I call it a machine that trades in real estate is what you’re building. And when you start working and talking with those higher level folks that are those givers, they’ll just show you,
Hey, here’s how you save $2 million in three years of your life. Avoid this mistake. Think about this at this point in time. And it’s just like, ⁓ man, thank you so much. Because if you’re trying to learn real estate the hard way, you’re only going to get so far. There’s only so far you can go. This is one of my buddies says, real estate is a team sport. And I love that statement because it really is. It’s we each have our own unique personalities. We each have our own part of ourselves we bring to it. And it lets us
Jessica Naioti (16:36)
Mmm.Micah Johnson (17:01)
be that in the industry if you’ll do it. If you’ll stay in it long enough, find that spot that you like, the real you gets to come out. And I’m very big on getting my emotional paycheck and my financial paycheck paid. Because I’ve learned if I only focus on the financial, I’m still miserable. Like awesome, a lot of money, but if I’m miserable as a person, my kids aren’t seeing the version of me I want them to see. I’m not the husband I want to be. I’m worrying about way more other things thanHow can actually be present here in my life? How can I actually live a life I wanna live and still accomplish the things I wanna accomplish and not sacrifice one for the other? And real estate allows you to do that in a powerful way.
Jessica Naioti (17:39)
love that you brought that up because, you know, to be quite frank, I mean, it didn’t take very long for, you know, some sort of, I guess, burnout for me to experience. You know, when I first bought all of these houses, you know, in the first few years, they were making all this money and I’m learning on, you know, managing the team and everything.And then, you know, one bad tenant ⁓ in a storm, you know, really kind of just bottomed me out. And like you had said, you know, I had to really wonder to myself, why am I doing this?
Sure, it’s cool to be a millionaire. Sure, it’s, you know, I want to have places to visit.
But more than anything, I want to be a good woman and a good mother and teach my children how to have financial freedom. And when all of those things are going on, it’s like I really have to emotionally cut to my goal, which was these were my portfolio, know, detach myself emotionally and kind of put that in a faith drawer.
and just keep doing the work and knowing that it’s going to pay off because that is the one cool thing about real estate is that those numbers really aren’t going to go anywhere. As long as we keep putting in, they’re just going to keep going up. So.
Micah Johnson (18:52)
Right.Right,
right. Even, you know, there’s an old quote in real estate and it doesn’t apply to all deals, but it applies to most of them, especially if they’re bad. The difference between a good deal and a bad deal is time. Now you can get yourself into a situation where, okay, you may not have done the best upfront, but if you can hold it long enough and keep your head in the game, it does turn real estate. It’s, it’s pretty much steady up. And when you zoom out and look at it over the long haul of our market where, know, in any day to days up and down, that’s
the
I’m very big on journaling. actually have a bunch of them right here where I have years written down now and what it really showed me because I like to go back and read some entries after I write each morning.
is one, how boring life is, how many mundane days actually exist where you’re just, not really doing much, but those little days of just doing the little things well, they add up to huge things in the future over and over and over again, where I could see, okay, all right, you woke up today and I realized, man, you don’t wake up the same every day. A weird dream can wake you up. You can wake up in all sorts of moods then how do you go about your day?
Realizing, okay, just keep adjusting, keep adjusting. What is it I need to do today? How do I not psych myself out? How do I keep myself in the game in a positive way? And then just keep growing, keep adjusting and keep growing to keep going after that thing we all want in real estate, which is freedom to begin with. The number one reason people say they came here is I wanna be free, whether it’s financial freedom, time freedom, whatever freedom you’re after.
Jessica Naioti (20:24)
Thank you.Micah Johnson (20:38)
You got to create that part on purpose because there is still work to be done. There’s the ins and outs of every day. The day where you get to call where the toll is broken and the day you get the call where the house is under contract, you got a big payday coming, right? Like there’s all the different days.Jessica Naioti (20:56)
Yeah, for sure. I think that definitely I was not prepared for to kind of realize like how many different things were going to go on in real estate. I mean, that freedom is worth everything. it looks more different than anything I ever expected. you know I think that when we’re little,and asked, what do we want to do when you grow up? I never thought I just want to own a bunch of properties and manage them, you know, or businesses or anything. looking back, you know, you can kind of see that. And that’s what I try to tell my kids. You know, my kids have been seeing this go on for a long time. And, you know, it’s cool that they can have that adversity, you know, because I feel like
Micah Johnson (21:43)
Right.Jessica Naioti (21:46)
It doesn’t matter how rich I am, smart I am, you know, any of this stuff, it matters how much I can, I can get through adversity in this world, how much grit we have and boy, I picked the right industry.Micah Johnson (21:56)
Right?Hey, so do that.
For sure.
It will make you mentally, physically strong, all the things. It’s actually, real estate is what led me to personal development about 11 years ago. And that was my favorite thing from it. I hired my first performance coach and started talking with him about my business, what was going on. And he just started, man, leveling me up, realized, holy cow, I didn’t know you could do this. I didn’t know you could think about things this way and go through it. And that’s when I just became completely obsessed with How do
I get better at being human? My whole thesis was if I want to be a good human being I better get
Jessica Naioti (22:34)
Mmm.Micah Johnson (22:37)
I need to get better at being human. That is my best way. And through that, it’s even taught me, and that’s a funny question we ask kids. I have a 10-year-old son and a 12-year-old daughter. And I specifically don’t ask them that question of what do you want to be when you grow up? Because I don’t want you to put these little funnels around it. When I was asked that growing up, I had one answer. I want to be a professional athlete. That’s all I wanted to be. I just want to be a professional athlete. I played football, and I played golf. And I was like, OK, one of these. And I tried in both to be a professional.And I look back on life and was like, what if you’ve been more open to some other things where that golf dream could have came true if you chased it a different way. If you look for stability versus the just shove all your chips in the middle and hope it happens. Like you think when you start thinking of that stuff as a kid, well, how’d they do it? Well, they just went all in, shoved all the chips in the middle and they made it and that’s how you work.
And I realized not it’s not the way you do it. When you keep you lose most hands, you shove all your chips in. You got to be careful of what’s coming up next, because that goes back to that stability up front of if if the foundation isn’t solid, you’re not going anywhere. I mean, it’s the story of the house on the rock or the sand. It’s you’re not going to make it very far when the hard times come. And the main guy I work with now, he loves to say, Micah.
We know exactly what’s coming. We just don’t know when it’s coming, man. we know, and he’s in his late sixties and I’m very, I love to work with folks that are further ahead of me. Cause it’s like, Hey, show me what’s around the bend. I’m 40. I can’t see. What do I need to pay attention to, man? I have stumbled into my own holes enough. I’m done learning the hard way. What do I need to pay attention to?
Jessica Naioti (24:02)
Mm.Mm-hmm.
Micah Johnson (24:20)
And that’s again, going back to my kids, that’s what I want to show them communities involved and really by doing not saying well, that’s one thing I’m learning right now is they pay way more attention to what I do than what I say. And okay, what’s that mean for me? How do I need to make sure I show up each day so that they see a guy who’s create stability emotionally, physically, financially across the board of here’s just how you live a peaceful free life whereJessica Naioti (24:33)
It’s true.Micah Johnson (24:49)
Stress comes, hard things come. I try to teach them hard equals good. Everything you want is on the other side of hard. And the biggest lesson I’ve learned about hard is just don’t be surprised by how hard hard is every time. That’s what seems to get me is that upfront of like, my God, this is so hard. It’s like, well, it’s always hard. It’s always hard. Like it’s always has that same feeling. And now it’s just my indicator of, okay, it feels that way. What next? So what now? That’s one of my favorite statements. All right. So what now?Jessica Naioti (24:56)
It’s true.Micah Johnson (25:18)
Because if you can get that mentality in real estate, there’s not much you can’t weather. Whether that’s bad storms that are real, like the hurricanes we experienced in Florida, or bad tenants, or just all the stuff that no one talks about in the industry when you’re getting in. We’re sold a lot of the fluff and the good things, which are fine, but not knowing what’s coming.Man, it will leave a sour taste in your mouth if someone doesn’t warn you. Hey, you’re dealing with people, especially if you’re renting stuff to them. You’re dealing with where they live. That is especially long term. That has a difference in short term because that’s like the real life is happening there. They’re not going there for vacation. They’re living there, eating there, breathing there, sleeping there, laughing there, loving there, crying there. Like it’s there. And that pulls on you in a different way. It’s like it pulls our humanity and our business side at the same time. How we balance that’s important.
Jessica Naioti (25:54)
youYeah, for sure, strategy has been huge, think, ⁓ particularly in real estate when we are dealing with people and potential clients, remembering the strategy, trying to keep some sort of emotional sobriety because at the end of the day,
I think that’s really what it, what it boils down to, you know, is just holding on and, ⁓ buy and hold was definitely the strategy that was told. mean, I studied it. ⁓ and I love that you brought up education because every business coach that I use, ⁓ and the more women that I help, the more coaches and mentors I will get because it’s so important right now I’m working with like 15 women and, ⁓
I need to have like a lot of time with my mentors because there’s got to be a balance. ⁓ You know, because I really feel like if this was all just numbers, that would be easy, right? But there’s a lot that comes with it. So remembering those strategies and, you know, keeping keeping the cool through all of it is is definitely that’s what makes the freedom worth it, you know.
Micah Johnson (27:34)
Exactly. Coming back to that, your why and your what. And when I was helping people build their businesses, what are you doing this for? What’s the real reason? So when that rainy day comes, you can pull that paper out and read it again. I’d have him write it down, write down what you’re doing this for. It can change over time, but when that hard shows up for sure, pull that paper out and remind yourself, okay, that’s what I was doing this for. All right. And then now you can see where are you in the process? That’s what I’m big on. Perspective is my favorite thing.Jessica Naioti (27:59)
I mean.Micah Johnson (28:04)
and I created a formula for it where perspective equals comparison of whatever minus self judgment.Comparison is very important in my opinion, but the judgment we give ourselves after, that’s the part that I don’t find too helpful in my own life. But what it showed me was just where I’m at in the process. If I want to own 100 units and I’m at 16, what does somebody else do to own 100 units? What’s that difference where I’m at so then I can, okay, realistically, I’m this many years away and this is my strategy and this is how I can get there. Now we’ve backdoored it.
Now I know what to wake up and do each day, which is huge relief on the stress. I call them my activities of daily living. What do I just need to get done today? That’s moving that whole ball forward.
Jessica Naioti (28:53)
Well, there’s definitely a lot. There’s a lot that you do every day. I know that you know that too.Micah Johnson (28:53)
Jessica?Yeah, yeah.
It is, it is. And just knowing it upfront. And that’s where if real estate, if it does it for you, you will find yourself here. And that I love the passion I find in this industry because it’s everybody’s dealing with hard and most of them have smiles on their faces still because it’s a choice. It’s not happening to them. They chose it. They’re choosing it. And it’s it’s that’s the big difference for me where life starts happening for you versus happening to you is staying on offense. And remember, there’s a book
It’s this one right here, love, where Mark Manson talks about, no matter what you pick in life, it’s gonna come with its hard. So choose it, choose it, it’s okay. Don’t worry about that. It’s gonna be hard because whatever you do is gonna have it in there and you gotta care about something. What do you actually care about?
And that’s really what unlock real estate for me was actually caring. When I could actually care, was like, holy cow, that’s that secret sauce that unlocks the people that unlocks the property that really turns everything around and really became my North star of paying attention to when I stopped caring. When I, when I couldn’t didn’t have the capacity to care anymore, I needed to adjust strategy. That was a me thing. That wasn’t a real estate thing. And I couldn’t keep doing it because now I’m now became the taker. Like we were talking
Jessica Naioti (30:09)
Yeah.Micah Johnson (30:20)
about earlier versus that giver and ⁓ that’s where I don’t trade my truth for membership. I don’t want to be a taker. I love the giving stance because you’re paying it forward to your future self always. It’s literally doing a bunch of things at one time.Jessica Naioti (30:21)
Mm-hmm.Micah Johnson (30:37)
Well, Jessica, I really appreciated your time today. I could go on and on and conversations like these, these are my favorite ones where it’s just the real deal behind it all. And again, it’s what I try to show on this show. But for folks that are listening in, actually, let me get you with one more thing that I folks to hear about. What’s your big opportunity for 2026 that you’re excited about?Jessica Naioti (30:56)
Well, I’ve been looking at apartment buildings in Florida. So I’m really looking for the right one or multiple people to kind of go in on an apartment building. I’ve been looking like in Orlando or Cocoa Beach or even Miami, but the numbers got to be right in the people.Micah Johnson (31:17)
love that, I love that. that’s what I wanted to make sure we got out there. So folks, if you’re listening in and want to learn more about Jessica and possibly partner with her, what’s the best way for them to find you?Jessica Naioti (31:29)
⁓ I’m hashtag be well, be wealthy, ⁓ Instagram, ⁓ my journey to health and, and self development kind of came before I got, I got really, wealthy. So be well, be wealthy on Instagram and podcast and, just Jessica Naioti My last name is, ⁓ made up. It means new one in Italian. So there’s no other Jessica Naioti.Micah Johnson (31:51)
Nice.Again, if you’re listening and watching, make sure to check the show notes. We’ll have Jessica’s links there for you to follow along, reach out to her. Like I typically say on this show, when you find somebody good that’s not just good at what they do, but the good person behind it, those are the ones in my opinion worth following. They’re gonna shoot you straight, tell you the real deal, what it’s really like to be in real estate, because there are hard parts. You need to know about them too. Well, Jessica, thanks again for joining us. For all those listening, if you got value out of today’s episode, please like this episode,
it with someone else you think would get value out of it. As always, please don’t forget to subscribe. We appreciate every single one of you that follows along with our journey here. We have more conversations coming up with operators just like Jessica who are out there building a real business in the industry. Thanks for joining us today. We’ll see you on the next episode.
Jessica Naioti (32:42)
Thanks so much.


