Why Smart Real Estate Investors Double Down in Down Markets | Kira Golden

Kira Golden (00:00)
Markets are down, everyone’s saying that capital isn’t moving. Everybody’s saying that there’s blood in the water, that deals are all gonna get lost. Now is the time double and triple down your effort because correlation is not causality. And the world looks the way it is, not because it’s the way that is so, it’s because it’s the way most people believe it to be. And if you’re willing to believe it to be different and you’re willing to execute on that, it can be different.

Freddie Steen (02:00)
Hey everyone. Welcome to the Investor Fuel Podcast brought to you by Real Estate Pros. I’m your host, Freddie. And today I am joined by someone I’ve been looking forward to chatting with, Kira Golden from Direct Source Wealth. And she’s been making serious moves in the real estate niche all the way from Puerto Rico, where she operates globally, managing multiple markets and scaling. Kira, I am so glad to have you here.

I think our listeners are really going to take something away from how you’ve been able to approach not just investing yourself in real estate, but also showing others how to get funding, writing the check, and also taking the check. Capital raising is one of your specialties. Let’s dive in. First off, for people who may not be familiar with your world, give us the short version, Kira. What’s your main focus these days and what markets are you operating in?

Kira Golden (02:50)
All right. Thank you for that introduction. Right now I’m largely focused in the Texas market. Think there’s a ton of opportunity there. And I love I think the landscape you’re operating in, the impact of the politics and the faith are really significant. That’s driven me to Texas. And as far as what I’m focused on, there’s always transacting. I’m always transacting, doing deals, looking for opportunities.

But also been focusing a lot more on helping some other operators who have a great track record and have been doing investing in various asset classes for a decade or more, helping them level up and moving from single asset deals or chasing the next deal, chasing the next opportunity to having an evergreen fund that gives them greater flexibility to really exercise their thesis.

Freddie Steen (03:41)
I love it. Kira, for our audience, our real estate pros that are listening from all around the world, some 18.6,000 people, can you give us a quick glimpse into how it’s been living in Puerto Rico, operating globally a real estate company?

Kira Golden (03:57)
Yes. There have been massive advantages and some serious challenges. The massive advantages, obviously there’s tax advantages to Puerto Rico. I would actually put that at the bottom of the list of the advantages, but it’s really It’s important, but it’s not the most important. Money never is. I would say above that is the network, right? You’re in a curated community of people who are willing to pick up and move and come to an island in the middle of the Caribbean, okay, that’s not a huge sacrifice, but they’re willing to do it because they’re driven by something, right? Your neighbors, your friends, you meet people who you may know for years before you realize they’re movers and shakers, right? You all of a sudden you Google someone you’ve had dinner with five or six times, and you’re like, my gosh, that’s who that is, right?

There’s just the incredible community where you form authentic bonds before you try to pursue business. And that’s that’s incredible. And there’s a number of other advantages, but I would say one of the disadvantages is just logistics. It there’s a lot of friction to living in the Caribbean. Power being out, long flights to get anywhere. The and that’s that’s I would say that’s the biggest trade-off, but thirteen years I’ve been here, I must think the opportunity is worth the cost.

Freddie Steen (05:59)
I love it. I love it. Kira, what caught my attention about you was the way you’ve been able to leverage a childhood active investor, savvy in the market. Grow that into this real estate as an asset class, you’ve been successful in raising money, and you’ve been also successful in giving money. That’s not an easy, especially in this climate in multiple markets. What’s been the key, Kira, to keeping that machine running smoothly?

Kira Golden (06:27)
Well, I can’t answer that question because I’ve never run it smoothly before. I’ve run it, but I wouldn’t say I’ve run it smoothly. I when I figure that out, I’ll let I think the key is just to keep it running. I heard you mention something, you use the word leverage, leveraging childhood trading and experience. And I would humbly submit that the key is not necessarily in leverage or in expecting things to be smooth and easy, it’s real simple. Don’t quit. And the evidence of not quitting is keep communicating. We’re gonna go through a lot of hard stuff. And a lot of us are going through really hard stuff right now. And I’ve been through hard stuff before. And if you’re gonna really make it in this industry or if you’re going to make the highest tiers of any industry, I think the secret, if there’s a secret, it’s not really a secret, is don’t quit and keep communicating. Just when you don’t want to make that call, when you don’t want to answer the phone, when you don’t want to try again, do it anyway. And it’ll I don’t know, I have to believe it eventually gets smooth. I don’t know. It hasn’t yet. But it does always seem to eventually work out if you just keep doing that.

Freddie Steen (07:38)
Kira, that’s the type of stuff that our audience loves. This stick-to-itiveness, this don’t-quit attitude. That’s important. Kira, not every operator I know has a moment where things got real. Maybe a deal that went sideways or a time they had to pivot fast. You mind sharing one of those moments for you?

Kira Golden (07:57)
In that moment, you want real time?

Freddie Steen (08:00)
Yes, I do. Want it all.

Kira Golden (08:03)
I’m forty-two. I’ve been doing this, I said, since I was 18 to 20, somewhere if my memory fails me. And I’ve really never had that moment until recently. Explaining. And to be candid, I think I’ve spent most of my life anticipating with dread when that would eventually catch up with me, because to your point, everyone I know has been through it.

Gonna correct myself real time though, because I’m gonna say I think I actually have had this moment, but they’ve always been at so much lower levels that I didn’t realize it. I’m gonna go back and I’m gonna tell you that in 2008, when the market crashed, I had a single-family home I had bought for a hundred and forty-two thousand dollars. I refinanced for 220,000.

Freddie Steen (08:47)
Okay.

Kira Golden (08:48)
Market crashed and the home across the street, which had an extra bedroom and a pool, was selling for 43 grand.

That was, I think, my first moment. And I didn’t even remember that one when you first asked the question because that feels so long ago. But thinking about it now, I can get back present to how terrified I was. And a lot of people, and I’m not gonna judge them, I’m not gonna say anything negative, but a lot of people in those moments handed back the keys, walked away, and gave up.

Freddie Steen (09:54)
Stop. What what made you keep going?

Kira Golden (09:55)
No, I didn’t keep going. I doubled down.

I bought that house and I bought every house on that block that came up for sale and every home I could afford in that market until I had enough properties at a low enough basis that house that I now had a $220 something thousand dollar mortgage on—

Freddie Steen (10:14)
Yeah.

Kira Golden (10:15)
—could recover. And no joke, if I had just held on by just to that one house, it would not have recovered for a decade.

It did the market did not recover to a point where I could have sold that house for a profit for 10 years. Because I doubled and actually probably tripled or quadrupled down, and I bought so many other houses, my portfolio was profitable within 12 months.

Freddie Steen (10:40)
That’s awesome.

Kira Golden (10:41)
Including the house that was underwater for a decade.

Freddie Steen (10:44)
About that.

Kira Golden (10:44)
Right. And I’m going through it again. I’m going through it at a higher level. I’m going through it at the millions of dollars, not at the hundreds of thousands of dollars. But I would say the effort and the mentality doesn’t change. And I’m actually really glad you’re asking this question because it reminds me while I’m in the thick of it that these are the exact moments to be counterintuitive, to lean in harder. And I’ll give a different kind of example if it’s okay.

We lost our dog, Grit, right? It’s okay, we found it.

Freddie Steen (11:14)
Proud pet proud pet owner.

Kira Golden (11:16)
You know, he’s called Grit because, your audience, I love grit. And we got this amazing stray dog. We adopted him and he was gone. He was gone two weeks, and all the statistics say that once a dog’s lost for two weeks, that dog is lost. And I remember my son came in crying because I told him he couldn’t be sad until the statistics said we could be sad. At two weeks, he walks into my room and he goes, “Can we cry now? I think he’s gone.”

Freddie Steen (11:41)
Mm.

Kira Golden (11:42)
And I said yes. And he went to we cried and we hugged each other and he went to school. But after he went to school, I said, correlation is not causality. The statistics may say that after two weeks, I’m not gonna find my dog. But maybe after two weeks, people stop looking. I’m gonna triple down my efforts. I’m gonna put flyers on every—I’m gonna call every neighbor. I’m gonna post in every Facebook group. I’m gonna post in every WhatsApp chat. I’m gonna drive around the neighborhood. And what? At two and a half weeks, we got our dog back. Now, this story is not about a dog. I mean, it is, but it’s the same thing in real estate.

Markets are down, everyone’s saying that capital isn’t moving. Everybody’s saying that there’s blood in the water, that deals are all gonna get lost. Now is the time double and triple down your effort because correlation is not causality. And the world looks the way it is, not because it’s the way that is so, it’s because it’s the way most people believe it to be. And if you’re willing to believe it to be different and you’re willing to execute on that, it can be different.

I really want to encourage people this.

Maybe the last time in history that we can really put the cards on the table for our progeny, that we can really move the needle generationally. You should be as aggressive as you have ever been right now.

Freddie Steen (13:00)
Kira, correlation does not mean causality. That’s the kind of stuff that people don’t talk about enough. And honestly, it’s what separates the folks that just dabble from the ones who’ve been in the game long term like you. Let me ask you this, Kira. What are you most focused on solving or scaling next? I mean, what’s the next real goal for you?

Kira Golden (13:17)
Yeah, what’s super fun and exciting for me right now is leadership. My leadership skills are not what I want them to be. I have, like many people, I have been able to cause the world in my ethos to look the way I want it to look, more or less. Now I want to cause the world to look the way I want it to look through other people. Right. I want to get to the next level.

You can become a billionaire a couple of ways. You can go out and you can go make a actually I’m gonna I don’t think, I don’t know anyone who by themselves has become a billionaire. Okay. I don’t know. Maybe they exist. In all the way to get to that level, which is the next target I’m moving towards, I think you have to be able, you have to master creating value for other leaders.

Not just employees, not just customers. You have to master creating value for other leaders. And candidly, I’m only moderately good at it. I will be a master hopefully soon. That’s what I’m looking at right now is like how, and I’ve started working with a handful of select people that I’ve chosen that have chosen me. We’ve decided to work together to share with them how I built hundreds of millions of dollars of real estate transactions and portfolios. People who are doing 5 million, 10 million, 20 million dollar transactions who want to go to the next level.

And I’m working with them and learning how to develop others and take a piece of what I can create in others rather than own a hundred percent of something myself. And that’s what I’m most excited about being in partnership and empowering leaders to the next level.

Freddie Steen (14:48)
Kira, empowering partnerships and taking leaders to the next level, that’s big. I mean, especially you’ve already got such a foothold with Direct Source Wealth. The next move can either compound things or create chaos depending on how you play it. Now I know a lot of people listening are either earlier in their journey or looking to level up like you.

Kira Golden (15:06)
Yeah.

Freddie Steen (15:07)
And I think they benefit from hearing this, Kira.

When it comes to building relationships and growing your network, what’s made the biggest difference for you?

Kira Golden (15:16)
Honesty and humility. I really struggled to grow my network and build my relationships when there was pieces of me I still wanted to hide because I wasn’t humble enough to recognize that number one, everyone could already see through my veneer. I thought I was being cool and I wasn’t cool at all.

They could already see through. I didn’t have enough humility though to recognize that. I was still hiding things and hiding myself. And not necessarily in a nefarious way, right? But just pieces of myself, inadequacies, insecurities, imposter syndrome, all the junk that we all have at any level of life. Yes, that we think no one else has, only us. Because we’re too ashamed to say it out loud, so we never realize that everyone else has it too.

Freddie Steen (16:02)
True.

Kira Golden (16:02)
What’s made the biggest difference in that is maintaining that. And I still see myself when I’m in a room of people I really admire and I just put put up on the pedestal, I still struggle to to not try be the successful version of me, and to just stay real. But when I can do that, that’s the game changer. Because then I have real relationships and I have a—a colleague once who said to me something that stuck with me forever and I think someone else said it to him, so it’s been paid forward. But it’s not about who knows you.

Agree. That is so real, right? It’s when you’re not in the room who thinks of you, who calls you, who invites you into the room because they really know who you are. That people can only know you when you’re vulnerable and real with them.

Freddie Steen (16:46)
Yeah. You can’t fake that, Kira. Relationships are everything in this space. All right, before we wrap, if someone wanted to reach out, connect with you, maybe collaborate or learn more about what Kira Golden is doing, what’s the best way for them to reach you?

Kira Golden (17:03)
Yeah. Email is a good start. That’s Kira—[email protected]. ([email protected])And then I have a moderate presence on Instagram under @directsourcewealth or under my name, Kira Golden. And then also on LinkedIn. I’m very active on LinkedIn.

Freddie Steen (17:19)
And Kira, what markets are you currently operating in and what markets are you looking to get into?

Kira Golden (17:25)
Yeah, we’re in Ohio, Indiana, Colorado, Texas, Florida, Puerto Rico, Belize, Chamonix, France, Budapest, Hungary, Sedona, Arizona, think some other ones. We’re in quite a few markets. I’m very focused on Texas right now for my own personal and then I’m interested in working with others who would like to implement our scales and our system processes in other markets and then potentially putting capital behind them, right, when we see how they execute.

Freddie Steen (17:57)
Real estate pros audience, you heard it here. Kira Golden is ready to collaborate and for you all to grow together. It’s perfect. Listen, Kira, I appreciate your time. I appreciate your story and your perspective. We need more people in the space that are doing it the right way. Kira, thanks again for being here.

Kira Golden (18:15)
Thank you for having me.

Freddie Steen (18:17)
It was my pleasure. And for those of you tuning in, if you got value from this, make sure you’re subscribed. We’ve got more conversations coming with operators just like Kira Golden, who are out there building real businesses just like you. We’ll see you on the next episode.

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