Why Your Reputation Is Your Credit Card in Real Estate Investing

Arianné Villanueva (00:00)
⁓ Very important when someone is coming in here new you have to have your mindset Mindset you’re decided that you’re gonna stick to this no matter what? No matter what because it’s gonna get tough there are bad people out there So you can’t get discouraged because you you you get the bad people because just as much bad people as many bad people There are there are also very good people So take the back the bad things as lessons. I got in the in the very beginning. I got scammed

by someone who I thought was a friend, I got scammed for $50,000. So I had all the opportunity to get discouraged and say, you know what, I’m quitting. This is it.

Q Edmonds (02:13)
Hello everyone. Welcome to the Real Estate Pros podcast. I am your host, Q Edmonds, and I’m excited to be here today. I’m excited about my guests. We have someone that’s going to talk about land and I’m excited. I’m excited for us to learn from her journey. I’m excited to know that she’s in high demand. People need what she has. And so I’m excited about that. I’m excited for us to learn about her process and just a quick little journey of how she got to where she is. so.

I would love to introduce you all to Miss Arianné Villanueva. How did I do my day? Did I pretty good? That’s absolutely, how you doing today, man?

Arianné Villanueva (02:50)
Yes, you did. Thank you, Quentin.

I’m doing great, thank you. Thank you for having me over. I appreciate the opportunity.

Q Edmonds (02:56)
Good. Absolutely.

Absolutely. Well, listen, I am the type, ma’am, I like to dive right in. So I would love for you to tell the people what’s your main focus these days. If you don’t mind, give us a little bit of an origin story, kind of how you got into the space that you’re in, and then tell us what part of the world you’re in as well. People love to know that. So what you’re up to, your origin story, and where you are. Ma’am, you have the floor.

Arianné Villanueva (03:22)
Okay, so my name’s Arianné Villanueva. I was born and raised in San Antonio, Texas, but ⁓ I come from Mexican parents. So I did get to visit a lot of Mexico. I actually got to live in Mexico for nearly two years when I was a teenager. So that was a huge experience. I was able to grow close to my roots, get to know the people out there. So that brought me closer to the immigrant here, which…

later connects me to what I’m doing now in business. ⁓ Before transitioning into real estate, I was a language interpreter for 15 years. I began in the medical industry. Well, actually I began for Nationwide for five years, Nationwide in the claims department, then hospitals. I made it all the way up to an interpreter for the US Army. I was interpreting for the city hall for NYPD Homicide Unit 2. And I had reached my cap.

I couldn’t make more than what ⁓ a conference interpreter makes. And I just thought I had my wings that were ready to expand. What do I do? ⁓ A book falls onto my lap. I attended some finance classes, CPA. I thank my sister because my sister was the first one who gifted me financial piece by Dave Ramsey. Yeah.

Q Edmonds (04:39)
Yeah, yeah, come on,

Dave Ramsey, financial piece. Absolutely, yeah.

Arianné Villanueva (04:45)
gifted me that. So those are the first books I read and they get me into this mindset. From there, I attended a class with a CPA. He gives, he in front of a class, he says, I’m going to give this book to the person who was asking the most questions, who participated the most and who I know would take advantage of it. He turns around and he hands it to me. It’s the millionaire next door. Yeah. And that one shifts my mind to it. It helps me so much. keeps pushing me.

So after reading that one, I posted it on Facebook.

I asked for help, I just read this book, I’m so excited, I want another book like this one. And a friend on Facebook recommended Rich Dad, Poor Dad. And that was mind blowing. The rest is history. I knew it was real estate where I had to transition into.

Q Edmonds (06:10)
Yes.

Yes, thank you. Absolutely. Thank you for taking us through the journey of kind of how you got started and how you got to where you are. And so you did that very eloquently and you did that probably in about like three minutes, right? And so we know that everything you just named didn’t just unfold in three minutes. This was a process, right? And so, ma’am, I have a saying, I say destiny has no wasted moments, right?

Arianné Villanueva (06:38)
Exactly.

Q Edmonds (06:45)
Meaning as we journey along this road, this life, we are borrowing from each leg of the journey. We’re borrowing from each moment. So I would love to know what has the journey, specifically in real estate, what has this journey taught you about yourself? Has it taught you discipline, resilience? What has this journey taught you, man?

Arianné Villanueva (07:05)
Yes, lot of grit, Quentin, a lot of grit. Because I come from humble beginnings. So it wasn’t like I had my parents to pay for my classes. It wasn’t like I had my parents to help support me along the way. Not because they were mean, they just couldn’t afford it. They didn’t have the money to do so. And ⁓ being a single parent too, single parent with my three kids and then without any help. And whenever you get into real estate,

You have a partner that’s supporting you. They’re bringing the income and you’re just going hard at it. But when you don’t have that, that means you’re going hard at work during the day. And at night, you’re going to go even harder at your business. So yeah, it was very hard to finally let go and transition into real estate. Yeah.

Q Edmonds (07:48)
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

No, thank you for that. Thank you for talking about, you know, the transition, the not I wouldn’t even say the balance of it all. It’s just like the prioritizing, right? Because we would love to be able to balance everything. But sometimes you just got to set your priorities and finish that and then go on to the next. So I love it. I love how you have found your sweet spot. And I always ask that question because at the center of each business is the business owner is the entrepreneur.

And so sometimes you got to reflect back and see, Hey, how did I get here? Like, you know, what, what, what, what role led me here? Because that way, if you know where you came from, sometimes it empowered you as you go forward in a journey. And so I appreciate your reflective answer. ⁓ What’s next for you, ma’am? Like what, what are your next goals? What are you looking to solve or scale next?

Arianné Villanueva (08:39)
Well, right now, my business is present in Dallas, Fort Worth, in San Antonio, of course, where I’m based, and in the Valley. I’ve expanded into the Valley. So now, recently, I just partnered up with two young ladies in the Houston area. So now I’m expanding into Houston. And that’s something that I greatly believe in, partnerships. We don’t grow without partnerships. I’m a huge believer of that.

Q Edmonds (08:55)
Thank you.

Yeah, yeah.

Arianné Villanueva (09:04)
That’s

the only way I can be present in so many cities in this state of Texas.

Q Edmonds (09:09)
Yeah, yeah. I love that you talked about partnerships because I love to dive into the word relationship. And I would love to hear from your perspective, has relationships served you well? You just mentioned partnerships. Give me your philosophy when it comes to the word relationship, specifically in business and in real estate.

Arianné Villanueva (09:29)
For me, it’s always about winning. And I’m a huge networker too, Quentin. So every time I go to different events, I’m always networking. I got so good at it that when I, I remember when I was taking my classes to become a broker, I would walk into my classroom and I would head count. And I knew there was 44 people in there. I had two days to network with all 44 people.

Q Edmonds (09:54)
Yeah, love it. He said two days in network with all 40. Listen, everybody gonna get a little bit of me. We gonna talk that. I love it. No, I absolutely love that. I’m a connector as well. And I love being able to touch people, learn from people and connect with people. So now I love that. So give me the name of your business, man. What’s the name of the business?

Arianné Villanueva (10:48)
The Acre Shop, yeah, Terrenos Doña Ariana. So I have two of them, acquisitions and dispo. So the Acre Shop is acquisitions.

Q Edmonds (10:49)
the AQRISTAN.

⁓

Are there stories behind the name? Like where did the idea of the names come from?

Arianné Villanueva (11:05)
I wanted to get very creative and I wanted to do something to where when I’m creating my trust and I said eventually when I pass, I don’t want my children to have a hard time maybe selling if it’s like for example, Terenos Doña Arianet has my name. I don’t know how that’s going to be. But the Acre shop could be owned by anyone and it’s not going to have that specific my name tied to it.

I wanted to do something where it can be for advertisement, like sticky. And guess what song I was listening to? Take you to the candy shop.

Q Edmonds (11:40)
Yeah. What’s that?

That’s what’s up, though. I love that. think names, they serve a purpose. They have a meaning. And so I love it. I love that you gave thought behind it. ⁓ Listen, is there any topic that I have not brought up that you would like to talk about? Is there any other words of maybe like inspiration, education, motivation? I don’t know. Maybe you came in with like a message in your head that you wanted to make sure people kind of knew. I kind of want to create space for you to land that message if there’s something like

Arianné Villanueva (12:21)
⁓ Very important when someone is coming in here new you have to have your mindset Mindset you’re decided that you’re gonna stick to this no matter what? No matter what because it’s gonna get tough there are bad people out there So you can’t get discouraged because you you you get the bad people because just as much bad people as many bad people There are there are also very good people So take the back the bad things as lessons. I got in the in the very beginning. I got scammed

by someone who I thought was a friend, I got scammed for $50,000. So I had all the opportunity to get discouraged and say, you know what, I’m quitting. This is it.

I don’t want to do this anymore because there’s people who fake to have friendships and partnerships and they end up taking advantage of you. But on the contrary, I took it as a lesson. And you move along and you start getting to know people and you start learning how to protect yourself too from situations like that. So for instance, now,

That one was a situation where a person had invited me to a partnership and I brought another investor with me to co-invest. So that’s my reputation was at stake. that’s now I learned, I learned myself, I’m not going to get my rep, your reputation is your credit card. So I’m not going to be using my credit card on someone else. Yeah. It’s your credit card. Yeah.

Q Edmonds (13:30)
No.

Okay, good.

I’m like, damn. I love that.

No, I, you know, your reputation is your credit card. I really liked that because, know, there was a time when we did, well, not we, because probably this is before all of our time, but there’s a time when people did business just on a handshake. We like literally your reputation was your word. We didn’t have credit cards. Like you said, you know, banks.

was not as synonymous as they are right now. And literally your word, your reputation was how you did business. know, somebody came on and said that everybody has a brand and that brand is your reputation, is your character. And so I loved that. Your reputation is your credit card. I absolutely loved that. And then second you mess up your reputation, all your credit, gone. All your credit gone. So yeah, yeah. No, I loved that. I loved that.

Arianné Villanueva (14:37)
Exactly.

Q Edmonds (14:40)
Now this has been such a fruitful conversation. If someone wanted to reach out to you, connect with you, collaborate with you, learn more about what you’re doing, how can they get in contact with you,

Arianné Villanueva (15:33)
I’m glad you say that Quentin, because I do have opportunities coming up. I have an RV park acquisition in South Dallas that I’m looking for investors. And if they can reach out to me, they can look for me up on Facebook under Arianné Villanueva or they can also find me under Invest with Arianné. Remember the little accent over the E. My dad was the creative one who gave me a French name.

Q Edmonds (15:57)
Yeah.

Listen, if my wife was here, she’d probably be popping me on the back of my head every time I messed your name up. So I wish I can roll my syllables the way you roll them when it comes to your name. But I love it. I appreciate you coming on. Thank you for sharing your info. I want to say three things to you sincerely. One, thank you for your time. I think time is our most precious commodity. So.

Thank you for taking time out, spending time with us today. Secondly, thank you for your story. I believe stories have a way of planting seeds. We may never see the full outcome, but still the seed is planted. And that way that seed can take root and grow two years from now, three years from now. Like somebody may listen to your story five years from now. So this is something that can carry weight. And so I thank you for sharing your story, the gift of your authenticity, your transparency.

I really, really appreciate it. And lastly, ma’am, thank you for the way you think. Thank you for your mindset and bringing that mindset to this platform. I greatly appreciate you coming over today, ma’am.

Arianné Villanueva (17:06)
Thank you so much, Quentin. I appreciate the opportunity.

Q Edmonds (17:09)
Absolutely. Well, listen, you heard my guest. Listen, our information is in the show notes. Please get in contact with her. She’s raising the funds. She’s looking for investors. You heard her. You like her. You know she’s building. She’s about a good mission. Reach out to her. But definitely make sure you are subscribed here, because I’m promising you we’re going to bring up amazing people just like my guest. Was there anything else you needed to say? I seen that finger. Yes, ma’am.

Arianné Villanueva (17:32)
Yeah, I like

the QR code so that they can also have contact. I’ll send it to you so that you can add it to the screen, please.

Q Edmonds (17:42)
Yeah, you got it. Absolutely. So y’all hear that? It’s no excuse. We are giving you no excuse. Please reach out. So ma’am, again, thank you so much for coming on. I greatly appreciate you. And listen, everyone else, y’all have a fantastic day.