Better Returns: Invest Like a Pro

Your "Why" Will Drive Success with Jennifer Falloon

January 31, 2023 Jennifer Falloon Episode 15
Better Returns: Invest Like a Pro
Your "Why" Will Drive Success with Jennifer Falloon
Show Notes Transcript

Inspiration for investing in real estate can come in many ways. In this episode, Jennifer Falloon talks about what led her and her family down this path and how they continue to capitalize on real estate investing opportunities. She shares her no-nonsense approach to building generational wealth.

LISTEN FOR THIS

  • Jennifer’s reason “why” is one of the most compelling reasons to build a real estate investing business.
  • There is no problem “sleeping at night” when you’ve done your due diligence on an apartment investment. If there is a hurricane or fire, the building is insured. Also, everyone else involved in the buying process - the property management company, insurance company and lender - have all signed off on it being a good investment.
  • Jennifer takes a careful approach when evaluating the apartment investments she presents to investors, ensuring they're as safe as possible.
  • When looking at housing markets, it’s important to know that single family homes are in a completely different market than multifamily apartments.
  • Financial advisors are not telling you all the ways to build your wealth but only about the investments that build their wealth regardless if it does yours.

QUOTES
“You need to just get over that fear and turn that fear into an excitement.”

“If you have any dormant money at all, especially in old IRA and 401K accounts, you are losing money. You need to pull that out right now, put it in a self-directed account so it's a rollover — so it's non-taxable, and get it in real estate. I don't want to say ‘I told you so’ three years from now.”

ABOUT JENNIFER FALLOON
Jennifer is the owner of Vorsa Investments. She currently owns and operates over 900 apartment units nationwide. She partners with her investor to offer alternative investments outside of the stock market.

CONNECT WITH JENNIFER
Website: https://www.vorsainvestments.com

CONNECT WITH US
Learn more about passively investing in apartment buildings:
Website: hansenholdings.com
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welcome back to the show I've got my friend here Jennifer falloon with us today Jennifer is the owner of vorset Investments she currently owns and operates over 900 apartment units Nationwide he partners with her investors to offer alternative Investments outside of Wall Street which I love that about you Jen well uh let's go and get started tell us a little bit about how did you get into real estate how did you discover the value of it ah so I was drug in um I did not discover anything this was something that my husband wanted to do and I was like go go do it don't care um you know and so but at the same time he was getting into this and you know going to Ria's um you know my son was trying to get into the military and um you know and so he had a Korea he was like let's buy this package it was like a three-day boot camp and I said okay that's great let's do it bought the VIP and turns out I had to work that weekend um so I had told my son like guess what you know you're going to this real estate boot camp and he's like that sounds terrible I don't care I paid VIP tickets you're going however at the same time this was going on my son was trying to get into the military and you know we were really transient at that time they kept losing his paperwork and it was just like this nightmare and you know then you know I guess the the application process or whatever that is would expire and he'd have to re-enroll and the recruiters didn't want to help him because they weren't going to get the commission it was this nightmare and my husband and I were in the kitchen one night he came down and he said um Mom I just want to let you know that if I don't get into the military this round that I am going to commit suicide and he's like because I don't have a purpose and if I don't have a purpose there's no point in me being here but I just want you to know so that whatever Affairs you need to get in order that's done I don't want to create a financial hardship for you so get life insurance whatever you need to do and then he walks out of the room and I just start I just lost my mind and I'm bawling and I'm praying and I'm just like this cannot happen um so then you know I make him go to this three-day boot camp that he didn't want to go to and he calls me the after the first night he's like you've got to come down here you have to do this this is my purpose this is what I'm supposed to do and so of course I was all on board I mean I was like let's go however um and I don't know if you've heard this part of the story because I don't always tell it but we paid a thousand dollars for this VIP ticket right and so I drove to Austin so we're in San Antonio I drove to Austin where the event was on Sunday the last day and because we were in VIP we were in this special room and and um they just kept giving us all this stuff right like here's your website here's your business cards here's your CRM here's this here's that here's books here's and I was like man this is the best thousand bucks we have ever spent and on the way home um because my son drove my car and I rode with my husband I can't tell you how many times I said I cannot believe this was a thousand bucks cannot believe and nobody corrected me however so um you know fast forward a couple weeks I leave my job which you know a six-figure jobs I'm like I'm gonna do this real estate thing because Cameron at the time was only 20 years old you know and so I'm like he can't do this by himself my husband of course is the breadwinner so I I left my job to do this real estate thing and I'm checking emails and here's this email it's a receipt for fifty thousand dollars and that was like and at first I was like oh my God they earnestly charged our account they have to put that money back like that's my that's why house buying money I'm gonna buy a house with that money and I'm freaking out right because I'm like they have to put this money back and as I'm like digging trying to find like their contact information it open like it was like I don't know like the the light um switch flute and I see all this stuff that we had gotten and I was like that wasn't no thousand dollars they did to charge our account 50 000 I could not wait for those suckers to get home I was so mad and I was like you spent 50 Grand on this stuff um and I threw this big fit but really at the end of the day who wouldn't spend fifty thousand dollars to save their child's life yes right so in the grand scheme of things like I think it made me matter that they tried to hide it and my husband was like we were going to get that money replaced before you ever knew it was gone I'm like well that was a lousy plan um you know but it's a funny story now but I would spend fifty thousand dollars every day if it saved my son's life and gave him purpose you know and so you know we started single family like most people do and we've run this business together um and then when voice investment started uh when we when that light the other light switch flipped that we were like we need to be in multi-family he's kept running the single family and I run the multi-family but he does great at raising money for me I'm like Cameron I need 50 Grand Cameron I need half a million and I send him out and he he provides oh that that is the that is probably the most compelling why I've ever heard of anything for anybody to do anything particularly even in real estate to that's why so you're at 50 000 is enough and really you're starting a business what business can you start over 50 Grand as the startup cost yeah that's really quite reasonable but I know I've done I've spent lots and lots of money on on masterminds and stuff but I've always got my money back at the end or it may take a year or two or three but yeah I went well well over six digits that I made on things that I've spent maybe 30 000 on so yeah and to this day um Cameron's more involved than I am but he's still involved with that program very much and he's made friends and mentors and you know we've done lots of business and our money has been you know made a hundred times over yeah um but yeah it was I think just the shock you know of it at first but you know but you're right you know we've literally started a business and we ran that business and you know I I think not on wood you know we've run it very well and part of it is you you invested in yourself that was an investment in your family I mean from a business standpoint but just this is knowledge you'll never lose even if you know you didn't really use it for this it's applicable like oh I understand how to passively invest in real estate I know how to do all these things it does have that particularly for a young person so great for him to see that this is what my mom and dad are doing and they have that the rest of their lives they're going to share that with other people because it's so powerful the knowledge that you got from it so I commend you I can see I can see I would behave the same way it's like what that well that's gonna sound like my wife because I always tell my wife before I sign up for something but it's always a discussion like okay should we really are we going to get it back and then then when you get a check for you know we had 103 000 check that came in the other day for something that an apartment complex would passively invest in that we sold that's okay it worked out pretty well you know right yeah and what I love too about it is you know I didn't grow up wealthy or I didn't have educated parents um and so you know I got to like kind of break that generational curse so my son's children you know my grandchildren even my great-grandchildren will be raised in this you know mindset like a you know most I mean a wealthy mindset which is very much different than the middle class mindset like you know my children and my grandchildren will never worry about you know a financial advisor and wasting your money on them and they'll never know what it is to like have to cut coupons and have to you know live off the government like they'll never have to know that and um so there's there's a little bit of Pride there that was like okay from here on Our Generations you know the generations of my family you know are completely their lives are completely changed right because you basically solve them Saw The Light if you will so how how would what advice would you give to other people that that are just discovering this to get over the fear of okay let's I know the first time I wired a hundred thousand dollars years and years ago it was like oh my gosh I didn't think I slept for a few days like did I do the right thing what what can people do to be comfortable with okay I can't doctors lie on Wall Street for all my investments what's your recommendations how do you put your money in the stock market and sleep at night you know it's like you know vet your vet better you know vet your syndications vet your GPS vet you know the deal that you're going in on um it should be very conservative underwriting and they're really you know there's always fear right but I mean it's an investment right and so you can put your money in Wall Street and you might make some but you're at some point you're going to lose it in multi-family or you know real estate at all as long as you're buying correctly and conservatively you will never lose your money there's just no reason to lose it um you know even if the market crashes what nobody talks about the media certainly doesn't talk about in 2008 there were more millionaires made than people lost their houses but they don't teach you that because the people that were smart bought up all the foreclosures right they saw it coming listen to like the gurus listen to Warren Buffett listen to Robert Kiyosaki you know when they start buying that's the time to start buying um so you know you need to just get over that fear and turn that fear into an excitement like I'm always confident in my underwriting or I don't buy it right right um and I vet my people very well I bet the GPS that I partner with I bet my LPS very well so there is no reason not to sleep um you know uh if my houses are hit by a hurricane and I know how that is they're insured right so we're going to collect the insurance money if a fire came and wiped out our entire complex it's over insured we're gonna get our money back um you know we vet our tenants very well so and we're very kind to our tenants we're very fair to our tenants so there's never a mass Exodus but even if there was we rehab and raise the rents and move better people in anyway so you know SEC regulations we're not allowed to say it's a safe investment but tell me how it's not safe except for putting your money in with you know a shady GP or a shady syndication that you did not vet that's the only way you're going to lose your money the only way and this is pretty much true too and I've had one bad investing experience because I didn't vet all the partners I vetted one the one I was investing with I'd invent the other ones in the asset managers and that's so critical because it's it's does anything you're investing in Wall Street that's actually insured so if the property does get hit by a hurricane well we have insurance for that if the tenants can't live there for some reason we get you know business insurance lost income insurance it's incredible there are and it's really like you said it's operator air is the thing you've got to worry the most if somebody did not manage things well didn't manage your money well or didn't manage the property manager that's when you get into trouble and that's why it's so important that you know what Jen I would invest with Jen no question because I know you well enough I know your performance I know what you do you're all about the numbers you manage things while you're on top of it and that's what I think people really educate themselves in that like General Partners really wow that's so important because that's who you're investment in a person not just a property well yeah for sure and if anybody is watching this um that isn't investing in anything or has never done a syndication I actually have a checklist um I don't know it's really a checklist like a questionnaire it's like 50 questions to ask a syndication um if you email me at Jen forceinvestments.com and just in the subject line but um um syndication questionnaire or how to vettas indicator it's on my website but I'm happy to send those questions and ask those questions the other thing that I would really recommend is go visit the property um because if you don't see it and you don't have to and you know I have investors and I have 900 Doors not 900 complexes by the way but I do have 900 Doors um it's not always possible for somebody that's working a nine to five to visit every complex but at least visit your first one you know your first indication see it you know see how we walk it see how we do our due diligence so that you're comfortable you're like oh I get it you know and and who our team is like who's who's the GCS these are the people doing the work are they doing adequate work are they doing slumlord you know I call it Band-Aid uh work you know who's our who's the um managers who's the property managers do you like them you know do your research on them um you know go to their Google site and see what people or other people have said right um so it does take a little bit of work but if you're that worried about your money what is an hour of your time to to Really vet you know who you're going to be working with and my hope and my prayer is to always you know when a syndicator comes in it's rinse and repeat here's your money give it back to me here's your money give it back to me so this is really um kind of like a marriage this is a lifetime you know um I'll be doing this you know the next 30 40 years even if I'm passive my but my son's taking over my grandkids will be taking over so even if somebody is starting out young like just know you're married to us like you know we use the same calculator we have the you know the same criteria will never not say well you know let's be a little liberal with this number and you know make it work no we're we're super conservative and we've had people not invest with us because they're like your numbers are way too conservative and I won't apologize for it because I'd rather be conservative and make it up on the back end and be like oh look we got all this extra money on the back than to write anything liberally and then be like oh sorry we can't pay you because you know I wanted to please you and not be a conservative underwriter and now now you don't get paid or our other LPS don't get paid you know that will not in my business I would sell my house my cars my kidney uh before I didn't pay my LPS so um it's to their benefit and their safety to have such conservative underwriting and that's good as an investor you also need to know what your criteria is what is your risk tolerance because I know some people like we invest in some startup businesses where I know I could potentially lose a lot of money there but the reward is so high but you know that but even within the multi-family bucket there's some people that are that are General Partners or sponsors the deals that they're they're out there in The Fringe they're taking risks their speculations are pretty high versus someone like you that's super conservative that okay my my most important thing is that and I'm going to tell you up front that we're we're not gonna say yeah we're gonna give you 15 returns that cash in cash whatever you're gonna be super super conservative and that's really good that people get need to get a sense of who you're investing with and what their underwriting is and you you did a great job of explaining yours Jen you're super and I I think I'm I'm on that end too like we don't take a lot of risk on our stuff we're buying 40 million dollar Apartments it's very conservative it's pretty safe but if you're buying like if you're investing in a 115 unit in a small City somewhere out nowhere that's risky and then you need to know that and hopefully the sponsors are telling them that so yeah that's a really really good point um what other tips do you have for like new investors in um determining they hear all these terrible things about what's going on in the real estate market um what's your take on the outlook on you know your crystal ball Jen what do you think oh yeah I I mean I'm excited and um I know that there's a lot of fear amongst investors and oh the housing market and yeah so there's two different sides right yeah there is the single family housing market right and everybody's like scared that there's going to be a 2008 repeat but that does not apply to multi-family those are two different worlds um and regardless however having said that um you know investors are are very fear driven right now because they're oh the housing market uh which is just insane to me because this is the time to be excited um so to me if I was even a brand new investor and I had somebody say look this is the time to buy and here's all the reasons why you know things are going to be on major discount and who doesn't love to shop off the clearance rack right I love clearance racks in the real estate world it's everything's going to be on clearance and this is the time because again we can buy houses and apartments for that matter Pennies on the dollar and you know in two you know last year we had a buying frenzy right it was just this crazy boom we're gonna have that again and you want to be able to have that inventory to sell when when the market goes back up so I would say if you have any dormant money at all so first of all any dormant money especially um in Old um dormant IRA and 401K accounts you are losing money you need to pull that out right now put it in a self-directed account so it's a rollover so it's non-taxable and get it in real estate because I don't have to say I Told You So three years from now when we bought up and you know we're cashing out for millions and you let your money sit in a dormant account and now you've lost and you don't have anything um because the worst thing to do is you know and and me included in 2008 2009 uh you know we slept and we you know chewed our nails and oh the sky is falling we should have been buying and uh and so that's one of my biggest regrets and that in fact there's a meme that says uh my biggest uh my biggest Financial regret is being in junior high during the 2008 crash and I sent that to my son and he's like that's so true right like I could have been a millionaire like had we done and even had the knowledge in 2008 that we have now I'd be on a beach right now we wouldn't we'd be having this on a beach I'd have a big sippy cup my cabana boy would be behind me right and and uh so I just don't want people I want people to understand that and understand that this is a huge opportunity a time for opportunity a time to break generational curses a time to truly be wealthy if you should so choose and and wealth isn't for everybody I get it but um if you have ever had that ink Lane like I can do more or I need more I want more this is your moment yeah I would agree it really is and this is as you said it's I didn't know that stat about in 2009 whatever more millionaires were coined than in any other time because you don't hear about that stuff Wall Street doesn't tell you about it and they didn't do it in Wall Street it was probably it was in real estate everything was so depressed and like if you had dry powder as they say you had cash and we're kind of doing the same thing as you Jen like we've got some things on our contract right now that we're closing by the end of the year but probably not going to buy anything until first second quarter or probably by the end of first quarter things will start to bounce back a little bit Yeah and there'll be opportunities to buy that are going to be great and you know you just can't be fearful about all that stuff and if you're experienced I mean we've been doing this for a while I mean in our partners that have been doing for 25 years so even they've seen these cycles and that's the other thing is you know work with somebody that's experienced it seems cycles that knows what's going on and it's pretty good it's it's one of the best risk adjustment investments in the world real estate in the US particularly multi-family because everybody needs a place to live when the economy gets tough you know what we're moving into apartment buildings yeah and because we buy because you buy be class too right or C-Class deferred maintenance management make it be class um that's the sweet spot because when the economy is good our apartments are full when the economy is tanked our apartments are full you know because we're a working class apartment complex and people have to have a place to live no matter what the economy and maybe that looks like you know we don't raise rents for a year or two that's okay we'll raise rents on year three year four you know maybe hold it an extra year than we anticipated but we're going to make that up on the back end you know so you know it's it's just a really exciting time for me um I'm super excited to kind of be cash heavy and really be in an education space to tell people like this is your moment like this is your breakthrough moment do not sleep on it right and that's a good point too now it's time to get educated on this stuff so you know you don't make quick decisions like you're not going to invest 100 000 bucks tomorrow after you just discovered something so I think that's great to get educated and what's going on in real estate over the next three or four months that some operators you can find out okay who do I want to invest when it comes time so I think that's really a valuable piece of advice just like we're getting ready to buy you should get ready to invest you do your vetting now um yeah so what markets do you like what what markets do you think okay great rental markets where do you putting your money where are you investing for your investors Midwest and Southeast so I love love love the Midwest um you know and that's that's your working class right there so they always have to have again well you have to have somewhere to live no matter what but that's your working class and the southeast those are pretty much your retirees and I'm like and and I love so I'm from the Midwest which is why I love it too and I love the beach so I love the southeast and uh you know all those States I I love the southern states and that's where people are going to retire that's where people vacation and you know again you have that's where your Workforce housing is so those are my favorites good mine as well yeah Texas Florida Arizona and that's what a population growth is and that's the two most important thing employment and population growth and that's where people are moving from the north north or the the coast mostly the coast East Coast people are moving to Florida West Coast people moving to Texas that's what you kind of see we see that you know we were talking about this before the show you actually look at the U-Hauls and I've heard that where are the U-Hauls going to and and that's how deep you guys go which is great and I we we do that as well like so you know okay if they're dropping off a whole bunch of empty you know they're full coming into this city this is a great City to invest in right but you almost need to get ahead of that a little bit yeah um because if you are right in the middle of it even or especially at the end you're going to overpay so if you have the knowledge to kind of foresight right and be like okay there's not really anything here right now but you see the path of progress right you see the targets coming in you see the Starbucks and it's like the next town over that's where you want to buy because that's the town that you know you might have to hold it a year or two but in year two year three that path of progress is hit now you're sitting on a gold mine excellent excellent advice that's wonderful well I think it's time for us to move into the lightning round


are you ready I didn't tell you about this Jen you didn't know yeah I feel bummed here okay I better do well you're the expert on you Jen this is just five fun questions to get to know you a little bit better okay you're ready so nervous yes yes what was your nickname as a child oh my God oh my God Dino okay you have to explain that Beno Beno um I I have no idea why it was Vino that's what my mom called me and I was bino and yeah and then finally in junior high I was like you literally can never call me that again especially in front of my friends like it's forbidden don't do it and now he kind of feels sad that I said that because she you know honored that and I have not been Vino and 30 years that's interesting that was the term of endearment but yeah I don't know isn't bino the caplets you take when you have gas yes I'm sorry okay so in my mouth that did not exist okay okay but yes so thanks for even bringing that up because it never occurred to me but okay number two you did well in number one I think you're gonna do good on the rest Jen are you a morning person or a night owl uh can I say neither I'm really optimal oh okay so first of all I'm not a morning person you don't even want to know me in the mornings like I am angry and bitter it was like I had this super hard life that I haven't recovered from right I'm so cranky and it takes me about an hour to get out of that and so my husband God love him he's a morning person and he sings and he like dances and he's so happy and I want to kill him like like and so but I also like to go to bed early so I like to go to bed early and sleep in like I don't know I probably need to be on some vitamins um but really like 11 o'clock to like four in the afternoon like that's my go get them time right like I I am on fire um but five six o'clock Six Mile probably six or seven I'm like okay I'm done you know like I'm CA so and I want to go to bed early so I'm not really a night person or a morning person I'm gonna have to I'm going to create a new category so I'm taking a poll there that I'm eventually publishing and I'm going to put you a category of both you're the first prince never said that and that's interesting yeah like why do we have to pick between morning and night why can't we be afternoon people well typically of a natural tendency we're a night person so is my wife but neither of us talk in the morning if we have to get up we usually don't get until noon or one if we don't talk unless we have to so I I can appreciate your you have to deal with your husband if he's chipper I couldn't imagine my wife was that way I'd be like we have agreement we don't talk first thing in the morning it's been that way we've been married 33 years we've early on so okay that's interesting okay number three what would be the first thing you do if you won the lottery invest it


oh I'd buy Apartments oh my gosh dude it's like one billion dollars no like when it was like a billion dollars I was like literally underwriting I was like how many apartments could I buy if I won the billion dollar lottery like I had it all figured out I was like these are I had them picked out I knew exactly what I was gonna buy I'd be able to pay cash for them so I'm not syndicating so 100 of the cash flow is mine dude I had a plan like I knew I was gonna win that sucker um but here's the thing is you don't win if you don't play and so I refused to and and for a quick second I was like man I'm gonna take a hundred bucks and go to the convenience store and at the end of the day I was like oh wasteful right like I could give that 100 bucks to the homeless person it would go further um but but I was on I was ready for it dude even though I didn't play um and whoever won that if you're if you're watching this right now and you won the one billion dollar lottery you call me because I have the apartments all picked out already I'll take good care of you oh you're such a good planner that is good that was a great answer very good number four if you could live anywhere in the world where would that be um so I'm not super world traveled but in my heart I want to live in Ireland but I also know that it's cold and Snow's there so I don't know if that would really be my place but maybe like if I could pick two I would pick like Ireland and like Fiji or some or New New Zealand somewhere tropical and I would bounce between them okay that's good that sounds like fun okay okay um and number five the the podcast is called better returns um so what's one piece of advice you would give to new investors to help them get better returns um one key nugget Jen don't have a financial advisor period nobody should have a financial advisor and I'm so sorry for the financial advisors listening to this um yeah that it like that's the one thing that like just grates my nerves makes me like you know like chop my teeth like grind my teeth like don't have a financial advisor just don't and I'm going to go off on that one Jen too because I've got probably five people that are like oh I'm interested in passively in apartments then they said but my financial advisor says I can't do that my financial advisor that makes a hundred thousand dollars can't advise me on how to you know triple my investment because they don't want you to yeah they don't want it outside of the stock market they don't make any money off from that well how can you be a fiduciary if you don't offer everything to me I mean I'm sorry that's that's a really key point for me and I've never had somebody that had a financial advisor invested no I have okay I've had two okay over the years I've had two but it was like a real struggle struggle struggle so I have a couple people but more will say no my financial advisor says no if I'm beginning yeah yeah here I'm going to give my financial advisor a hundred thousand dollars but they don't realize you didn't invest a hundred thousand dollars of your money you invested eighty thousand and he took his cut anything you make you didn't make a hundred percent of that he took his cut so it's like what what sense does that make like and but again okay that's that middle class mindset and when you're in the middle class you're taught when you have a financial advisor you're made that's what makes wealth a financial advisor and you know they don't they don't know that you've just cut off your nose to spite your face like you just cost yourself tons of money listening to this guy that you're paying commission to that also so while I'm on this rant if he lost all of your money he's not replacing any of it in fact he's going to ask you for more so that he can repeat the process and lose your money again at least when you invest with a good syndicator that you've added if your money did get lost it's going to be made up it might take some time but your money isn't just poof gone it no longer exists it might be on hold for a minute but it's there and hard assets that you can go visit and touch and see and so anyway sorry financial advisors but you're costing your clients tons of money and you're not doing them any favors and I love when they say well I'm Diversified you're Diversified in stocks bonds and mutual funds that's not diversification it's all the same asset classes paper it's paper right yeah and I offer diversification but know your stocks well right like like know them and don't have all of your money there and and don't have all of your money in one complex right or one house like that's diversification so that's why I my my passive Investments are in Texas Florida Arizona and Tennessee I don't just invest in Florida I don't just because you're right so anyway but anyways yeah you hit me that's a nerve that's a nerve on mine too it's like that that financial advisors yeah they're good but they don't give you the whole picture we're gonna show you half of your opportunities and the ones that really can make you money we don't offer those so you don't get access to those the ones that can triple your money in three five seven years so in any case we'll get off that well uh this has been an absolute pleasure chatting with you John as always so you mentioned such a Matt Hanson fan because we're helping people we're helping people get out of stock market and grow their wealth and it's you know we don't get paid billions of dollars like you know Fidelity and Vanguard all those big companies are spending bill means advertising so we've been advertised for you know passively investing outside of the Wall Street we're serving our purpose so you've got the great checklist and you have a great website thanks again for sharing all this great information Jen I truly appreciate it yeah I had a great time thank you all right bye-bye