Investing In Real Estate and Empowering Women to Grow their Wealth with Tamar Hermes – EP 79

Interview with Tamar Hermes

Investing In Real Estate and Empowering Women to Grow their Wealth with Tamar Hermes

Financial freedom takes time, but you don’t have to come from money to achieve it.

Today’s guest, Tamar Hermes, knows this all too well. Despite growing up poor, Tamar ended up becoming a millionaire investor and highly successful entrepreneur—and she believes that anyone can follow in her footsteps.

As the CEO of Wealth Building Concierge, she empowers women to become financially free by teaching them how to invest in Real Estate.

Tamar has been investing in real estate for over 20 years, focusing on appreciation with buy & hold single-family homes and duplexes in Los Angeles. Over the past few years, she has expanded her portfolio to include passive multi-family investments across multiple states, private lending, and AirBnB properties.

In this episode, we discuss how Tamar got into real estate investing and how she’s helping others (specifically women) do the same.

You’ll also learn that investing your money in a 401k is a bad plan for building wealth, why it doesn’t really matter what a property is worth if you’re willing to hold it long-term, and how to put your money to work so you can live life on your terms!

BTW, Tamar just released her new book, The Millionairess Mentality: A Professional Woman’s Guide to Building Wealth Through Real Estate. All proceeds from the sale of her book are going to Mona Foundation – a charity that educates girls and teaches gender equality around the world. If you would like to buy a copy for yourself or someone you know, visit www.TamarBook.com

Featured on This Episode: Tamar Hermes

✅ What she does: Tamar Hermes is a real estate investor – turning herself from a broke kid into a millionaire investor. Tamar is passionate about creating opportunities for wealth through her real estate coaching business, The Wealth Building Concierge. She is also the author of the book, The Millionaire’s Mentality.

💬 Words of wisdom: Tamar’s parents were immigrants – her father a holocaust survivor, her mother a pioneer in Palestine. She grew up through survival rather than luxuries. You can start with nothing, but with determination, passion, and diligence you can create anything.

🔎 Where to find Tamar Hermes: Website | Instagram | LinkedIn | Facebook

Key Takeaways with Tamar Hermes

• The story of Tamar’s first job and how she became passionate about building wealth.
• How Tamar got started with real estate investing and bought her first property.
• How real estate cash flow covers Tamar’s lifestyle income and fits into her overall financial portfolio.
• What makes real estate such a safe investment?
• How to avoid losing money as a real estate investor.
• The risk of investing for appreciation, instead of for cashflow.
• Empowering women to grow their wealth through real estate.
• Making your money work harder for you.
• Tamar discusses the Wealth Building Concierge and her new book The Millionairess Mentality.
• Why you shouldn’t let FOMO drive your investing decisions.

Tamar Hermes – A Woman’s Guide to Building Wealth with Real Estate

Tamar Hermes Tweetable

“My husband and I both still work, although we don’t HAVE to work, and that’s the difference. We work because we love what we do.” - Tamar Hermes Click To Tweet “People often invest for appreciation, not cash flow. In a recession that will come to haunt most people if they don’t have the ability to float expenses that are greater than the cost of owning that asset.” - Justin Donald Click To Tweet

Resources

• Wealth Building Concierge
• The Millionairess Mentality by Tamar Hermes

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Read the Full Transcript with Tamar Hermes

Justin Donald: Well, Tamar, I’m so glad to have you on the show. It is always a pleasure when we get to feature mastermind members that are doing amazing things, and so, for me to be able to kind of handpick from The Lifestyle Investor mastermind team and TRIBE is just an honor. So, thanks for joining for the show.

 

Tamar Hermes: Thank you so much for having me. I’m so excited to share.

 

Justin Donald: Well, you and I get a chance to spend a good amount of time together, and we both do a lot of investing. And so, I’m just excited for my audience to learn about you. And I think your story is incredible. Your husband’s story is incredible. You really live the lifestyle. Like when I think of a lifestyle investor, it’s you. I’ve been to your home. You’re a great entertainer. You’ve got so much to talk about. Your family is incredible. Your outdoor space is incredible. You had this brilliant life in Hollywood, turn now, Austin.

 

And so, I’d love to kind of go back to when you got interested in money because you empower women and teach them how to invest. And I love it. I just think there needs to be more of it. But there was a Tamar Hermes prior to any of this, prior to the financial guru you are. So, tell us about you growing up and what got you into money, investing, finances?

 

Tamar Hermes: Yeah, I have a similar story as a lot of successful investors, which is that I grew up without anything. My father was a Holocaust survivor. He was battling his own demons from his past, and my mom was a pioneer in Palestine before it became Israel. So, my sister and I were really taught about survival. We were great at surviving, and that was pretty much it. We really didn’t have a lot of luxuries. We didn’t have a lot of extra money. And a lot of times, there was hardly any money.

 

So, I think that I got really passionate about money when I realized that there were certain things I wanted, that there was no way I was going to be able to get unless I figured it out. And one of the most pivotal times for me was when I was 14 and a half. I got my first job as a hostess. And for those people from L.A. that remember the Old World Restaurant, that was my first job. They had one on Sunset and one in Beverly Hills, and I lied about my age, which you could do back then a lot easier than you can today. And I saved $5,000 so that I could buy a car.

 

And I’ll never forget that moment when I got the car, it was a Ford Escort, a blue Ford Escort. I finally could connect the dots that, hey, you don’t need to start out with anything, but you can create anything if you really are determined and you’re focused and you’re diligent. And I had survival skills. And survival skills are good for that. So, that was kind of my first inkling into money. It took a long time before I got to where I am today, just like all of us are on our journeys. But that was my most pivotal moment.

 

Justin Donald: Well, that’s a really unique story. And I love, I mean, I did the same thing. I grew up in a very middle-income, maybe even a little lower middle-income family, and I saved up for my first car and I saved $3,500 for my car. So, I’m guessing yours may have been nicer than mine, but it was everything I had, I put all my money into that. But talk about freedom, I mean, that bought me so much freedom. I got a taste at an early age, what that felt like, and it feels good to be able to be on your own, go where you want to go.

 

And so, where from there? So, you got this taste of freedom, you got a car, you flexed your work ethic muscles, but where did you learn about money? How do you know so much? Because you are a wealth of knowledge, and we’ll get into this later because you also are a student and curious and a question asker at heart. But where did you gain your knowledge and education?

 

Tamar Hermes: It’s interesting. I didn’t really, I think, like you said, I’m just a curious person. And fast forward to when I bought my first property over 25 years ago, and again, I was an executive in television and I had fallen into the trap of get a job, work hard, pray for the best. I knew nothing. I mean, I was just the typical listener, probably, that is thinking about, okay, I like this idea of lifestyle investor. I want to get over there. I mean, I just did what we’re all taught to do. And I could see really quickly that I was just in a trap, that my life was basically a life of survival, kind of like when I grew up. I mean, yeah, I had more money, I was making over six figures, but still, I had to report for work, I had to do a job every day that if I didn’t feel like doing, I didn’t have a choice. I didn’t feel like I had, I could leave my job because I felt like I needed the money.

 

And that was when I started looking. And like you said, I’m a question asker. So, how did I get my education? I just ask a lot of questions. I just get curious about something and I just start talking to people. People are the biggest well, it’s all people. All the knowledge you ever need is in people. And so, I started thinking that if I could just not pay rent, then I would have an opportunity to have more freedom because I would have less expenses. And that man, he actually owned, he was in entertainment like me, that he owned the property that I was living in. And he was getting rent checks every month, and I thought, I want to be like him. And I had to switch places.

 

So, again, I was a good saver. I knew that there was a value in getting a lump sum together for something big, like a car or a down payment for a house that earned me well over seven figures. So, that was kind of the start of it. You get a taste of it and then you think, give me more, give me more. And that house, I always think about this because whenever I’m working with clients, I always say, okay, you can take your $40,000 and you can go on vacation and you could buy clothes or you can take that $40,00. These days, of course, it’s a lot more than 40 where I buy it. Maybe there are parts of the country where we can do that still. And I took that money and I put it into a property. And there it is, I mean, there’s the magical real estate, right?

 

Justin Donald: Yeah, so what ended up happening, did you sell this at a big return? Did you hold on to it? Did you scale and buy multiple units so that you had even more cash flow? What does that look like?

 

Tamar Hermes: Yeah, and that is a great question and so interesting to me because I was very tentative. So, I think women, by nature, and part of the reason why I spend so much time working with women is because by nature, we’re tentative. I always tell the story about the lemonade stand. The little boy goes out and he goes to sell lemonade, and the parents tell him, “Oh, that’s great. Have a great time.” And the girl goes out, and they tell her to be careful, be cautious, just make sure you’re careful. And that’s kind of how we’re conditioned. We’re conditioned to just be a little bit more tentative, a little more cautious, which I think serves us in many ways because we’re willing to look at a lot of different angles and take our time with decisions. And it also sometimes leaves us paralyzed where we’re just too afraid to move forward.

 

And so, I had bought that property, and at the time, it took me, I did end up buying more properties and I did end up selling some and going on the route of scaling, although that first property, I kept. And I love this too about lifestyle investing is that maybe you’re working a job and you really love it and you think, you know what? I’m fine with what I’m doing. So, buy, and this is interesting, we’ve talked about buying a great area like Los Angeles or Austin. And even if you’re not cash flowing, you’re buying an asset in an area that ultimately, even if prices go down and we hit a big bump in the market ultimately are going to be worth a lot.

 

And I went through 2008 with that property. I had other properties at the time, but that property is worth one and a half million dollars, and I bought it for $400,000. So, yeah, I could have made a lot more money had I sold it, had I been doing exercising 1031 exchanges. The point is I didn’t have to. I still made a million and a half. That’s still good money. So, I don’t know how many people would say, that yeah, I could have maybe made five, but I made one and a half. If I needed to sell that property today, I could just raise my hand and I’d have many buyers.

 

Justin Donald: Yeah, that’s cool that you have that. I mean, most people in real estate play the long-term game, and you can certainly do the 1031s, which is still a long-term game. But most people that I would say are like the highest level expert, I mean, if you’re raising money and you have investors and you want to pay them back and you probably, in many cases, sell, sell maybe sooner than you would if you owned it on your own. But my friends that own, they generally owned for a long time, and their rule is don’t sell because you can always borrow against it if you need to. And the debt that you take out on it is tax-free, so it’s a great strategy. So, I like hearing that.

 

So, you’ve done some real estate and you’ve done a bunch of different types of real estate, but you’ve even grown beyond that where we’re investing in all different types of things in The Lifestyle Investor mastermind, all kinds of deals, A to Z. But I still think for you that real estate is your foundation. It’s what helped you get your start. It’s still a big portion of your portfolio. And I’m curious, percentage-wise, what is your allocation approximately of real estate? And does real estate alone cover your lifestyle income?

 

Tamar Hermes: Yes, real estate does cover my lifestyle income. And my husband and I both still work, although we don’t have to work, and that’s the difference. So, we work because we love what we do and we enjoy it. And that’s a place I always strive to be. And real estate and my portfolio is about 75%. So, I’m still really heavy in real estate and I’m 100% fine with that because I love the asset. And one of the things I always say about real estate that I like more than anything else is that I can understand it. I can understand, okay, I’m going to buy it for this price. These are going to be my projected expenses. These are the additional expenses if things don’t go well. This is what can happen in the market. This is the worst-case scenario. Whereas if I’m investing in a private equity deal, then I can say, okay, this is a fantastic idea. I can see how well this company is doing. I can see the projections, I can see the massive returns that I’ll get, which will likely be more than real estate, and I can also lose all my money.

 

Justin Donald: That’s right. Yeah, often, this world of public equity and private equity, and technically real estate is both, right? More or less, it’s more often private. But let’s kind of categorize it as its own, we’ll give its own category. But when you’re in public and private equities, yeah, you can have big home runs, but you can also have strikeouts. And with real estate, it’s really hard to lose money, at least over the long haul. Generally, it’s going to appreciate every year. And as our government prints more money, it’s going to kind of keep up with that. So, as more money is brought into our system, is kind of printed out of thin air, or added to a digital ledger, then the value of this real estate keeps going up, the amount of rent keeps going up. And so, it’s a nice hedge against a devaluing dollar. It’s a nice protection to be in an asset.

 

A lot of people sit in cash, and we’ve heard a lot that savers lose the most, and people that move their cash position into assets that can keep up and hedge against inflation really win the most. And so, you’ve done that, you’ve seen that. You mentioned your husband. And one of the things I want to make sure that we mention because I’m so impressed with Matt Earl and just love hanging out with him. And part of that is that we share a love for movies and television. I love it. I mean, I recently invested in a film and I just have always had a fascination with TV and movies.

 

And so, it’s cool getting a chance to meet Matt Earl because he’s a very well-known Hollywood director. He directs the Chicago Fire. He’s had involvement in a lot of big-name movies like Braveheart and many others. And so, to hear his perspective, his insight, the relationships he has, the people he knows, it’s just fascinating. It’s so fun for me. And hanging out with him really just last week, we had a really nice exchange on some shows and some movies and people he knows and some cool stories that it’s me hearing the back story of how someone got started or what launched their career. And he’s just a wealth of knowledge and just fun to hang out with. So, I just wanted to give you a shout-out for finding and doing a great job, marrying an awesome guy.

 

Tamar Hermes: Yeah, that’s great. And it’s interesting that you say that because oftentimes, I’ll say even marriage, obviously, is so much more than like, we don’t want to say it’s a business relationship, but it’s a choice. It’s a choice that we make along our journey, and partnerships are challenging. And a lot of ways, I feel like I did make a great decision because we’ve been married for over 20 years. And yet, it does feel a little bit like luck, but it’s a dance, it’s the same as an investment because we’re doing the same thing. And like, when you were talking about the real estate and talking about the different ways, that it’s very hard to lose money, one of the things that I love about that, too, is that there are so many strategies within the strategy. So, you can buy a mobile home park, you can sell it, you can get a partner, you can refi it, you have all kinds of options. So, that’s the thing that’s so fun about it. And it is a dance kind of like a relationship, you’re having a relationship with your asset.

 

Justin Donald: Yeah. Well, and you bring up a good point that I just want to elaborate on. I said it’s hard to lose money. It’s hard to lose money if you buy right. You can certainly lose money and you can certainly invest with people that don’t know what the heck they’re doing or have only done real estate in the last 13 years that we’ve had this massive, I guess, bubble or increase in asset values. And so, the last 13 years, it’s really been hard to do wrong. There are people that have done a poor job, but it’s a very small percentage. You really learn who’s good during a recession where you can actually see how do you make decisions and how does this hold up under stress and under a rising interest rate environment or whatever that looks like.

 

And so, I want to be very careful not to say, hey, you’re not going to lose money in real estate. I think any investor, every investor is going to lose money at some point in time. And you can lose money in real estate if you don’t invest wisely, if you don’t invest with a great group. But I think if you invest in the right asset classes and you do so at a fair price just based on the amount of money that’s being printed, just based on real estate appreciating over time, and if you’re owning it, if it’s a deeded asset that you own as opposed to you investing in someone syndication, I think your chances are really good that you’re going to make money and probably make a good return. But if you do invest in someone else’s syndication and you’ve done your homework and you know that they’re good and you know they have experience beyond the last 13 years, so you can see what it was like in the hard times during 2008 to 2010, it’s just good to know that people have weathered that storm, right?

 

Tamar Hermes: Yeah, 100%.

 

Justin Donald: And that’s where you can do well.

 

Tamar Hermes: Yeah, I love that you clarified that because, yeah, definitely, there’s always risk in any investment. And I just think that we have a lot of options that even if something goes south, we have ways, we have a myriad of ways that you can stay in control with real estate. And it’s true, you can still lose money. And it does seem that over time, though, that time can also take care of a lot of the issues as long as you’re still getting rents and can muddle through the challenging times which we’re likely looking at ahead.

 

Justin Donald: Yeah, and an important point is if you’re asset cash flows, then it really doesn’t matter what it’s worth because if you’re covering the mortgage, if you’re covering the expenses, if you’re covering everything, does it really matter on paper what it’s worth because you don’t have to sell it? It only matters if you have to sell. It only matters if you aren’t cash flowing enough, where now, you’re coughing up money every single month that maybe you don’t have or you don’t feel comfortable spending. Well, at this point in time you sell and you could lose money, but if you buy an asset right that cash flows right, you never have to sell. So, if the market tanks, it doesn’t matter what your asset is worth if it’s producing enough cash flow to keep it to a point in time where that asset appreciates back to where it was or greater than it was. So, that’s one of the tricks that I learned that, unfortunately, a lot of people investing in very expensive areas, a lot of California, a lot of New York, a lot of the coasts, they often make the mistake of investing for appreciation, not for cash flow, and in a recession that will come to haunt most people if they don’t have the ability to float negative cash flow, to float expenses that are greater than the cost of owning that asset.

 

Tamar Hermes: Yeah, I know 100%, and when I started out and I was talking about Austin, Los Angeles, and not worrying about cash flow as much. And at the time, our expenses covered for– a lot of times, when you buy a property at first, you may not be making as much cash flow because you’re maybe rehabbing it or you have other things that you need to take care of in order to make your rents go up. And so, over time, at the beginning, you may not be making as much, but then you can project in a couple of years, it could be better. And that’s also a really helpful way to look at it over time.

 

Justin Donald: Yeah. So, you guys moved from L.A. to Austin, and I’m so glad you did because now, I get to hang with you more, I got to know you a lot better. But why here? Why Austin?

 

Tamar Hermes: Yeah, that’s a good question. Well, these days, a lot of people are migrating to Florida and Texas. And one of the main reasons is for us, the reason why Austin became the place that we moved was because it was liberal, it was a booming economy. I didn’t want state taxes. My husband didn’t care as much because he doesn’t see the bills as much as I do, and so, he didn’t realize. But then when I actually gave him the number of how much we were saving, he was in the car ready to go. And also, I think if you’re a liberal person, I think there are certain places where you have to look at the kind of place you want to live and the kind of environment you want to be in. So, we feel super blessed that we ended up here. We actually moved prior to COVID, just prior. So, we were very lucky because a lot of people were right after us. And housing here has skyrocketed even more than it had been two years ago.

 

Justin Donald: That’s right. Yeah, it took off like a rocket ship. I still can’t believe how much is going up every single day, week, month. It’s pretty astronomical, and I recognize there’s a long way to go because if you just compare it to the prices in California, you can see that, in theory, it could reach those numbers. Now, maybe it does, maybe it doesn’t, but there’s plenty of room, and so, that’s exciting.

 

Now, one of the things that I think is great, and by the way, you are absolutely beloved in our mastermind because you are willing to ask any question, you are so good at questions, but you’re also willing to ask the questions that a lot of people maybe are unsure of whether they should ask or feel like maybe they should know something. And I’m just a big fan of like, hey, you’re not supposed to know anything, so just ask whatever questions you have, but you actually take me up on it. And I love it, and people adore you for it. So, have you always been that way? Have you always been this question asker that just always wants to clarify everything?

 

Tamar Hermes: Yeah, I’ve always been a really curious person, and I think that’s kind of entrepreneurial by nature where we tend to want to know and want to learn and we’re excited by different things. And I’ve always been like that. Actually, it’s funny. I was thinking about this in high school, actually, I won most talkative. And this is many, many, many years ago. And at the time, this is over 30 years ago, it was kind of felt like an insult to talk a lot. And these days, I think, God, to win most talkative is like a compliment.

 

Justin Donald: Totally.

 

Tamar Hermes: So, it’s funny how the world changed. Now, you get paid to talk. Before, it was like, shut up, shut up. So, it’s pretty funny the way the tides have turned. Yeah, I’ve always been that way.

 

Justin Donald: Well, I think you gather so much more information because of that and then you’re able to have more data to synthesize through. So, you empower women. You empower women financially, you help them understand their finances, you help them to be able to invest well, make better investments. I’d love for you to talk about some of the work that you do in empowering women because I think that it’s tremendous. I think more people need that, more women need that. I love it.

 

Tamar Hermes: Thank you. Yeah, I think that I started this company because it answered all of the needs that I had, all the answers that I had that I could never find. So, just even today, I was on the phone with someone that is going to start working with me. And she was saying the exact thing that I used to say, I don’t know where to go, I don’t know how to invest, I don’t know who to trust. I made so many mistakes and I had so much bad information. And it’s not that I have all the answers, but I’m willing to ask, like you pointed out.

 

And I do have a lot of answers at this point, too. There is a lot of knowledge. So, there’s all kinds of scenarios where, oftentimes, my clients are sitting on a lot of cash and they’re just afraid, they’re afraid to put it in the market, they’re afraid to invest, they’re afraid to make a mistake and lose their hard-earned money. And we’re not talking about an insignificant amount of money, this half a million, millions. And so, I really believe that by walking them through and by helping them understand what it is that they want and helping them understand what their process is so that they can do it, they can do investments with confidence, it just makes such a difference. And it’s just such a great feeling, I love when the money gets put to work, and it’s interesting.

 

I had a client, and she ended up finally purchasing property and she was worried about her bank account going down. And then all of a sudden, some money came in, like literally all the money that was the deposit. Actually, she made a deal and she actually got the money back in, and an inheritance also came in, a small inheritance. And it was interesting how once you start to move the money, how it starts to kind of come back, it starts to cycle for you.

 

Justin Donald: Yeah, you’ve got to be careful that you don’t have this scarcity around letting it go. If you hold on to it too tight, then you’re not going to be able to create with it. And the whole goal is to put it to work so that you don’t have to work so that at some point, you choose because it’s your choice. You don’t have to spend your time for money, no trading time. You can spend your time as you want. But if you don’t let go, if you don’t allow your capital to work, then that’s never going to happen. And most people just hold their money so tightly that they never let it go, and it just sits in a qualified plan or sits in the stock market. And when times are good, things are good. But when times are bad, they’re also bad. And we just can’t time what’s going to happen when someone retires and where the stock market and economy is actually going to be.

 

And a lot of people, by the way, they just sit with it in cash in their bank account, which means they’re losing money. We know a lot of people, both of us, that do that, that’s the strategy because they’re afraid to put it in play. But for every day that they’re not, they’re losing money on it. So, I’d love for you to kind of share, number one, tell us the name of your business because a lot of people just don’t know about it, and then you’re doing something about this because you just recently wrote a book called The Millionaire’s Mentality, where you address some of these things. You address how to create wealth and how to think about it differently. So, tell us about each.

 

Tamar Hermes: Yeah. Awesome. So, the company is called Wealth Building Concierge and it is where I just work with clients and go through the process of their finances and help them understand the best strategy for them. The book The Millionaire’s Mentality does talk about it’s okay for women to have money, it’s our obligation to have money. When we have money, we can help the world, we can serve the world. We love to give women and we need to set the stage for our daughters and future mothers in the world to see because once one person, I mean, think how many people Oprah has inspired. Yes, she’s Oprah, but also, she’s a woman. She’s an African-American woman who has overcome all of these horrific childhood traumas and she shows us that when we have traumas, we can do it too. And so, every woman that steps up is creating an opportunity, creating a space for other women. And I want to be a part of that solution.

 

And inside of the book, the book is The Professional Woman’s Guide to Building Wealth Through Real Estate, I really break down all the different ways that you can invest in real estate. And while I don’t go into vast detail on all of them, I think it’s important to understand that you can do a syndication, you can do a buy and hold, you can do a short-term rental. You need to know that there’s more than one way, and there may be one way that feels better for you. I’ll never forget the moment when somebody told me they were doing a syndication. I was like, “You what? You how? You did what? You did nothing, what? Can I meet these people?” I mean, I was just like, I could not believe that there was this opportunity now for us in our world where, of course, there’s that.

 

But for other people that are just learning it, it almost feels too good to be true. And it’s amazing how these partnership opportunities are really brilliant and really do create a lifestyle investor life where you actually do have checks coming in, and granted, we talked about like there are always risks, you want to check your sponsors. There are all kinds of things that– there are always variables you want to pay attention to. And so, still, there are these opportunities that are phenomenal and a lot of them.

 

Justin Donald: Yeah, I just love in general, that your goal is to educate others, specifically women. Obviously, you educate a lot of people. Your niche is educating women, but I think you’re educating the masses and I think that that is amazing. One of the cool things, I think, that when we have women join The Lifestyle Investor mastermind, I think most are pleasantly surprised to see how many other women are here learning, that we’re over 40% women in our mastermind, which is incredible. And I really want to get it to 50/50, but it’s not the world we used to live in.

 

There was a time that I think it was okay or it was a societal norm where maybe your husband provides for the family via work and maybe your wife is home with the kids or whatever, and then you saw like over time that you had both that worked, you have two spouses working. But I think that there’s this mentality, at least years past and maybe even in some people where it’s almost like, hey, someone else can do it for me, I don’t need to know. And I love that shifting. I love that you’ve got people on both sides of the aisle that are saying, “No, I’ve got to take this into my own hands, like, I’m going to be responsible for myself. I’m not going to just let the money manager do it. I’m not just going to let my spouse do it, like I need to be knowledgeable here.” So, I love the impact that you’re having on the world and specifically with women because we’re seeing it. You and I see it all the time with these powerhouse women that are just so educated and so well rounded and are becoming just tremendous investors.

 

Tamar Hermes: Yeah, absolutely. And when you know what you’re doing with your money, when you understand, and that’s why I love real estate so much because I think it’s a great place to start is where you started, where I started. And you start to realize, hey, I can do this, I can understand what I’m doing, and I can have more control over my money. It is not a good feeling to work so hard, have all your money in a 401(k), and have some people managing it that you don’t understand the returns, you don’t know them, you don’t know how much they’re making, it feels very vulnerable.

 

And the truth is, most of those people we know, the 401(k), if you just leave it to everybody else, those people don’t get wealthy, they really don’t, they’ll put you in annuities for 3%, and it’s safe. It’s safe, you won’t lose your money. It’s safe. And it really doesn’t do much for you. So, yeah, I love that. I love when I really encourage and support women to learn because it’s not that hard. I mean, you just go step by step. You don’t have to take all your money and put it in one investment. You can buy several.

 

I have a client right now. They had $250,000 and they’ve already bought two houses that they’re going to short-term rental, not into Austin because we have to be realistic about prices in markets and depending on your goals, and they are so fired up and they still have money left over. They’re so excited to be in it, to be controlling it, to be able to understand what they’re doing. It’s a whole different feeling than just handing it over to somebody.

 

Justin Donald: Yeah, I love seeing people in general, anyone, like it doesn’t matter where you’re from, it doesn’t matter your background, your education. I love seeing empowered people, people that are making moves, and I love specifically that we’re seeing more and more women today that are becoming empowered in their finances and are making moves, and in many cases, are leading the charge of providing for their families financially, which is really cool to see.

 

Tamar Hermes: Yeah, absolutely, I mean, there are just so many opportunities, and I want every person listening to know that they can do this and that it’s completely possible and you can start out step by step and figure this out and find your way with it and create a lifestyle where you’re not having to work all the time and have money coming in.

 

Justin Donald: Yeah, to buy your time back, to have financial freedom, to have financial independence. I think that’s so important, and especially for those that have a family, for those that have dependents and loved ones, maybe it’s family members that are aging or it’s family members that are depending on you kids where you can spend the adequate amount of time. And for everyone, that’s different. But what’s the amount of time that you want to spend, are you spending it? And if not, can you create a way that you can be spending the exact amount of time that you want? I think that that’s imperative.

 

So, I’m curious, you have done a lot of learning. You just finished your book. It’s about to come out. You are part of our mastermind. You’re part of other groups. I’m curious if there’s anything that you’ve learned in the last year that you think is very relevant, very important, maybe it’s the most top of mind that you’d be willing to share with our audience today?

 

Tamar Hermes: Absolutely, absolutely. One of the things that, and it was coming to my mind, even as we were talking, I want to make sure I share this. So, I love that you asked this question. And what it is is to not chase the market and not chase what other people are doing. We have, especially in the mastermind, there are so many great opportunities that come our way. And honestly, we’re all kind of FOMO. We’re all thinking, oh, I don’t want to miss out on that. I don’t want to miss out on that. And we forget that we might be chasing a shiny object. Even though it might be the best deal in the world, some of these deals don’t pay off for 10 years, some of the opportunities are– even when we’re talking about L.A. and Austin, I mean, like I said, I have clients, they bought in Georgia. They wanted to buy in Austin, and it wasn’t realistic for where they’re at and what they want. The prices are too high. It’s a very competitive market in Austin right now, and I don’t think it’s great for a new investor.

 

And so, not chasing what other people are doing and committing to what makes sense to you, what you feel comfortable with, what deals are right for you, that is the best advice because I think it’s so easy to get into this and just feel like also you’ll hear about somebody doing a great deal and you’ll think, oh, shoot, I suck or I missed out on this or whatever it is. And it’s just so important to just know you’re on your journey and hold true. I mean, recently, I have said no to a couple of deals that I would have said yes to a year ago, but now I’ve learned, okay, that’s not my strategy, that doesn’t feel good to me. I don’t need a million X return, what I need is steady 10%, 20%, 30% returns are phenomenal to me. And I’m sure people are listening going, what? 10% is our low– yes, 10% is my low threshold.

 

Justin Donald: Yeah, we’re a bit spoiled because we play in the space of alternative investments and a lot of private equity deals and private real estate opportunities, so pretty cool when that’s kind of the minimum. I’d love to have you just share with our audience, number one, where they can learn more about you? And number two, where they can find your book?

 

Tamar Hermes: Awesome, yes. You can go to my website WealthBuildingConcierge.co, it’s not dot com, it’s dot co because I had a fancy marketer who thought dot co was cool. So, you’ll have to tell me if you can even get to my website if that’s actually cool, but I do think it’s kind of fun. And my book, you can just go to TamarBook.com, T-A-M-A-R Book dot com, and you can get the book there.

 

Justin Donald: That’s awesome. Well, thank you so much for taking the time to share with us today. Obviously, we have a big mastermind session that we get a chance to hang out in in a couple of days, so that’ll be fun. But I’m just really blessed knowing you and really getting this time where you can share with our audience all the cool stuff that you’re doing to empower people and just that you’re constantly learning and growing. So, thank you for your time and this gift of knowledge that you’ve shared with us.

 

And I want to wrap up with really my statement that I like to kind of close everything out on each week. And that’s this. What’s the one step that you can take today towards financial freedom, towards the life that you desire on your terms, by your design, not a life by default, but a life by choice? Thanks. And we’ll catch you next week.