Hey, hey va fam, it's Mandra here. Thank you so much for continuing to rock with us. I know that it's been a different kind of show these past few weeks as we're giving our beloved Tiffany the time that she needs to heal. Thank you again for your continued support. I have to say though, this episode has been I guess seven years in the making. Tanya Rappily is the millennial money expert and creator of the award winning site
my fab Finance. And for those of you who may not know, you're gonna find out on today's show some og financial influencer history when it comes to Tanya, Tiffany, and a group called the Frugal Fab Five. I didn't even know of this story, but Tanya joins the show today not just to catch up on what she's been up to the past seven years since launching her business back in twenty fourteen, but also how she was able
to finally hit her first million dollar year of business. Yes, I was so inspired by my conversation with Tanya, especially when we started talking about a subject that I really hadn't anticipated real estate. You know, as an entrepreneur, I sort of assumed that as soon as I launched my own business, getting a traditional mortgage was just something that was either going to be a huge, massive headache or
even just be not possible for me. But Tanya is proving that even though she runs her own business and by the way, her husband is also self employed, they are launching the very beginnings of what will soon become, I'm sure, based on Tanya and how she's always killing the game, a mini real estate empire. They just purchased their first investment property in Atlanta, and Tanya's gonna tell us all about it, like how they got alone using
something called hard money, Like what is that? Tanya really lays it all out for us today, and I hope that you guys feel inspired and also learn a little bit about the alternative ways to invest in real estate and even the fact that it may feel like it's out of reach, but there really are some good tools and products out there that can help you launch your own venture into real estate. So, without further ado, here is my conversation with Tanya Raply of my fab Finance.
I am so I'm shocked and excited today. I'm shocked that it has been this long and we've never had Tanya rap ly on the show. But today I am so excited because we are finally making it happen. Hello, Miss Tanya.
Hey, yeah, I think the last time you reached out, I was like in the throes of like morning sickness.
It was like, this ain't gonna work.
Yeah. Yeah, I'm glad you chose yourself in that inside.
Yeah.
But for those of you who do not know Miss Tanya of my fab Finance, personal finance educator, badass entrepreneur. Yeah, she's a mom, but that's not it. A NEWB real estate entrepreneur as well, because we're never going to stop adding things to the after our names apparently just keep going.
But I am so excited to talk to you because I mean, y'all, we have Tiffany and I both, but I have known Tanya since two thousand and we all met at fin Con, I feel like for the first time in person twenty fourteen, thirteen fourteen, and it was when my fab finance was just kind of getting kicked off. When did you start all of that?
Yeah?
So you know, I think I know Tiffany a little longer than I've known you, because I met Tiffany early on in my journey.
She was one of my early.
Mentors, but my fab Fini had started in January of twenty thirteen. My goal was to get a seven thirty credit score by the time, a seven hundred credit score by the time I turned thirty years old, and I wanted to close for Macy's. Those were my ambitions when I started it in twenty and thirteen, and here we are in twenty twenty two with a multimillion dollar business and other things that have been offshoots of that. So
it's been a journey, but we met. Yeah, fen Con, I think Black Enterprise is about to happen.
Yeah, yeah.
When I saw that cover, you got the cover Black Enterprise, right, yeah, I mean that was no joke and just slaying ever since. But listen, I mean one of the things that we talk about on Brown Ambition is it really is about the journey. Everyone who was tuning into the show today
is just kind of hearing. I don't know, it's definitely I don't want to call it the epilogue, but we are like two third I mean, you're always a work in progress, right, but we're pretty far in the Tanya journey, right, I mean, and this is the this is the You're seeing all the fruits of all those seeds that you have been planting for the past eight seven eight, you know years now. So let's back up a little bit.
How do you get to be a multimillion dollar And by the way, congratulations, because I know you're multimillions over times, but this was your first million dollar year in twenty twenty one, in a single year. That is extraordinary from something that you built, that you created, you know what I mean.
It still feels.
I mean I felt it right like I was doing that work, like I felt it. But it still feels surreal. And I think that when black enterprise happens. A black enterprise happened in twenty and fourteen. I left my job in twenty and fifteen to do this full time, and there's been so many I'm really thankful. There's been so many remarkable things that have happened along the way. And I remember everybody's like, this is your time, this is your time, this is your time, this is your time.
And I just feel like our time is as long as we want to hold it, as long as you're willing to work for it, as long as it's you know, it's supposed to be. So I still feel like I don't know, Mandy, like I feel like I haven't even hit my prime yet. I feel like I feel the same ye say, this is just the beginning. I'm really thankful, but I feel like I haven't even hit my prime.
It's scary to think that too. I mean, well, scary in one way. It's like the scary excitement. I told my husband at the beginning of this year. You know, I had some and I'm a newbie. I'm a baby. I'm kind of like where U, Tiff, and everyone else were seven eight years ago. I'm a baby entrepreneur now. But I told my husband, I was like, I have no idea what twenty twenty two is going to look like, but I'm already excited for the like the opportunities that I know are going to I just feel it, you
know what I mean. I just feel like this is not it. I've got so much room to grow, and I don't know how. I feel like what you're expressing right now is similar to that. It's like the excitement of possibility and knowing every day it's like preparing for that next that next exciting email to hit your inbox. You know those you yes and.
You know, my one of my managers used to say, I've seen people's life change with the email, and it's so true, like your life can literally change for the better with one email. But then also like, we got to put some respect on your name, Mandy, Like, yes, you're a baby entrepreneur, but you've still been doing this and you have such a strong network. And I think that when you have that strong network of people, you can call on people, you can ask questions who have been there, who have made.
The mistakes that I don't consider your baby.
You might be a toddler, like you're not in the infant stage, maybe a todder because you learned from so many of our mistakes and you did it your way.
So we gotta put some respect on Mandy's name. You know.
That reminds me that I just did see you in Atlanta not that long ago, and I feel like we had a very similar moment where I was like trying to downplay where I'm at and you're like, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, let me remind you who's who my friend Mandy is.
We ain't gonna let you do it. We're not, we not.
So I love seeing you in Atlanta and You've just recently moved to Atlanta, right with your.
Fad in twenty twenty.
So, yeah, we moved to Atlanta in the middle of the pandemic our house without seeing it, which was actually a really good choice. It's been a really, really good home for us. And so we're in We were in California prior to moving to Atlanta, but I'm from the South. Housing prices were just ridiculous in California, and for me, the beauty of being location independent, the beauty of becoming financially secure so you can choose what's in your best interest.
Is that I wanted to raise my son around my family, Like I didn't have the liberty of that because my mother and father were in the military, and so for me, it was really important for my parents to be in driving distance. As a matter of fact, I'm taking my son to my parents' house on Wednesday and for him.
To give experience.
Yeah, I know.
And they girl, they bought a house in Florida, you know, and so I like, yeah, I'm going to Florida on Wednesday to pop in on my parents, check on them, and take my son so you can spend some time with them. But it's a beautiful blessing to be closer to them as well as Atlanta has so many opportunities.
This is this is where the enterprise is to be built.
So yeah, I can't believe you about your house sight unseen. All right, So a million dollar a year, let's get into it. What does that look like for you? Was that something that you know at this point in your business? You are and I'm understanding too, a lot of the you know, the checks that you're cashing, you know in advance that they're coming, like you sign a deal. And of course it takes a while for those those cash
those checks to hit your bank account. As we know, direct deposit likes to take its time.
But draws or immediate.
Oh yes. I was telling Chris last week on Popcorn Finance when he was here. I was like, let me tell you how quickly the IRS came for my deposit from my withdrawal when I made my tax payment, and yet my refund check will probably take two months.
But man, listen, I was just saying, I amend my taxes, and they like, I am ended my taxes I think in June, and I still have they still have not processed the amendment. But that, Oh, but you want to tell me about everything else, but you haven't processed like my amendment and like the taxes are paid off and everything.
Okay, all right, they.
Will snatch your money quit immediately, very quick. But let's talk about that. Did you have an idea it was gonna be a million dollar year or was this a goal of yours?
Like?
When did you realize this is gonna be it? Like we're gonna I set the attention.
I set the intention in February of last year at my friend Maya Elias's impactweeking conference, and she had this thing where it was like road to a million and I was like, telling you, why you keep telling yourself that you can't.
Make a million in a year. Why have you counted this out of your story? You can do this.
And so that weekend I committed to like, Okay, this is gonna be my first million dollar year. And I think it really hit me that it was gonna be my first million dollar year. Around June, when I signed my biggest brand partnership to date, it was almost half a million dollars, and.
I was like, Oh, it's gonna be a year.
And then August I was sitting there and I was like, I think at like seven hundred and something thousand dollars, and I was.
Like, Oh, this is gonna be a million dollar year.
Like if I made seven hundred thousand dollars in eight months, I can make three hundred thousand dollars three hundred thousand.
More by the end of this year. So we passed that. We hit one point two. Which is it?
You know, I think it's a culmination of everything. It's a culmination of me having the right team in place. It was a culmination of me having the right relationships in place. It is a cummination of me having the work ethic in place, and all those things combined, I think led to and the willingness and the belief that it was possible. I think it was all those things that led to making it possible and that will lead to future million dollar years. So I'm really slow to
ease into my years. I kind of feel like I have like a New Year hangover, and like, just like last year, I didn't set my goals until February this year, like, Okay, I'm like, all right, this year, we want to do one point five to two million. So the work starts now. Tomorrow's February first. For me, the work starts now, so I give myself. I really like to take December off ideally, so give myself February to November to make it happen.
Oh I love that. And I also think like whenever, even if you decided, you know, June or September or October, whenever you decide, like that's the day that matters these whole Like make a resolution just because it's January first, Like, come on, now, we know dreams.
Can happen, end of time.
And I don't take I don't take resolutions for granted. I don't take like goal setting for granted. Evening the other day, I was thinking about how I want to create space for me to go away and think about my goals and I really write them down and commit them to paper. I don't want to just be oh, okay, I'm gonna sit here and think about it in my office. I really want to connect to myself and make sure
that my goals are sol aligned. That's always what my work has been about, is like soul aligned, wealth creation.
Soul s o U L aligned, Yes, s o U.
L like soul like I want to.
I wanted to be aligned with my divine assignment and what I'm here to do. So I'm going to take some time and we'll iron those things that out in the coming weeks.
But right now, you know, we're just flowing. We're just we're flowing into the year.
Tell me more about that that weekend or what was that you said, the Road to a Million Maya Elliott, Yes, Impact.
American program, Maya who actually is a good friend of all of us. So those who I don't know people probably are OG's. But early on in my financial journey, and I think Tiffany was about five six years into her journey, we had this collective called the Frugal Fab Five.
It was Tiffany, myself, Marcia Barnes, the finance bar Kara Stevens of Frugal Feminista, and at the time I had a business partner, Tiffany Victoria for my fab Finance, and we were a Frugal Fab five and we actually like traveled around and did events.
We did something at the cis of legend.
I forgot about this legendary.
Old finance history, finance OG history, and so we we did these events together and Maya actually designed our flyers for our our programs. That we were doing together as well as she was our photographer at our event in Charlotte, North Carolina. And so Maya's been a friend of ours for so long, and she's pivoted into helping women create
brand and live with impact and purpose. And so that's ballooned into or blossomed into Impact Weekend in her program build Your Impact, which as she's grown to be a multimillion dollar program. And I was in support of her program. You know, that's another thing in these relationships. I was in support of her. I was there, I went to support her, and I walked away with like okay, all right, like inspiration and it impacted me. But the weekend is
actually coming up this weekend here in Atlanta. The week right now is like the first weekend in February. And so that's one of the reasons I'm taking my son to my parents' house is because he's going to be there so I can go just fully dive in and learn and digest the Impact weekend.
I love. I think that that ties in so nicely to the point you made a minute ago about setting aside the time to think intentionally about what you want and not letting it be something that Like for me, it's the classic. You know, it's the end of the night. It's ten o'clock, like the babies asleep, and you know, I'm on the couch watching thousand pounds Sisters, Like, maybe I should think about what I want to do next,
you know what I mean? But actually create carving out that time and for you and and people can get I'm sure they'll. People will google and you should like look up, we'll put a link to to impact. What is an impact?
Sorry, I keep for getting impact weekend.
Impact weekend in Maya's program. And that's wonderful. But whatever that looks like for you, even just doing you know, renting an airbnb for a couple of days or leaving the kids with a sitter or whatever, so you have time to think about what you want and being intentional about it and putting that like it almost puts like a timer on that It's it's nice because you carve out the time, but it also gives you like a contained amount of time so that you can't just like
put it off. You know, you're kind of forced to spend that time and thinking about it. So now is it something that you do on a regor their basis or is it the annual you know, go to Maya's event, or how do you do that for yourself kind of throughout the year.
So one of the things that I do is as a mom, it's important for me to have me time where I'm only responsible for myself, and so I do quarterly getaways. And so last year I did my thinking during my quarterly getaway. I think I just did a staycation here in Atlanta, got a room at the suite at the w when it got massages, just that focus
on myself that weekend. And then I also rented a treehouse here in Atlanta and went to the treehouse and had like my meals prepared and everything for my chef here and just hold up in a treehouse and did some planning. But at once a quarter I create space for myself just to think to myself and think in my business, to be away so that I don't wear the mom hat, I don't wear the wife hat. I just wear the Tanya hat and focus on what's most
important to Tanya. And if Tanya feels good about how she's moving through the world in her business and in my own life, and that's really important to me because I think that we can really get disconnected from ourselves, especially in the social media era. We get take on others expectations of ours. We can take on pieces of other people's lives that don't even resonate with what we want,
but it's what's socially acceptable or socially aspired. And so it's just that reconnection moment where I tune everything out.
I don't watch TV.
I just know thousand pounds Sisters for you.
Yeah, No, No, no SNOWFALLLL.
No, no Avid Elementary, which I'm like really into right now, No HDTV, none of it.
It's just me spending time with me.
Is that was it in your tree house when you decided I think it's time. I think I'm ready to be a real estate entrepreneur.
No, you know, the real estate piece is something I've always wanted to do, always wanted to do, like always been having conversations with people enrold of my friend Julian's multimillion multi family mastermind, like always wanted to do. But I think that was one of the things I counted myself out of, especially when we bought our house here, because we bought a single family home. I was like, well,
there goes my FHA three point five percent down. Now I got to say twenty percent down on an investment property. Let's just go ahead and do that and pay taxes and all this other stuff and pay a team and pay a nanny and all these other things. And I counted myself out. And then my current mentor we were having launch and we were talking about my million dollar years. She was like, girl, you're gonna need some more write offs.
And I was like, I know.
She was like, you need a property, and I was just like, I don't know if I could do it. She was like, there's ways, there's ways, and loan bold there are ways. They're ethical. We did a hard money loan on our on our property. So we were doing the Bird strategy, which is by renovate, rent, refinance.
And then repeat.
So we buy the house and need some work, you renovate the house, you rent it out. Once you renovated it, you go refinance to get the hard money loan off of the property and put a standard conventional mortgage on the property, and then you repeat the process.
And so that is.
Hard money loan.
Yeah, we get are we getting?
You're going to get into it? Because I love these details. Also, I'm quite sure I have an idea of what it is, and I think we used to write about this all the time at Lending Trade. But go ahead. Hard money.
Yeah, and your hard money loan is it can come from a private lender, which is an individual who just has a lot of money, or it can come from institutions that are set up to support real estate investors because they're quite popular in the real estate community. The hard money loan is going to come with a higher interest rate, but often it's going to be they understand that you are doing renovations. So we contracted our house
for two hundred and twenty three thousand dollars. We took a hard money loan through two hundred and eighty five thousand dollars, so they funded us sixty thousand, sixty two thousand dollars to do the renovations. Our loan is for two hundred and eighty five thousand. But once we renovate the house, we've forced appreciation. So the house, the ARV, the comps in the area are about four hundred. So I'm really getting in real estate terms now.
So I'll know I need you to slow down and go ahead.
The other homes that are selling in that neighborhood are going for four hundred and fifteen four hundred and thirty five thousand dollars. We paid two hundred and eighty five thousand dollars that included our renovation costs. So now we can refinance our home technically for like three hundred thousand dollars to pay off that hard money loan that we took from the lender. And then now we have even though we have a mortgage for three hundred thousand dollars,
our homes were four hundred and fifteen thousand dollars. Our hard money lender is going to They don't look at your credit history, They don't look at your like your debt to income ratio or anything like that. They look at the strength of the asset of the property. So because the property we bought it at such a low price and once we finished renovating it, they know that we can get a mortgage for that property because we're actually going to be under mortgaging that property, and so
they lent to us. Now, you definitely want to make sure if you're exploring hard money that you do your research.
Do you get reviews are hard money lender.
We were connected to them by my real estate mentor who's done several deals with them before, so she knew that they were ethical.
There weren't any like crazy points.
It wasn't some like back bar, you know, agreement where we don't pay they're gonna break our legs or anything like that.
It was they.
Were really an ethical company. They've been really they've been a pleasure to work with. And you know, I could do a whole podcast on the process that we've been going through with it. And you know, you fund the renovation costs and they they reimburse you. So are we paid upfront for our contractor to get started. Once we reached a certain point, we contacted the lender said hey, we're at this point. They came out and looked, you're like, okay,
you did this work. They wired us money immediately that day to pay the like to repay us for what we paid the contractor.
So it's been a great process.
A lot of people use it and real estate, and I think that what keeps a lot of people out of real estate is the assumption that you have to have your twenty percent down or how am I going to renovate this property?
And everything, and that's why it's.
Important to like reach out to mentors, join communities because there are ways. There are ways, and a lot of people are using these ways to get into real estate and to grow their real estate portfolio.
It's not people's money.
They're using other people's money, and it's essentially other people on any strategy.
Yeah, and it's great to hear you talk about that too, because I mean, we purchased a home in twenty eighteen. At the time, my husband and I was very easy.
We're both w two workers at the time, and I remember one of the biggest one of my biggest I mean, it was it's all fine, but I look back at it and I'm like, dang, I really put a lot of like of I don't know, I put a lot of pressure on myself to have that twenty percent because I just wanted to show the bank or whatever like we got it, like we we like saved up, you know, we are very reliable, and I was proud to put
that twenty percent down. But in hindsight, I'm like, dang, why did I put all my cash on the line? And then we did like a renovation after and I'm like, dang, we really could have used that money for the HVAC or whatever. And I'm like, you know there are other options, and you and I knew that intellectually, but I just you know how money is emotional. I was emotionally invested in the idea that I was going to do the right thing. But there are all these tools there for
a reason, right low down payment options. You mentioned you did an FHA three and a half.
Three point five percent down on our single family home. And actually what I'm going to do is we're refinancing my name off of the single family home property and I'm going to use my FAHA to go get a multi family property. And so I'll be getting probably a triplex or a quadplex and using three point five percent down instead of twenty percent down to secure that secure that multi family property.
Now as a the other point is now I'm now I am self employed, and I we would love to buy another property, probably in Atlanta. And I don't want to come down, Kyle. Well, you know that's my place, that's my town. I'm coming down and police believe me with it. When Stacey wins, I might I might need to be there. I might need to be there once the governorship. But anyway, I would love to buy a property there, but I don't want to give up our home here in New York. I don't know. I just
love it as our starter home. I want to rent it out. And I am just at the beginning stages of telling myself that it's possible, even though I feel like the perception is that, oh, you're self employed and not a W two, it's going to be so hard for you to get approved for a loan. But you're already dispelling that myth for me so absolutely.
And I yeah, because actually our single family home that we have now, we me and my husband are self employed, Like we bought it a self employed individuals. I've been self employed since twenty fifteen. He's been self employed since two thousand and like I think he was off and on, but he was officially self employed in twenty sixteen. And yeah, we did it, like you just have to have. And the other thing is you don't have to finance it in your name. You can finance it in your business name.
And when you finance it in your business name, you can get what's called a no doc loan where it's just like either they want you to have to twenty percent down, or you go to a hard money lender and you get something that needs some you know, renovations and you don't have to provide aw two.
And that was what I wanted to do because buying.
A home as a self employed individual, they definitely ran us like they ran us. They needed contracts, they needed most bank statements on bank statements on bank statements, but they needed contracts to show that we had other jobs coming in even after we closed on our house, and I was.
Just like, I don't want to go through that. I wanted to be simple.
And when we did the hard money loan, literally asked for our operating agreement bank statements to make sure that we had money to get the renovation started and if something was to fall through that we had money to cover it. Our EI in information and they needed the property like details about the property and comps in the area.
That was it. We had a two week like if we closed in two.
Weeks, you're giving me.
So to think that all those years I thought that I would be hindered by not being a traditional employee. To find out that we closed quicker using like my business changed. It changed the game for me. It changed it, and it just shows me what's possible as well as what people have been doing all this time.
Well, honestly, I think as Black Americans we are sold a very different version of the American dream. One is that one that is extremely convenient to the people at the top and holds us back.
That's our that gets us and debt has us taken our stud a loan.
Here's y'all's dream. Dream for a nine to five job, dream for some bootstraps you can pull yourself.
You know, we create those nine dream to keep the light.
Bill paid, you know what I mean. Dream to be able to put food on your family's tables and have good American values and maybe real estate investing. No, now that's for us, you know, like investing in general.
That's for you.
Don't want a four to one king.
Nay, passive income not just go ahead for it.
Active dream for a cash checking store in every block and upon time, and.
Then off with social Security when when you're.
Dea and there you go, that's a good American life. AD's a freaking loop. All right, we are back. You're just reminding me of the importance of yes, like you said, networking with one another and among your peers and being inspired by one another. And I always kind of get
you know, especially when you know its influencers. You don't want people to feel like, oh, this is the way that I need to do things, and this is you know, if I'm not an entrepreneur, I'm not self employed, I don't have a house, and I'm not doing things right.
But it's not so much about the mindset. When you're kind of like listening to stories like Tanya's or other influencers out there, is not necessarily to look at that and compare yourself, but to look at it and let it just like level up the dream, you know, like and for some people that can be terrifying, and their immediate reaction is like to become defensive or like go inward. Do you know what I mean, Because that's just so shocking to think.
Like your time, take your time.
Like there are some people who realize their vision at a very early age.
I remember I was.
Doing a panel with a guy who was like twenty one and had already had seventeen units, and that's his you know, that works for him. But for some people, that's not your journey. And don't beat yourself up for them and not become not being a part of your journey. You know, sometimes I think about, like how far off ahead would I be if I had started this at
an earlier age. But then I also think about, like how much life I lived and how many things I enjoyed, and how many places I lived because I wasn't tied down to one city.
I lived in New.
York, I lived in la I lived in Miami. I've lived places I want to live because I haven't been tied down. And for me now, I don't have any what fs. I don't live with what f's because I gave myself time to just feel through it and then it started to lay like a stronger foundation and put my roots in the ground.
Yeah. I love that. So you have you mentioned your husband who's also self employed. I would love to know how you guys sort of tackle business decisions as a couple, and are you guys in business together? Does he have his own thing?
He has his own thing, but we like real estate is something we've done together. We bought the company Club Blufa together. And it's not always harmonious, you know, it's not always harmonious, but it has highlight for me, like the difference in my work style and also the areas that I can improve upon because I'm very much like it's in my head, go get it, like y'all should know what I'm thinking.
And he's like, no, I.
Need you to create a spreadsheet and explain this and break it down and like give us clearly defined roles and everything else.
I'm like, oh, yeah, that would be helpful to people.
And so it really has to help me identify the weaknesses in my work style. But you know, it also is great that he is wonderful of what he does, and it's also nice to have someone who understands what it is to be an entrepreneur. I think that sometimes it could be tricky when you have someone who is not an entrepreneur. They don't necessarily understand everything that comes with it because it's a lot.
It's a marathon, it really is.
And some days, you know, you can you can come off your best year yet and then be sitting there.
You know, a week later, like so what next? Like what next?
You know, and being a low because you're like, I don't know what's next. I spent the entire year focused on this, and now I.
Made it happen.
And now I feel guilty that I don't have a plan for what's next because I've been so focused on what it was. And it's important to have someone who understands those thought processes because the wrong the other you know, another partner would be like how ungrateful are you?
Or you know just kind of look at it and as like how dare you?
But an entrepreneur will like, well understand, like no, I get it, I get it, but just remind yourself give yourself some graces, you know. So it's been really it's been beautiful.
Well it's nice. Yeah, my husband and I we talk about real estate, but we are just it terrifies me. Not terrifies me, but I just know it's so much harder when you're working with a partner, like when you cause I come down to my zen den and it's Mandy Money show, you know what I mean. I I just got to know what I'm thinking, just like you've said, and everyone reports to me, me being me, I'm the one who reports to me, and every once in a while house bas like. So it's really funny because this
is his version of like checking in on me. Will be in the car going somewhere and he's like, so, like, we're okay, right, bills are getting paid, right. I'm like, yeah, yeah, yeah, we're good. Just keep driving, you know what I mean. But real estate, yes, I mean that would definitely be just buying this house was stressful enough, deciding on the location, what kind of home you know, those those that's it's Yes, it's got to be.
Challenging as a couple, I will say, then when it comes to buying an investment property, it's a lot less emotional. And so I think that's where it does differ from a your primary residence. Your primary residence, You're gonna wake up every day there, like you're thinking about where you're gonna put the kids room, where your office is going to be.
How am I going to feel waking up? How is it going to be entertaining what a rental property? You're like, do these numbers make sense?
Like, dude, numbers make since well it appreciated that area, Like does it all make sense? And like if it all makes sense, then the motions are out of it and you're just kind of like, this is a practical decision, what needs to be done. You tackle it as a project versus a passion. So I think that it is easier working with a partner when it comes to it, because it's just about like what makes financial sense, and let's make it make financial sense.
So what are some of the early lessons you've learned having now been a real estate entrepreneur for I don't know how many months now, And you just said that you were at the property today, so you're in the midst of Renolds. Any Yeah, any little nuggets, any surprise that started?
We started Renolds a week of Christmas, and they were like literally working the day after Christmas on the property and they're going to be done this week. So it's been a relatively quick renovation considering we knocked down some walls, we renovated three bathrooms, we renovated the kitchen, and we created a short term unit downstairs. So we brought a split level home and or the top unit is a three to two, the bottom is a two to one. I would be used as an Airbnb or housing for
traveling nurses. So what I have learned is your contractor. Like everyone says like your contractor is essential, but your contractor really is important to be able to have a contractor that you can communicate with and keeps those lines of communication as open as important staying on top of it. I don't know if I would have doing this property. Before I did this property, I was open to investing out of state. Now doing this property, I need my control issues that I have. I need to invest in
the same state I live in. I need to be in driving distance. Ideally I need to be twenty five minutes from my house. Because even today I went to the house and they had the vanity that I had purchased for downstairs at Airbnb units. So it's like this funky blue they had that up about to put it in upstairs, and I'm like, no, this goes downstairs. Up is going to be a traditional family home. Downstairs gonna be a funky Airbnb. We do not need a blue vanity up here, a white bandity, you know.
But just little things like that.
If I wasn't able to walk in and see what they were doing, flooring, the flooring I wanted.
Was out of out of stock. She asked me if I would be okay with a lighter flow color. I didn't. No, lighter meant blonde.
So now I walk in and I thought I was gonna have light wood, And now I have blonde floors, and I'm like, hold the countertops, hold the cabinet paint, Like, we got to figure out what matches these blonde floors. So I would say, like I do recommend for someone to invest in their backyard. That's what I've learned, is that for me, it's important because I'm very particular. So like to understand what your control, your management style is. Are you going to be particular or are you just
going to let things go. If you're not the let things go type of person, invest in your backyard or in your city or in your state. If you're kind of like it would just work out whatever, then okay, out of state works for you. So yeah, the contractor determining where and how you want to invest. And then three, like, really make sure you have a solid mentor or solid friends that you can reach out to that do and
understand real estate. When we have quite a few friends who are involved in real estate, and then I have a real estate mentor. So even when we got our first contracts.
Even when we were looking at the numbers and wanted to make sure the numbers made sense, we ran to buy our friends.
We ran a buy our mentor. When we were looking at the budget from our general contractor and pricing things out. We knew what to take out and give to another contract or, a subcontractor, instead of having our general contractor do it because we could get a better price on it. Our general contractor was going to charge us like ten thousand dollars to do our roof. We found someone else who did our room for five thousand dollars and someone
told us like, hey, that's a lot of money. She was going to charge us eleven thousand dollars to paint the exterior. Someone was like, that's a lot of money. Found someone to do our exterior paint for fifty seven to fifty So if we didn't have someone to run those numbers by, we would have been significantly over budget.
But having so it was really important to have like those those relationships, those people that we could reach out to that ca can you just look over with this budget for us really quick and let us know and even then there's still gonna be stuff. We're still over budget, Like we're.
Just about to see how's that budget? Twenty thousand were money when we were doing our we were doing our renovation, our contractor, like anytime we wanted to. We got the counter somewhere else. He was like so offended every time. And I feel like getting someone with the right attitude of like knowing that you're on a budget and that you may go outside of them for certain yeah, you know, because every time.
It was too but girls, okay, this is not your money. We had.
Oh I've never worked like this before. Really, I don't believe that. I'm sure everybody else is financially conscious. It's financially mindful.
I don't believe that. So they're gonna feel how they feel. It's not your money.
I'm glad.
I mean to like pay you, you know, so they will. And yeah, we're over budget, but I can say that with a smile on my face because we had the money going into it.
We had the money in the account to do certain things.
And the over budget is actually coming from converting the short term unit downstairs. If we were not creating a whole separate unit, we would not be over budget. But because we had to install an HVAC system downstairs, which we didn't including the budget, we didn't think about it like, oh, downstairs can't have the same HVAC as upstairs. So like we didn't include an HVAC unit in that. There were
some other things that we thought that like windows. I just didn't realize how much it bothered me that we had old wooden windows in our in the house. So I'm doing complete window replacement for vinyl windows because they previously had wood windows which had you know, all the layers of paint over them. Can't even open the window because it's been painted on so many times. It's like people can't live in Atlanta and not open the windows.
They just they can't. So replacing windows. So some of the things were my like we weren't going to tear the cabinets out in our kitchen. Once I got in there saw the water damage, I was like, no, these cabinets got to go. We can't establish these cabinets, tore the cabinets out, or replacing a cabinet. So it's things
like that that sent us over budget. But we know that the airbnb downstairs on a low month is going to bring in additional nine hundred dollars on top of what the top unit brings in which the top unit covers a mortgage, So an additional nine hundred dollars to an additional twenty five hundred dollars a month. I'm okay with being twenty five hundred dollars over because that is going to be replaid by the end of this year.
So drink.
My little brother is building a house outside of not out in Atlanta, East Atlanta, and he is so yeah, he's so smart. I don't know if y'all should like be friends on I love East Atlanta. Yeah, he and he got the Atlanta of my dreams. Like you know, because I was twenty ten graduating college two thousand and nine, I was like, gone, get me out of here Atlanta and was not as hot as it is now. But now I'm like, damn to be young and black in Atlanta.
Just live in the dream. But anyway, so he yes, and he's building a house and he's building a whole guesthouse in the back just for Airbnb, and I'm like the potential. I'm so proud of them.
So the treehouse I stayed at here. That's what they did.
They built a treehouse and it was in East Atlanta and they built a treehouse and it was It's breathtaking.
They have a bandy, they have emos running around.
It's called it Email brands have emos running around this treehouse like in East Atlanta. It's it's remarkable what they've done. The potential is endless. Like the next house I get. I do not want to be in a hoa community because if I want to build a treehouse in my backyard that I run out on Airbnb, I don't want you to tell me that it's against the community high ordinance.
So your brother's doing it right.
Well, tell me really quickly about the search for the house, because I know Atlanta and this is not for anyone listening in other cities, any big city. It just feels like post pandemic that the real estate market was crazy. My dad was trying to buy a house outside of Atlanta. It took him six months to get something he could afford.
So what was that process like, And any tips for folks who are like researching real estate properties right now and feel like they are like never going to find that sweet spot As far as price.
Yeah, well yeah it was. It was definitely a seller's market when we bought. But that's the power of having a mentor. My mentor gave me a strategy. She was like, we bought the house off the MLS we didn't go to a wholesaler. It wasn't we weren't driving around looking for numbers. But the strategy is there are going to be houses that are beautiful on Zilo, and like everybody wants that house. Look for the ugly house on Zillo that's been listed for that's been on there for like a couple of weeks.
Because nobody check out for the ugly house.
They not even like our house had like five saves, but it had been on it had been there for like three weeks, only.
Had five saves.
So the seller was getting desperate and they were kind of like, well nobody was really checking for the house. And we got a diamond, Like we got a diamond
in the rough. And then once we went into our strategy was really looked for the ugly house on Zillo and look for the house that has potential for us to be able to expand and forced appreciation because something to think about it when we think about forced appreciation, forced appreciation means you are able to do renovations that take the home value up so that it gives you almost instant equity. And so by us turning the bottom level and renovating the house and then turning the bottom
level into an airbnb or short term rental. Now we've added additional like additional value to that home.
So we forced appreciation.
So when you find these ugly homes, that's why you used to see those we buy ugly houses signs, because the ugly house is undervalued, and once you make the house more beautiful, you increase the value of that house.
So that was our strategy.
Look for the ugly house on Zillo and the house has been listed for three weeks or more.
We found an ugly house too. It was the only one we could afford. It made it very easy, made.
It very easy.
And I mean and now, like that's the thing when like when Kamari is looking Kamori is my husband's name, So Whenkamari is looking at Zillow or looking at stuff or we get listings or whatever, I'm like, how long has it been on the market? First question? I asked, if it's been on the market for the like the first week. I'm not gonna call them.
I don't want to smell a little stale, you know, I don't wanna smell a little stale.
I want something a little like They're like, this house has been listed for three weeks and we are just looking for a buyer, anyone, please, Like that's who I want.
I don't want the girl that everybody's asking out.
I want to sound that scammy, but you're not scamming.
Scammy, not scammy.
And we we we our house like we bought it from a older woman who her husband had passed away. She had heard the house from her aunt and she just couldn't take care of it anymore. And we bought it from her, and like she walked away with a check from it, and we walked away with our first property.
That I'm in love that, Like how you have an affinity for your first home, like I have an affinity for my first investment property, Like that's truly my first baby, because I feel like I created something beautiful out of something that was a little you know, she want that cute.
You got the bug. I can already feel it. You got now you see like the makeover, the real estate makeover bug.
I'm I'm blown away every time I walk in, Like even today I was there, I was like, oh my gosh, this had ugly wood paneling all around, and now it's light and bright and vibrant and has modern trim and a charcoal fireplace like it's the bomb.
I can't wait to see the Airbnb photos too. I know you're gonna get a good photog when do you So? How quickly are you looking to flip it?
So we are we.
Are gonna flip. We're doing buy a hold. So I'm doing buying a hold strategy. So there are two strategies. There's flipping where you get in forced appreciation reselling somebod ad buys it, and then there's buying and holding.
And that's my strategy.
Because I want to build a real estate portfolio because I really want that passive income to cover my bills.
One of the things that my fra.
Huh you said, Sorry to interrupt you. I just wanted to go back. That's right. You said you were doing burr brur so burr.
So for me, burr is I repeat the process. But it also means that I'm going to hold the property in my Portfoka. And so my friend Kindred, I remember I was having a conversation with her and some I was trying to buy her company. Then we were just talking and she was like, you know, I'm not taking just anything like my properties paying my.
Bills like this is I don't, I'm not. And I was just like, ooh, what a flex.
Pay my bills like, And so that's that's what I'm working on, is like having enough passive income through real estate to cover my monthly overhead.
I'm just buying what I can buy. That's why the next one is going to be a multifamily.
All right, the multifamily that's the one. And you said you took a course on that or your friend has like a multifamily buyer's course something like that.
Yeah, Julian, So they call him mister Multifamily, Julian Gordon, multifamily mastermind, multifamily movement. Think his website is the Freedom School. He has so many different aliases, but so if.
You look any of those up, you'll find Julian.
But Julian, his whole thing is like turning like he has single moms in there, he has single women, he has husband and wives, he has single men in there. And his whole goal is to help a thousand people purchase a multi family property to help them leverage for
a larger real estate portfolio. So I think right now he's up to like two hundred and seventy four closings in his community, but two hundred and seventy four black people have purchased multi family properties in his program so far, which is powerful.
That is powerful, And even as I'm sitting here, I'm like, oh, multi family now, that's next level. That's like landlord of multiple tenants. Like sounds like a headache. But then I'm just going back. I'm like, who taught me to talk myself out of being a quadruplex? I didn't know that was even a word in the English dictionary, but now I know.
Quplex is not it is, but you know, you screen your tenants, You screen your tenants, you get good people in there. And it's the original house hack. I'm my friend Kindred. That's how they they have a property in DC. They had a multi family they had and they had their tenants paying the mortgage and they were able to save their money and leverage that to go buy more properties. And so it and you can use FAH loan to
do it. The FAHA will give you up to you can buy the four units with three point five percent down. So if you think about it, if you try to put twenty percent down on something that costs six hundred thousand dollars versus three point five percent down on something
that costs six hundred thousand dollars. We're looking at the difference between like twenty five thousand and one hundred and twenty thousand dollars down, significant difference to think that you can get into an income generating asset that is four units for less than twenty five thousand dollars.
Like why, Like when I found out, I was.
Like, what, K, poor, K, what do you mean that I could do that?
Like it's really a powerful tool.
And I advise anybody who's open to it, like, please don't talk yourself out of it, because I wish I would have done that in New York. Like I wish when I was living in New York, I knew that I could buy a multi family and only have to put three point five percent down, I probably would have been a landlord a lot sooner.
But also even three point five percent of a proper to New York, that's very different than three I mean, it's very different.
It is you moved to Knarsie. There's still places where you know, there's still some areas in New York. I think East New York is now starting to come around, but there's still some areas in New York where you know, it is not as expensive, like living in Bedstock or like established.
We're just saying, stay in Atlanta. No, no, no, Tony, you got to stay in Atlanta.
You're not coming. I'm not coming.
You can't pay me to go back to New York. You I'm southern, I am.
No. Okay, I'm looking at that snowstorm.
I was like, no, I'm already going to the grocery store in a firm when it's twenty seven degrees here, I will.
I can't. I'm not built for it anymore.
Man, I know how quickly they turn. That's okay, Well, take care of Atlanta for me, take care of Atlanta, take care of my city. Say hi hopefully, well, hopefully I'll see you soon again in Atlanta. Yes, I will definitely be down visiting very soon.
Yeah, I think so much for your brother's Airbnb. I'm excited for him. I'm excited for you.
I feel like y'all should Yeah. I feel like y'all shoul link up because he's he's he's on mogul, he's on that quiet he's not as loud as I am. About my about my goals, but he's always like quietly becoming a mogul in the background. I'm very proud of him. But can I just say thank you again for joining Brown Ambition. Finally, oh my, finally, It's.
Been such a thrill that I hope people got value out of this because we're just friends having a conversation.
So I think our value out of this, I know I did. That's what I care about. No, I feel like for anyone the messages, you know, and this is especially it was good for me too, because I do feel like real estate. Like I said, it's something that I started to kind of just put on the back burner as a possibility. But thanks for giving me some
room to dream a little bit about it. And even if I don't buy a property this year, which I definitely probably won't, you know, a couple of years, I'll think about this conversation and maybe even I'll take some steps today like anyone listening, to start researching what the potential is, what options are out there. It's not like you have to.
Yeah, yeah, don't count yourself out.
I just remember I had that I had a housing event in New York City. A couple of years ago before I left and you came to the event. I remember that, like you left the event and found and like you were counting yourself on then and left the event and found out that you were actually like financially ready to buy a house, like when you left that, like, oh, I'm actually in a place where like we could buy.
You know, it's a matter of you coming around and being ready to buy.
It was mentally preparing myself.
Yes, don't count yourself out. Yes, yeah, of creating more passive income for.
Yourself, whatever it is. I mean, whether it is passive income from real estate. I mean, as you've shown passive income from leveraging your your brand to book half million dollar brand partnerships. I mean, can we talk about goals? Like so proud of you and you're also that you can be all these different things at different times in your life. You don't have to just choose one and stay in your lane. You can be so like many things. I wish we could keep talking forever, But thank you again, Tonia.
Any what do you want to promote? What do you want to shout out? Where can people find you?
Oh?
So people can find me, you know outside of I don't do real estate. I'm a financial educator and one of the things that's important for me is helping people understand like where they are in their financial journey, understanding their money persona and how they've related to money up unto this point. Because hesitancy plays a role in our financial journey, risk risk tendency or risk tolerance plays a role in our financial journey. And so we developed this
quiz called your Money Persona. It's your Moneypersona dot com and you can go to find out where you are in your financial journey. So I highly recommend people just kind of take their temperature and see where they are and see where the areas for improvement are.
We give you tips to improve.
Where you are and set goals to help you get to the next level based on what your servering response is. So your money Persona dot com it will also have ways for you to connect with me at my fab finance. And when you go to my fab finance, my personal Instagram is actually in the handle, and so you want to find like I don't talk about real estate much on my fab finance, even though I'm about to do a real on it. But if you're interested in the
person behind the brand my fab Finance. You can find me at Tanya dot raply.
I'm always interested in what Tanya's up to, what she's wearing. How cute her son is. What's your son's name again, Kars Caros? Okay, well that's just like your husband's name, Kavaris Kamar girl, Sorry.
Okay, his name is Kamari, And yeah, my son's name is cars and so that's my joy. No matter what I accomplish, like, he is my greatest accomplishment up until this point. He's such an amazing little human.
Everything I do with this business is just like the time freedom to spend time and to bring joy to that time I get to spend with him. I'm like, this is everything, So thanks for being an example of that. All right, everybody, check out your money Persona dot com. I love mea quiz, so I might go right there and take my quiz right now. Your Moneypersona dot com. Follow Tanya on Instagram at myfab finance and find her anywhere at Tanya Rapili also on social media. Thanks Pal,
thanks for coming on the show. Phil in Tiffany's seat while she's out, so take care and for the rest of you, I'll ba fan, you know where to find us Branhambisson podcast dot com, hit us up on ig Brown Ambition Podcast, and we'll see y'all next week