Hi, how are you? This is Maris Maria Grossman and this is the monthly integrative show. And today we have an amazing mindful chat with Ana Kelly. She is a wonderful woman. She is a good friend, real estate investor. She is financial, independent woman, businesswoman, author, speaker, and also a wonderful family and integrative mom, and she brings to the table so many parts of integrative health in many aspects. And I was so excited to have her be able to
chat with you guys. So as she has the greater purpose in her life and her growth her and her family, I'd love for her to talk more about it. So it's so good to have you on the show Anna nada so good to be with you to Maris. Yes, I'm excited about this. I know I'm so glad you touched base with us. And you know, we're able to come on and, and have the listeners and those watching. So just a little just fun fact or something that people don't know about you.
Sure. So you know, I people tell me all the time, like your Rei mom brand was so good, how'd you come up with this brand. And I said, it's really funny because I didn't think about branding at all. When I got started on social media and talking about real estate. I really didn't want people to know my last name. And the reason for that is dimeric because I was speaking at some local meetup groups about financial freedom, telling my story and how I created wealth
through real estate. And I suddenly started getting friend requests by all these people, let's let's you know, let me be your friend on Facebook. Well, Facebook was let's post pictures of my kids and where they go to school and all these different things. And I really, as a woman wanted to protect my kiddos to not have people know, where do they live? And what do they look like? And where do they go to school? Because we live in this
crazy world? So I did I thought, well, what's something that's me, but but not my last name. And I thought, well, I do Rei. And I'm a mom. And those two things really were the two things that I think I focus most of my day on being a really great mom and doing real estate investing. So the Rei mom was just on an Rei mom, to not put my last name out on Facebook. And what was funny is somebody reported me as a false as a fake profile. So I had to add my last
name. And I just had to say, Okay, I'm just gonna protect my kids in a different way. I don't show many pictures of them on Facebook. And I really tried to keep it you know, mostly to talking about parenting and talking about being a mom, but not really showing their faces on very much and really kind of sticking to real estate. So I wish I could claim that it was a great brand concept. And purposeful, but it really is just two pieces of who I am Rei and Mom,
I love it. Um, and I love that you're I wanted you to definitely be able to speak to, obviously to real estate into being an integrated mom and being on this podcast, because I really want people to understand financial health, financial independence, but understanding like, you're not just doing it because it was one thing, it was a greater purpose for you. It was something in your faith and in your life that
has transformed who you are. And I think your story is important for people to, to learn from so that they can become have more time have a better life, in many aspects and, and financial security is just one part of the equation that is very important. And I don't think it's talked
about enough. And I, I think it is part of and there's been so much research on when you become financially wealthy in the sense of your overall health, you are more aware of your health, you take more time, because you have more time. And I I'm more willing to do more for you and your family. And it's just an I know that you believe that not just in one aspect. So I love for you to talk a little bit about your story. And we can touch base on more after that.
Wonderful. Yes, I so agree. Because really, financial freedom isn't just about having a lot of money. It's about buying your time back, right and having the time to focus on living your life for what you believe is your greater purpose. And that time with your family, that time doing the things that you enjoy in that time to take care of yourself were a lot of us as busy moms to start off working and raising a family and
trying to invest on the side. We don't have a lot of extra time and we tend to let ourselves be the one that you know becomes the lowest priority and not spend enough time on ourselves. So financial freedom definitely allows greater health as well for sure. So, my story, I'll try to give you the short and sweet version. But I started out. I was raised in section eight housing and so my mom was a single mom went through a couple of bad abusive marriages over my
childhood. And I had six siblings and so I was the old As a child and really a pretty latchkey kid, my mom did the best she could for us. She was an apartment complex manager, actually. And then she waitress at night. And so I watched my siblings at night while she worked and really didn't have anybody to show me how do you create financial freedom? How do you even budget and do well with your money. So I really had nobody to talk to me about resources and about
independence. And I really had to kind of learn that myself. And so at that time, I was told, and this was good advice for a youngster, right, just do the best, you can be the best at everything you do, and get a college degree. And then once you get your degree, you'll get a really great job, and you'll make money and you can live the American dream. And so that's what I did, I was very determined to be the best at everything, I did get a degree and then climb up the corporate
ladder. And that was going really, really well. I worked at Bank of America, in their financial advisory division as a financial relationship manager, and then started working for AIG. And I thought I've made it you know, I have a really great job, I have a really nice home, I was newly married. And then all of a sudden to Maris I had a baby. And the moment I held that baby in my hands, I said, I don't care about climbing his corporate ladder, all I want to
do is be home with my child. And it was difficult because my husband had just started his career as a chiropractor, we had six figure school loans. And I was really the one that made significantly more than he did. So we said, You know, I really can't stay home because we need to pay off the school loans and pay for this big house that we bought. And this car that we bought, because we bought into the American dream, right. And I had this baby that I couldn't stay home with, and it broke my
heart. And so I decided I've got to figure out something. Well, while I was at home, I had been on bed rest, and he was a preemie. And so I had lots of time to watch HGTV. And at that time, they had just started coming out with all of these flip this house shows this was back in 2003. And we decided, you know what? It looks like we could flip a house or two and make six figures a year. So
let's try it. So we started, we tried to flip a house when my baby was three months old, we lost money, we made lots of mistakes. We didn't know what we were doing. And we learned that it's not as easy as it looks on TV, right? So my husband at the time said, there's no way we're ever doing that, again, you're just gonna have to keep working. And eventually we'll pay off the school loans and all start my
own chiropractic business. So we moved to Pennsylvania, and decided to be entrepreneurs, and we thought that's the way to financial freedom, that'll get me home is he will start his own practice, and he'll make the money. Right. So we bought a commercial building that had tenants with it. So it was an office on Main Street on the first floor, tenants above the practice and tenants behind and we became kind of accidental
landlords. And so it was interesting, though, because we knew that it was cheaper to lease space where we had tenants than to lease space. That was somebody else's without tenants. And so we said, let's just buy it and most of the mortgage will be covered by the tenants. And so I was investing in real estate, but not as a full time thing. It wasn't a thought of Real Estate's what's going to buy the financial freedom. It was just a nice supplement and protection while he was growing
a business. And then we decided to house hack de Maris, I saw a little four unit apartment building. And I said to my husband, you haven't been working quite a year, my job was a temporary trial work from home gig because at that point, no one worked from home. And I said just to be safe, let's buy the sporting unit. We can live in one of the units. We had two babies at that time.
And I get it oh my god, four unit. That's great.
four units. And we thought you know what the other three tenants will pay our mortgage and we won't have any living expenses. And so this was pretty nice. And then all of a sudden in 2009, early 2009, the market tanked. We had the great recession. And I worked for AIG. And AIG was one of the main companies that was impacted by 2009 for a lot of different reasons. They were in the news every day, and I was told continually look for another job, we're probably going to be
laid off. So I had this very difficult period where I really I found out the same week I was pregnant with baby number three. My job was probably going away. My husband had all this business startup debt and I thought I'm never going to be home with my babies. I lost about two thirds of my 401k all in that same about month period.
What a year.
Oh, it was it was hard. And the only thing I thought to do tomorrow, there was another four unit building for sale. And I thought I'm gonna borrow from my 401k, what little I have left, which was just enough for a down payment. And I'm gonna buy another four unit, because worst case, I lose my job. And I've got an extra 12 $100 a month coming in from that four unit. And we'll be okay. And what I realized going through that great recession was
that no job is really safe. The stock market isn't really safe, new entrepreneurships are not really safe, most of them fail. And the only thing that was going well was my rental properties. They were stable. And I knew at that moment in 2009, I needed to buy more property. And that's really what started me seriously focusing on buying rental real estate. In order to create financial freedom, I created a five year plan to retire from my job and replace my six figure income.
And it took me exactly five years from that point, to really get to the point where my income was replaced with rental income. And then I started scaling until larger apartment buildings as joint ventures, I retired from my corporate career in May of 2018, or I'm sorry, May of 2019. So it's been two and a half years, exciting. And now I'm a full time apartment syndicator. I've done five, much larger apartment complex deals, and still continue to do joint ventures and my own properties
today. But real estate truly is the greatest wealth creator, wealth Sustainer of any other types of investments out there, and really allowed us to go from really nothing to very, very significant assets and income and financially free thanks to just grit and determination and figuring it out.
I mean, that was a very quick version of you. And I know that there's many, much more in depth on your story there. But like the fact that you persevered and kept going, and saw insight on things, when things were the toughest. And that's part of what I want people to see is that when things are down, or when you're at the hardest point in your life, you have to still be able to get up. And you saw that you needed to do something for you
and your family. And now you have the time and the financial availability that most people don't have that you can do a lot. And addition, you're now making impact for you and your family, not just you, but for others. Would you like to talk more about that?
Sure. So I you know, Damaris being raised in apartment complexes, and having family that are still in section eight housing, I've really always had compassion for those that live in apartments. And for those young kids like myself, that really didn't have anyone to show them financial literacy at all, to show them how to get out of that cycle of poverty.
And I worked with inner city kids for a long time as well and saw the same thing, they really didn't have people that, that they knew directly that could help them figure out how to you, you know, file for a job application and complete a resume and live on a budget and then learn to expand your means. And so it's always been really important to me to pour into single moms, especially in young kids, and to talk to them about my story and how there is hope.
Right? There is hope to escape what seems like very hopeless situation for many, many women and many, many kids. And so one of the things that I did when I retired is I created a company called greater purpose capital, where we go out and we buy apartment complexes and we invest for meaningful impact.
And so we look to buy properties where we can go in and rally the community around us to support and kind of adopt are complex and help us to pour into the lives of the single moms and pour into the lives of the kids to show them how to give them resources that they may not have for financial literacy for job skills and job training for churches coming and picking up kids and taking them to church if they want to do that after school care and, and tutoring
and things of that nature. So, you know, I created financial freedom. And I had to ask myself to Maris Am I just gonna retire now, now that my kids are all in school, which it took me that long? They're all in school? What do I do with my day? You know, and for me, I realized retirement isn't about just sitting back and relaxing and cooking good meals and having a clean house. Retirement of the financial freedom allowed me to say what is my real purpose in
this world? What does God want me to do now with the rest of my days with the 30 or 40 hours a week that my kids are in school, and I knew that I really I wanted to do apartment buildings, not just to continue to make money and make a legacy for my family, but to really make an impact. With my resources and all I've learned as an operator over time, and there's just nothing I'm more passionate about at this point,
would you like to touch a little bit more on that, like your life purpose there and, like of one of the apartment buildings, or a story of a family that you were helping in this situation?
Sure. So you know, I've had an opportunity in my own complexes really to get to know my tenants pretty well and personally. So I've got a couple of different business models, I have my husband and I own our own properties, and we still self manage those properties. And so you know, I've had a lot of single moms who needed help with diapers, and they needed help getting on a budget, they
lost jobs during COVID. And so just little things like reaching out to your tenants and saying, Let me show you how to file the unemployment paperwork. Let me show you how to get on a budget, you know, there's a book I can recommend to you, that shows you how to, you know, start budgeting your money, so that you can save and pay rent on time, and, you know, pay for
diapers and things like that. So just the little things, sometimes tenants aren't quite ready for you to, you know, tell them how to manage their finances. But when they know that you care about them, and you're gracious, and you're compassionate, you show respect to them, they'll start to trust you with little things. So just you know, bringing a pack of diapers and pointing them to resources that can help them
when they are in a bind. Instead of saying, well, it's the six I'm evicting you too bad to sad, go find the money, you know, how can we pour in and help them out of a bind without being their charity source, for example, but teaching them to fish if you will, right, because there's a lot of organizations that throw money at problems that, you know, give people a pass on rent. But until you can empower a woman and you can show them that there's ways to live
differently than you are. Now, let me show you how to do that. Sometimes it doesn't sink in. So that's one thing that we've done. We've also have apartment complexes, and we partner with other operators as well. Where we partner with, with organizations like the children's hunger fund, to come in and provide school lunches. So like, during the pandemic, during the summer, these kids, a lot of them whose parents were at work weren't home to make
lunches. So the children's hunger fund came in, brought sandwiches and bag lunches, brought backpacks full of school supplies for kids, and just showing kids in the community that we care about them in small ways, really makes a big difference and an impact on their lives.
I mean, that's amazing. I mean, I, I can imagine how much you've helped and how much you've been doing that in itself, like you've you're doing, you know, it's tenfold, you know, your faith and your love and your family, you've done so much. And I think that's so amazing. It's like you went from changing your life's trajectory. And now your life purpose is, you know, helping
others in many ways. Is there a way that people can contact you or just like one mindful way that you'd like to kind of bring to the audience on like to share and then share how they can reach you? Sure,
I think something that's really important for all of us is really to take the time to really think about this life that I'm living, am I living in a way that allows me to live for purpose, am I living in a way and and utilizing my time and my resources to allow myself to do what I meant to do on this earth, right? So many times we just we wake up in the morning, we have our things that we have to do we get our kids to school, we work, we make dinner, we clean, we come home, and we're
exhausted. And we might make some time for self care. But we don't usually make a lot of time for self reflection, and to really think about being purposeful with our day and our hours and our lives. And we can do that in many small ways that sometimes you can't fulfill your ultimate purpose till you've lived the journey, right? You've lived the grit and the determination and, and kind of like you said, you know, when you're on an airplane, you put your mask on first before you
can help someone else. And while we're working to get ourselves to a place where we have the time freedom to make an impact. We can make an impact in small ways, but then have a vision for how can not just where do I want to be financially in the future? But how can I impact more people? How am I uniquely made by God to serve and love others? And how can I make a plan with my day just like I plan my
finances, I plan my goals? How can I make a plan to be more purposeful and live my purpose more next year and more in three years from now than I do today? So I'd encourage you to take some time to think about that. Because the joy and freedom that comes personally when you know that you're doing what you're meant to do. Not kind of losing your identity in the day to day roles that you have to play as a woman. There's just so much more joy in that. And it makes it
really special. And I get up every day with joy that I get to do, what I meant to do, and not just that I have to do all the things that my roles require of me.
And I think that is so important as a mom to have a little bit of that understanding and identity in yourself. And that's really, how can we reach you? And how can others I'm going to have your information in the show notes. But if there is there something that's coming up recent or just a direct way for people to reach you.
Sure. So if you're interested in investing in syndications, and investing in apartment deals that will help you financially and also make an impact in the lives of our residents. You can find me at greater purpose capital.com You can learn more about apartment investing and about becoming an investor in apartments. And if you're just looking to follow information about real estate and want to learn more, you can follow me on Facebook, LinkedIn or Instagram at Ana Rei mom, Kelly.
Love it. Awesome. So thank you so much for being on the show today and for your time, we really are greatly happy to have your mindful vision and your education. So thanks again for joining in. Thanks so much for having me to Maris. Welcome Thanks and have a good day guys and make sure each and every day you find a mindful way. Have a blessed day guys. Bye