A Personal Note From Orion

Today, we’re going to talk about how to dissolve money blocks, how to invest in real estate, and how to make lots of money to secure your future. From poverty to a wealth warrior, Tamar Hermes has grown businesses and invested in real estate to reach financial independence. Now, she’s on a mission to support other women to do the same. Tamar is a wonderful friend. She’s also been my financial coach. I took her course, The Wealth Warrior, and she is extraordinary.

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About Today’s Show

Hello, Tamar and welcome to Stellar Life Podcast. It’s a pleasure to have you here. Thank you and welcome.

Thank you so much for having me.

I’m excited about the show and talking about financial freedom, real estate, and all that good stuff. Before we start, can you share a little bit about yourself and your passion?

Yes. I would love to. I believe that women have the right and ability to make as much money as they want and I believe in financial freedom. I’ve recently been focusing more on real estate investing. I’ve been a real estate investor for a long time. Now, I’m just very focused on teaching how did I do it. How did I make money? I like sharing this because I feel that in life, the most treasured thing that we have is our freedom and to be able to make choices. I feel like money enables us to do so much more, to give back more, to live more fully, and that it’s a great thing. That’s what I stand for.

What brought you to this point? To deal with money and financial freedom?

I believe that it came from early on, growing up poor. My parents wanted me to remember how poor I was so they sent me to Beverly Hills schools but we did not live in Beverly Hills. I came to terms really early on that if I wanted to have certain things, then I needed to figure out what this whole money piece was and I needed to come to terms with loving money and having relationship with money as opposed to being against it and thinking all people with money were bad because I didn’t have any.

I think that along this path and along working towards having an enriching life and having all of the things that I wanted to be able to accomplish, give, and do, I needed to have a moment with myself to really think about what that meant and about how I wanted to live in the world. I kept exploring and that’s when I started realizing that I had always done pretty well with saving money and understanding money. I started investing when I was 28. That was what brought me to this big opening of using money as a vehicle to share and to help other women have a more enriching life with a more positive relationship with money.

Apparently, you had some limiting beliefs. You were poor and then you go to those fancy Beverly Hills schools and everybody’s rich but in your mind, all people with money are bad and you are surrounded by people with money. How did you handle it? How did you make that shift of like, “Okay, everybody around me has money, but they’re not bad? It’s a friendly universe.”

That’s a great question. Even as you were sharing it, as much as I worked and healed those wounds, it was such a painful experience for me because my parents didn’t really have the communication skills to share with me that because we didn’t have money, we were not less than and just because I didn’t have money now, it didn’t mean my whole life would be like that, so it was a really painful journey.

I felt very uncomfortable a lot of times. I’ve had a lot of low self-esteem. I felt very isolated and very alone. The transition to realizing that those false beliefs about money and about myself weren’t true. It was an evolution. Up until very recently, I feel like I reached a new plateau with totally being able to honor myself as enough and being enough in having enough.

How did I get through that? For anyone listening that really wants a good tool, I just kept the vision that I was here for a reason and that my life had to be of some value more than what I was giving it. So, I kept walking in the direction that I wanted to go. I kept giving myself a positive message, looking at the things that I was accomplishing, and starting to realize that the stories that I had given myself were stories that I had given myself as a child that wasn’t really true. They weren’t really based on any facts. They were just how I came to see the world.

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It seems like most people don’t feel like they’re enough at some point. I know I don’t. Sometimes, I go like, “I’m not good enough for this. I’m not good enough for that.” I’ve studied from the best people in the world and I’ve studied so much. I’ve been to so many places, traveled the world, gained so much knowledge, then I come home and I’m still like, “Oh, I’m not enough. I didn’t learn enough. It’s not enough. It’s never enough. It’s never going to be enough.” When you don’t feel like you’re enough, you don’t take the right actions. I like what you said about almost nurturing your inner child. Maybe that child that was poor, that child that never felt like she was enough. We are adults that are run by our little five-year-olds sometimes.

I had the same experience where I came from a very poor upbringing. Similar to yours, I lived in a fancy neighborhood but our house was crappy and really run-down. I always wore hand-me-down clothes and we didn’t have money for anything. Even in school, the kids would go to a nearby convenience store and buy things and I never did. Stuff like that can really impact that imprint of “I am not enough.” I am different. They can have it and I can never have it.

Then you get this all these limiting beliefs that are imprinted to you by your parents and by your environment. Money doesn’t grow on trees and all those limiting beliefs. Your journey was to affirm to yourself that you’re good enough, and to acknowledge your inner light, and to acknowledge your achievements. Is there any specific exercise that you were doing over and over again that helped you?

A consistent regimen of meditation in the morning, of making my bed afterward, and just honoring who I am as I am, however I am, wherever I am, no matter what happens around me has been very comforting. I strongly believe in meditation. It’s what got me to a more peaceful place because of the noise in my head, all that goes on in our lives, and how busy we all are. I really needed to just quiet it and let myself be. The beauty of meditation is that it’s just a time where whether you’re enough or not enough, none of that comes into play. You’re just being. So, I really think it invites in a space for each soul and person to live in the world and feel accepted for exactly what they are and what they’re not.

One exercise that helps me, when I remember to do it, I haven’t done it in a very long time, is just to take the time to reflect on my life and write down all the achievements that I achieved , all those places that I was able to go to, and all those people I was able to meet that I never even imagined I would be able to. It used to be a dream, a fantasy, and then years later, I find myself going to those places, meeting those people, doing things that I’ve never thought I would be able to do and helping people in a way that I never ever imagined I’ll be able to. So, you have to remind yourself because we tend to look at the glass half full. We tend to look at our flaws. We tend to be our own worst critic. You say that through meditation. In your meditation, what do you do in the morning?

When I wake up, the first thing I do is I sit up and I sit for 15 minutes. I’m a huge proponent of not looking at the cellphone when you get up. I think it’s crazy detrimental in terms of hijacking your mind. I just sit for 15 minutes. Sometimes, I reflect on gratefulness, on the things to be grateful. Oftentimes, I pray. I pray for people that are less fortunate than me. That’s another thing that I think helps a lot, is to get a perspective on the world. Think about what a range there is of the way that we’re living. Our circumstances, most of us in the United States or in first world countries, we don’t have these conditions that millions and billions of people are living in right now around the world and even here in the United States. I reflect upon praying for them and praying for being able to help and being of service.

The other thing that is really important is to get out of thinking just about one’s self because as a child, we think a lot about ourselves. But when we start thinking about other people, we’re not really thinking about whether we’re enough or not, we’re thinking about how we can be of service. I also think that that also releases a lot of that energy where we’re so caught up in our own minds about ourselves and what we’re not.

This is wonderful because we’ll always do something for somebody else more than we’ll do for ourselves. I know that this is my character. I can sell somebody else’s product like there’s no tomorrow, like the best in the world. But when it comes to my service, my business, my stuff, also I guess to connect it with money, my investments, my relationship with money, it’s a bit different because how can I invest money with that intention of caring for somebody else when I’m actually doing this for myself.

That’s interesting. Are you saying that you don’t feel comfortable investing money?

I guess I’m comfortable but what I was thinking about is that the idea of doing something for somebody else will pull you towards the thing that you want to do, but when I’m investing them, not doing it for somebody else, I’m doing it for myself. How can I get that same effect as if I was doing it for somebody else?

Right. That’s a great point. I think there are several things. There are powerful tools. One is we need to honor money as a vehicle and as a tool to really support ourselves and support others. There is this feeling that if I’m spending money on myself, then I’m selfish or I’m greedy. Or if I want more, then I’m selfish and I’m greedy. I completely feel differently. It’s your right to have it. It’s in the world. There are trillions of dollars in the world and it’s our right to have as much as we want of it. We have the ability to create it.

With that money, we have so many more choices where we can help more people at a greater scale because we’re able to give money to people that can’t eat or provide for non-profit. Not only that but we’re able to enjoy our lives in a very positive way. The way to start is by honoring money and giving to yourself as much as you would give to someone else.

As I was asking you, I just remembered something really cool that I’ve learned from Dr. Demartini. He was in the movie, The Secret. He’s a very famous self-development guru or mentor. I interviewed him for the Huffington Post. I interviewed him on this show, Stellar Life Podcast, and we became friends. That’s another achievement were in the past, let’s say 10 or 15 years ago, I looked up to him. I never thought I’ll ever meet him and now, I have his personal contact and information. It’s also a beautiful thing but one of the things that he teaches is the value determination process. You actually can go on his website, drdemartini.com, and take the quiz.

What you do is through those questions, you learn what are your three top values. Let’s say your values go from this is number 1, it’s the most important thing for me, and this is number 10. What Dr. Demartini says is that you’ll only do the things that align with your three top values, either three or four top values. If your family is number 1, your health is number 2, and your acts of services is number 3, but money is number 8 or 10, you won’t do anything to go and acquire more money because it doesn’t align with your three top values, which is family, health, and acts of kindness, let’s say.

What you do is actually, you go in, like you said, you’ll link the money to your first value like how making money will help my family, how will making money help my health, and how will making money help my acts of services. And then when you make this connection, all of a sudden, money is linked to your three top values. There is a pulling force in alignment with you and there is less conflict.

I love that. Absolutely, because as you were saying, family, health, and acts of kindness, I was just automatically thinking, “Oh yeah! Money helps with all of those. It’s a great feeling to know that I can send my kids to college, not that college is the end-all-be-all these days.

I never went to college. 

It’s nice that I said this caveat absolutely that it’s not the end-all-be-all. I’d like them to have the choice. It’s all about choices. That’s one of the main reasons that I’m screaming with so much conviction, not screaming but just very passionately sharing that women do have this ability and they do have this right to have money and that it’s okay to be financially free. It’s okay to live a life without fear and worry about money. Even if there are times where you feel like you may not be enough, it doesn’t mean that you can’t still be making money and being extremely successful.

That’s why I used the vehicle real estate investing now because I see entrepreneurs working so hard and doing so well, and then not paying attention to all the details of where that money goes. A lot of times, we hear it all the time where an entrepreneur can be making $1 million and maybe they’re just taking home maybe $50,000 because they’re spending so much on their business or because they’re not managing the money properly.

This is so true. There are so many wealthy people that have the lifestyle and everything, but at the end of the day, they don’t have anything tangible that they own or have or anything for the future as a security blanket.

That’s true. It’s a huge thing. A huge value for me is security because for me, especially as a woman, we’ve definitely had generations of being vulnerable. Now, it’s come out in the public about how vulnerable we really have been. So for me, security is very important and to me, to have money, to have a property, to have equity and assets, that makes a huge difference in terms of the choices that I make. If I’m in a marriage where my husband is beating me, God forbid he’s not, but if I was, I could leave. I just have more power and more flexibility to create my future. If I didn’t want to work anymore—let’s just keep it something positive—I could do that. I could just watch movies all day if I chose to. I can actually do that and that’s a great feeling. I don’t want to do that but if I did, I could.

It depends on the movies.

It depends on the movies, exactly. I think this is a great thing. It’s pretty easy. When you’re making a certain amount of money, you don’t need to be making $1 million, even if you’re making $100,000, you can still manage your money in such a way where you’re keeping some of it in a savings where you can start to purchase property. I’m a huge advocate. The first thing that anyone should do is buy a home because you can have so many tax advantages and it just doesn’t make a lot of sense unless you absolutely have to pay rent.

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Why real estate investment and not other types of investment? Why real estate? What’s so great about it?

That’s a great question. To me, there are three ways that people grow wealth. (1) They grow very successful businesses, (2) in the stock market, and (3) in real estate. For me, a lot of the entrepreneurs I work with are doing very well in their businesses and they’re making good money. They’re growing their business. But it’s not going to grow necessarily to millions and millions and even if it does, unless they’re taking that money, that profit that they’re making and investing it wisely, then they’re basically just keeping it in the bank and losing money on inflation. There’s that.

The stock market is doing great today but we don’t know what it’ll be doing a year from now. There are a lot of variables we cannot control whereas, with real estate, more millionaires are made in real estate than anything else. I just feel that there are so many variables that we know, we can’t understand, and we can manage. When you have that, when you have control and when you have an understanding of the numbers, the strategies, and the predictability of how the profits will grow, then real estate is by far the most amazing opportunity it is for us to grow wealth.

When it comes to real estate, I’m just thinking, now as we’re talking, there is the Getty fire and we live in California. My husband and I recently moved from Santa Monica to The Valley and the fire is pretty close by. Just a few miles away and it’s big. It’s scary and I see all those homes lost. There have been so many crazy fires happening in California lately and then it’s global warming or the Illuminati. I don’t know what it is but it’s getting crazier.

You also experienced a fire in your area. Thank God your house was safe and all that. How do you deal with those fear of oh, I’m going to buy something let’s say in California but there’s going to be a Nashville disaster because here we have earthquakes and fires? It’s quite real.

First of all, that’s what insurance is for. That’s just basically the way it goes. The second thing I’ll say is we really don’t know what’s going to happen, when it’s going to happen, and how it’s going to happen, but I do know one thing, I know that if God forbid, something were to happen to me and my husband today, that my kids would be set for life, and that they would have everything set up for them, and that they have properties. They have assets. They have money that will take care of them, if they needed it, for the rest of their lives. If my house burned down last year, which I was very close because every other house on my street did burn, then I would have the insurance claim and I would just keep on moving on.

I guess what I’m trying to touch is the fear of making a bad investment. The fear of not knowing whether this house is right or wrong, or this is a good neighborhood, or this is a great investment, or if the market is going to fluctuate and I’m going to lose money instead of making money. How do you approach all that?

That’s all about education. I’m so glad you brought all that up because that is why so many people, especially women—there are a lot fewer women in real estate—don’t invest. Those are all really good questions and there are ways to answer those questions. There is a data, there are strategies, and there are certain things that we understand about what historically has happened in the markets in real estate.

For example, pretty much almost anything in California appreciates. Yes, we did have a hit in 2008 and properties did go down, but for the most part, in really good areas, they ended coming back up. At the time, I owned a place in Silver Lake. Right now, it’s worth maybe $1,200,000 but at the time, this was in 2008, it may have dropped to maybe $750,000 from $900,000 but I wasn’t worried about it.

The reason was because I had renters paying rent in those units. If I have renters paying the mortgage, I know my payment is covered, even if the property drops for a little bit or even for a few years, it really doesn’t matter because I’m still able to get cash flow, which means that I have money left over at the end of the month from the property and all my bills are being paid. Those are certain things you need to evaluate.

In terms of buying a first house or investing in a property, you could say well you’re going to get so many tax benefits from it just from buying a property. The one thing that you know is that if you’re paying, let’s say $4000 a month in rent, the one fact that you know is that almost $50,000 is just going out the door. That’s why I work to go through the process, to teach the different opportunities, to teach the steps, and to also work on money mindset.

I work on the money mindset in my real estate investing master class because of these reasons and because there is a lot of fear. I can’t say that there is no risk, I can’t say there won’t be a fire, I can’t say the property won’t go down in value, but I can pretty much guarantee that any place in Silver Lake will find a renter.

It looks like in my area, where I live right now, 6 years ago, houses that were $600,000 are now $1.2 million. The market is at a very high point and people predict that it’s going to crash. How likely it is that the market is going to crash? How do you even predict whether the market is going to crash or not? When to buy and when to sell?

Those are good questions. The first thing I would say is that who are those people that say it’s going to crash? There are some experts that say it and there are also experts that say that it is going to crack but it’s not going to crash. The second thing I say is it’s always great to buy low and sell high, 100%, but at the same time, there are certain times where you’re just waiting for the market to do something and you’re on the sidelines doing nothing. Sometimes, it makes more sense, depending on where you’re at, to make a move.

Right now, I have several deals that I’m doing right now and none of them are in California. I chose to go out of California. In fact, I’m selling most of my properties in California right now, which I’m not recommending for everybody. It just depends on where you’re at and your strategy.

The thing is that what you do is you want to look at what you want to create and manage. Sometimes, the timing is not 100%, but you still take action. In other words, if you are wanting to buy a place but you are thinking, “Oh, the market might crash,” I’d be looking for a deal or if it was in California, I’d be looking outside of the main areas where things are really inflated like in Santa Monica, in Silver Lake if you live in California and I’d be pushing out. Just like every state that you live in, that’s always the case. You have Manhattan. Manhattan got too expensive, people moved to Brooklyn. Brooklyn got too expensive, people moved to The Bronx, people moved to… 

Astoria.

Yeah. They moved all sorts of places. And then what’s the place that no one wanted to live in Manhattan?

That’s the Village.

Yeah, the Village for a while was really low.

Yeah, people didn’t come near it and now it’s so expensive.

Right. The thing is that’s one strategy that you can do. You can move to an area or somewhere, you can find a deal. There are all sorts of strategies to find deals in real estate. There’s always someone, unfortunately, that needs to sell their house for one reason or another. Sometimes, people just move town because they’ve got a job in another state and they’re in a rush. They’re in a hurry. Sometimes it’s a 1031 Exchange where you have a limited amount of time once you sell it to buy another property.

There are a million reasons why sometimes you can get a good deal. In that case, I just say find a really savvy real estate investor and make connections. Go to meet up meetings with investors and try and get where the deals are and see who can help you. You don’t necessarily need to just go the conventional route. I think that conventional route where someone fixes a house, puts it on the market, and then they have an open house, and they have a bidding war. You don’t have to do that dance. You can still buy a property and get a better deal on it.

What are some ways to do that?

Like I said, what I would do is I would find a very savvy real estate investor, I might call some wholesaling places and see wholesalers or people to find deals under contract. If you’re someone that doesn’t mind cosmetic fixes or even more so, maybe your family is in contracting, then you can buy a place that needs to be fixed up. Those always go for less.

Do you flip houses a lot?

I personally do not flip houses a lot. Flipping is a strategy that’s very exciting to a lot of people because you can make a lot of money flipping. You can also lose a lot of money flipping. I am more of a conservative investor. Actually, I am starting to work on a couple of projects for flipping, not in California. I’m actually going out to Tennessee to do that. If you really enjoy that process and you can handle the risk, if you’re going to go something like that, you want to make sure you have a good contractor that you can trust, that you know what you’re doing, that you inspect very closely a property before you go into it because you can buy a place and think, “Oh, okay. I’m just going to do some cosmetic things in the kitchen,” and then find out that the whole wall is termite infested and the wall needs to come down and there goes all your profit.

Now, it’s not the end of the world if that happens. It could be an expensive lesson but it is part of the learning. I probably wouldn’t start there. Unless you have a steal of a deal in rent, I always say the first thing you do is buy yourself a property. Make sure that you’re not paying rent to someone because people that build wealth do not pay rent, in general, to other people. They get rents paid to them.

I like that. That’s quotable. That’s awesome. So you’re saying start by buying your own place. Let’s say I bought my own place, okay before that, what are some things to look for when you buy your first property, your own place?

The first thing to do is to figure out how much you could qualify for a loan. You can’t just see a $2 million house and think, “Oh that sounds nice. I’ll get that,” when you’re making $150,000 a year. In order to qualify for a loan, you have to go to a good mortgage lender and they’ll let you know based on your tax information what you would qualify for. Oftentimes, it’s a little higher than what I would even say to you.

Some people tell me they’re prequalified for a lot more than I think that they should get a house for but the thing is it definitely gives you a range in terms of how much the bank would loan you unless you have all cash, which is a whole different scenario. Then you have a lot more options. That’s the first thing.

I would also look for an area that you really want to live in. I wouldn’t get attached to just one area. It’s really difficult if you’re just attached to one are. I would look at a couple of different areas and be flexible. And then I would look for real estate agents and see who is really savvy. Not your aunt’s friend, unless she’s really savvy and seasoned. You don’t want somebody that’s kind of a hobbyist at real estate. You want someone that really understands and that can really go into the trenches. A really good real estate agent can really do a lot of great work, really help you save a lot of money, and help you find a really good deal.

You always want to find the right people to help you. Don’t try to do it on your own and don’t try to go with somebody just because they say they do real estate. Make sure that they know what they’re doing.

And then, just be flexible if it doesn’t work out. You can part ways. What you said is really the key. The business is the key to life. It’s the key to everything. It’s our partnerships, who we choose to have as our friends, who we choose to do business with, who do we connect with, and how open are we to make those new connections. Anything is possible with the right connections. You just never know. If you started putting it out there that you wanted to get a house, you never know. The old lady next door could say, “You know what? I want to sell my house and I like it. I want to sell it to you and give you a decent deal on it.” Anything can happen and those kinds of scenarios do happen. I have a friend, actually. She had a neighbor and she just loved this woman. She really did. She took care of her when she was old and the woman was alone. The woman left her, her home.

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Oh my God. Wow.

I don’t think it ever occurred to her that that would ever even happen. It was just in her good faith, in her being a good person, in her relationships, her love for this woman and just what happened.

I’m going to look for some old women in my neighborhood. No, I’m just kidding. You talked about loans. Is there a specific ratio between your income and how much you need to take? What’s the right way to calculate the right house for you, percentage-wise? Let’s say you want a $2 million house but you don’t make enough to afford it. How do you calculate what the right amount will be for you just so you can still have a life and not struggle?

Absolutely. The worst thing is when you become house poor, which means that basically, all your money is going into the house. There are a lot of people, unfortunately, ends up in that situation because it is nice to have a nice home and a nice car, but before you know it, you can be spending all your money. Sometimes, people lose their jobs or maybe they freelance and things are going so well but then they have a slow month and all of a sudden, they can’t pay all their bills. It can become very stressful.

Especially for entrepreneurs. It’s a rollercoaster. You have amazing times and then you have times where you’re like, “Who am I?” It’s a real rollercoaster.

Exactly. I always say it’s great to look at maybe a 12-month, even a 24-month average as an entrepreneur and see how much have you made overall. That’s a good gauge so you know even if you made a lot more. One month, you don’t want to base it on that. You want to base it on more of an average so that it’s something you can count on.

You’ve touched on that point before. Not only what you made because you make and then you spend. If you make a lot but you have a huge team of people that work for you and outside contractors, the money goes to those people that help you run your business. At the end of the day, you make a lot, you spend a lot and then what? You want to calculate it from your profit, right?

Actually, it’s a little different than that. Pretty much, what you want to calculate it from is what you’re actually making. That’s different than what the corporation makes.

You always want to have that division. You look at your corporation. Your corporation brings in a certain amount, you pay your employees, you run all your expenses, and part of those expenses should include a W-2 or payroll to the CEO, which is you, the owner of the corporation. That’s your income. That’s really what your true income is. If you’re taking a check for $10,000 every month, then your income is $120,000. It’s not maybe the $500,000 that the corporation made.

That’s the number you need to look at, that’s the number the loan officers will look at, and that’s the number that is important, that’s critical to look at because that’s really the amount of money that actually you manage as a person by yourself. Once you get that $120,000, that’s pretty much the taxes have been taken out because you took it as a W2 so then you have to look at the $120,000 then you have groceries, you have personal expenses so you need to look at that. Based on that, you can come up with a number around what you can pay.

Let’s say you’re paying $5000 a month for rent. If you’re able to pay it pretty easily, $5000 a month for rent, chances are you could afford a mortgage around that number. Now, I always try to aim a little lower and the reason is, is because you have property taxes, insurance for the dwelling, so that adds quite a bit especially with property taxes. Many states are pretty high. Maybe you get a place where your mortgage is $4000 so that you have the extra to pay for the property taxes. That’s pretty much a math calculation.

Once you figure out how much money you put down, then you can figure out how much money the loan is. This is all going through the process. As you go through it, you see how it is actually very manageable because there are many people that own houses and owning property is not a noble thing, is what I’m trying to say.

That’s so true. When people come to you and work with you, how do you work with them? Do you just talk to them about money mindset and give them tips or do you actually go with them to the property and you work with them to consider the investment or not?

I do have my real estate license. I don’t do a lot of real estate work as an agent. I don’t operate as an agent very much. There are a couple of ways that I work with clients. I work with them one-on-one so that we can really look specifically at how their money looks and what they want to create. If there are things that aren’t happening for them, they want to maybe make work in their business, they want to figure out how to invest in real estate, they want to make sure all the pieces are in place in terms of what their financial future looks like and how do they get to that financially free goal. I work with them that way. It’s not a regimented program. I’m there for my clients whatever they’re going through and whatever they need to bring them to their next goal.

In The Real Deal Formula Masterclass, that is more structured and I don’t necessarily go with clients to visit properties. What I’ll do is I will analyze with them and I will definitely offer feedback. I am there to support them. My goal is more financial freedom for women and for all people for that matter. So, whatever I can do to help them understand the money, what it’s doing, how their deals are working, and where their money is going so that they are empowered because knowledge is power. Knowledge is the one that really takes you forward. Once you start to see how the money works, you have less of an attachment to it because it’s more like you’re just moving it around. It’s like a dance. It gives you a lot of choices as it builds.

Also, one thing that our listeners don’t know is that I took a class with you and it was outstanding. It was really helpful and beneficial. Also, that we are friends and that you are fabulous.

Thank you so much.

You work with people from all over the world, right? You can also work with people via Skype so it doesn’t matter where they are, right?

Absolutely. Anywhere that they are. And real estate is similar in many parts. I shouldn’t say it’s similar in every part of the world because, in some parts, it’s different because sometimes you can’t own the land. There are different provisions but for the most part, the ideas and the concepts are the same. The idea of actually owning real estate is always the same. It’s generally always a good idea to own real estate. That’s why you see all the foreigners coming to the country here and buying up all the real estate because it’s a good place to put your money.

How difficult is it to invest out of state or to invest out of the country?

Well, those are two different variables. Investing out of the country, definitely, each country would have its own rules and you would need to check as far as you want to do. One of the things that I’ve seen a lot, especially traveling in Europe quite a bit, is that Airbnbs have become extremely popular. When we were in Belgium this summer, there was a woman and she had a full-time career managing two apartments in Airbnb. That was all she was doing. It was very cool that she had come up with this business. She was a young woman and there are definitely a lot of opportunities. As far as other states go, a lot of it is very similar although there are different taxes in different states so that makes a huge difference in terms of opportunities.

I live in California. I started out in California. I bought in California because I wanted to see my properties and I wanted to be able to have more control. But now, I’m a little more comfortable because I know a lot more about the processes. I had, over the years, invested a lot in other states and there are just a lot more opportunities in other states than there is in California, right now.

Alright. Give us a nugget. What are some good states to invest in?

Well, a lot of people are talking about the southeast right now. Texas, Florida, Albuquerque. Netflix just invested. They’re building a big headquarters in Albuquerque, so obviously that’s going to be a great place. I’m going to Tennessee. There’s a lot in Tennessee. Oklahoma, Atlanta. There are a lot of pockets that are really good to look at property in. You almost can’t go wrong when you push out of the main city and start looking outwards just like we used Manhattan as an example.

If you’re on the east coast, people are going to Indianapolis. It’s not so east coast but kind of in that area. People are buying everywhere. I am actually even investing right now in Virginia. It really just depends also on the deal. If you wanted to go out of state, I would go to more like Florida, Texas, Oklahoma, Albuquerque. A lot of those places. Atlanta. You can also do a search on the internet and there are a lot of experts that are touting different cities and why. That’s also a good thing to look at.

I like Florida. Is there any specific city in Florida that is great right now?

It really depends. Obviously, Miami is very expensive so that’s not a great place right now, but if you start looking in Orlando, in Tampa, and the outskirts, a lot of times you can find things. Jacksonville, Florida. I was actually going to do a deal there that fell through but that’s a good place. A lot of people really like Jacksonville.

What about Texas?

Texas is great. Actually, I’m just buying right now in Texas. There are a lot of areas obviously. Places like in the main city of Dallas and Austin are harder places to buy in because whenever you’re in the main city, it gets pretty expensive pretty quickly.

That’s pretty cool. You buy it. You rent it. Do you rent it through a management company? Do you rent it through Airbnb? How do you do that?

There are different strategies you can do. It just depends on what kind of team you have and what kind of people you connect with. The property in Texas is going to be just completely managed. It’s a single-family home and it’s going to be rented by hopefully a nice family. Everything will be operated through Texas and I’ll just get a check every month.

Sounds so simple but isn’t.

In a lot of ways, it is. My main thing is, especially if you have money sitting around, if you want to wait a little bit for a correction in the market, that’s great, but definitely, you want to be buying real estate.

Anything is possible with the right connections. The key to life is your partnerships and who you choose as your spouse, friends, business partners, and clients. Share on X

Cool. I just want to go back to one thing you mentioned, which is house poor because I have a friend who just bought a house as an investment and now she’s freaking out that she doesn’t have all this money in the bank. Even though she’s got a good job, I’m not worried about her at all, but she has this loop in her ear, a freakout or a fear of ending as a bag lady or something, something that is not logical now that she does not have that money in the bank. How would you coach her?

The first thing I would do is look at the numbers on the property so that she can re-evaluate the reason why she made the decision. Probably, she got a good investment.

She did. She got an extraordinary investment. That is what she needs to hold it. Those holding years are scaring her.

All right. What I would say is what is it about the holding years that’s scaring her? And for her to look at what is it. What does it mean about holding? Because really, all she did was take her money out of the bank and put it into the property. That’s all she did. She still has the money. It’s just holding.

Now, if she bought it and if she was in a situation where she had to sell it right now because she needed the money and would lose the money, yeah there’s a risk there. That’s something that she definitely took a risk on, so she has to just own her decision at a certain point because the decision is made. If she has a good job, she can start building up that savings account again. That’s what I would focus on. I would just focus on building it up and not paying attention to what might go wrong and how it could go wrong and think of what could go right.

The same thing, what you talked about one that list of all the things that we were saying how look at your achievements. It’s the same thing. It’s like looking at all the things that could go right, which is that if she holds this for five years, she’s going to make a ton of money, that it’s going to be managed. When you first buy a property, sometimes it’s a little clunky because there are things that need to be worked out and things that need to be sorted, so it can be a little bit more challenging just like anything. Just like having a baby, doing whatever you do. It can be a little challenging at the beginning. It’s the same principle.

I would ask her to review her numbers and I would ask her what is it about holding. I would ask her if she can see the property as holding her money as opposed to the bank. I would ask her what her strategy is for her savings account and for building that back now. And I would ask her what is she concerned about going wrong that would create a situation where she would need to be worried about it because all of that is just projected worry right now. It’s not real. Anything can happen. We can walk out the streets today. We have fires and my house almost burned down last year. We can’t really live totally in a state of what if. We don’t know.

Wow. That was so powerful. I love it. I love everything that you said. Mostly, I really appreciate that you said she needs to own her decision. It’s the most important thing. Whatever you do, you have to own it. Just going back and forth to what if, and what if, and what if, and the fear of something will happen, it’s unnecessary. Whatever we do, if we made a mistake or we made a good decision, we need to own it because only when we own it, we take responsibility for what we do. We have true freedom, right?

Yeah. The thing is that I’m not going to say that I’m a master of owning all my decisions. I mean I have moments. We all do.

We all do but eventually, you have to come to a point where like, “Okay. I did that. Who did that? Somebody else? Did somebody force my hand to get into this relationship? Did somebody force my hand to go on that trip or do whatever I did? No.” Everything that you do is your own thing and you have to own it because you did it. Nobody else did it for you so own it because when you own it, you’re not a victim, and you take responsibility, and you feel like you’re a human. Nothing is done to you. You own the thing and then you feel strong and you have freedom.

Exactly. The thing is that your friend took a very bold move. She did bold action. She actually saw an opportunity to increase wealth in her life and took that step. It’s only human that she might look back a little and think, “Did I do the right thing?,” once in a while because she hasn’t had the rewards yet because you have to with investments. This is another really important thing. You have to think long term. You have to think of the vision. You have to think of the choices.

There are a couple of investments right now and I’m not that happy about them. They’re not real estate investments. They’re other investments I made so I might take a little loss on them and move on. It’s part of it. We don’t look at it like winning or losing. We look at it like we’re just in the groove of everything. You’re right. Own it, own it, own it, and live freely because there isn’t any power in questioning yourself all the time. It’s just no way to live.

It’s very simple. It’s like when a baby learns to walk. If they don’t fall all the time, they will never learn how to walk. If you just want to stay stagnant and not do the thing that you need to do or want to do because of fear, then you’ll never learn. Because yes, you will fall. You make an investment and you’re going to lose money and you’re going to that relationship and it’s going to suck. You’re going to do this business deal and it’s going to crash. It’s a part of life. That’s how you learn and that’s how you become better. You learn from contrast. That’s why we have a contrast in this universe. Light and dark. Day and night.  We learn through contrast. We cannot learn when everything is hunky-dory and everything is awesome. You never learn that way.

Also, one of the things that’s so great is that we live in a time where there’s so much support. In as much as we have so many things that are challenging in the way the world is right now, yet we live in an age of information. We live in an age where self-help is bigger than ever and where you can get support. You can hire coaches. You can get therapists. You can go to acupuncture. You can get a chiropractor. Whatever you need to support you. There are meditation classes. You can even go to a place that’s a meditation place now. They actually have businesses. There’s just so much. Wherever you feel stuck, just stretch yourself. That’s one thing I would say is stretch yourself.

Focus on your efforts, trust your intelligence, and have faith in the universe that you can create the life you want. Share on X

I love it. We have people like you that can help people who wants to invest, and want to learn more about money, and want to learn how to fix their money mindset and see the world more clearly when it comes to their relationship with money. For those people who are listening right now, how can they reach you, contact you, and learn from you?

Just go to my website at tamarhermesinternational.com and on there, you can schedule a time to speak with me. I’d love to hear about anybody and know wherever challenges anyone is facing. I love getting into it. I love helping and I love this work because I see that when money is healed, then all of life is healed in many ways.

Another quotable. This was an incredible conversation and tons of value that you shared with us and I really appreciate you. I appreciate that you are coming from a hard place that I’ve come through. You really care. Before we say goodbye for now, until next time, what are your three top tips to living a stellar life?

Awesome. I feel like we’ve touched on a couple of them as we went through the whole conversation but to sum it up, just keep your eyes open always no matter what happens. Just see what’s in front of you and don’t be afraid to discover and to know that it’s just a vast world filled with beauty, glory, and wonderful people to explore. Be determined. Know the kind of life that you want and don’t settle for any less. Just keep working towards it, be happy where you are right now, and keep the vision alive as well. You can create and have all the things that you want and all the life that you want. The third and probably the key to it all is love and love generously. I had a friend that actually passed away recently. It was really sad.

I’m sorry.

She was only 45 years old. It was very shocking. At her funeral, I just was listening and thinking about how do people remember you. We always talk about this. What do you want people to remember you by? Really, what the feeling was and what people talked about was how loving she was and how much she touched people’s hearts. I just remembered that’s what you leave behind for people. It’s really not about the money. It really isn’t. It’s just that we live in a world where we need to dance with money and working with it makes our lives so much more pleasurable. But really, love is really the richness.

So beautiful. And I’m sorry for your loss.

Thank you.

Thank you so much for sharing so much and sharing from the heart. Listeners, remember, don’t be afraid to discover and explore, don’t settle for less, love generously and have a stellar life. Tamar, thank you very much.

Thank you so much.

Your Checklist of Actions to Take

{✓} Create a healthy relationship with money. Don’t fear the acquisition of wealth, rather,  welcome the abundance and use it as an opportunity to help others.
{✓} Visualize your goal and be clear about what you want to accomplish. The clarity will help you choose the right path to take in life.
{✓} Continue exploring the things you want to do in life and unfold more about who you are so that your experiences, good or bad, can keep you guided.
{✓} Invest as soon as you can. Make sure that you are spending on assets rather than liabilities.
{✓} Find the silver lining in struggle and discomfort. These are the moments that will help you become better, stronger, and wiser. 
{✓} Take time to reflect on your life. List your achievements in the last couple of years and marvel at how far you’ve gone.
{✓} Focus on the three ways to grow wealth. Start a business, invest in the stock market, or go into real estate. 
{✓} Educate yourself about money. Learning about the essential financial terms and understanding what they do will give you more edge in increasing your wealth.
{✓} Evaluate your connections. Your peers can significantly affect your success. Choose them wisely.
{✓} Check out Tamar Hermes’ website for more information on how to become financially free and secure.

Links and Resources

About Tamar Hermes

From poverty to Wealth Warrior, Tamar Hermes has grown businesses and invested in Real Estate to reach financial independence. Now, she is on a mission to support other women to do the same.

 

 

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