Skeptic to Syndicator: Rochelle Petersen’s Multifamily Journey w/ Zach Rucker

Rochelle Petersen shares her journey into real estate with her son Cade, discussing education, networking, multifamily investing, long-term strategies, social impact, and key lessons for aspiring investors.

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Transcript

Multifamily Mindset podcast. Think bigger. Welcome to the Multifamily Mindset podcast where we bring you real stories, real strategies and real results to accelerate your multifamily investing journey. Tune in every Tuesday for student success stories, Thursdays for mindset mastery, Fridays for quick hitting multifamily minute episodes, and Wednesdays for high level insights on our own outcome. I'm so excited, guys for our guest today and a good friend. We had your son on previously. This is Rachelle Peterson with Growth Capital Investors. Rochelle, thanks so much for joining us and being on with our listeners today. 
S
Speaker 2
00:49
Thanks for having me. 
S
Speaker 1
00:50
Yeah, so let's let people know. I mean, your son was on here. Cade kid was on here just a couple months ago. And that was a fun interview. I loved having him on. And now we get to hear your side of it, the mother side of the story of, you know, your guys journey into multifamily and where did you come from? And we're going to dive into obstacles and so forth. So just give everyone a background of you and how you got into this space. 
S
Speaker 2
01:20
So it's, mostly actually started with Cade because I had been in a space where I was doing professional organizing.  I had started my own business and was able to do that around my kids and my husband and everything I needed to do at home. And I had already been like, kind of looking for something different, like pivoting in that business. But Cade was a senior in high school. He's still 17. And he was like, I don't want to go to college. I want to be a real estate investor. And I'm going, then how are you going to make money to be like, you don't have money. How are you going to be a real estate investor? You know, And I didn't really know much about real estate investing. 
S
Speaker 2
01:57
I mean, obviously it bought homes and you know, I knew about real estate, but not just the investing side specifically. So I panicked a little bit because I was like, this kid needs to. If he's not going to go to college, I got to find something productive for him to do, right? And he was just like going to go to just a local junior college, play basketball for fun because that's what his teammates were doing. They were all going to play basketball somewhere. But he was going to play basketball for basketball, not really for college. So I started looking for classes like, okay, what's real estate investing? Let me figure out something for him to learn so I can kind of encourage him to follow what he wants to do, but then it's still learning something, some kind of a skill, right? 
S
Speaker 2
02:38
So I stumbled across the ad and I found just like the little free night that you can come and learn about it, thinking that would be one place we would look and we would keep looking and just figure out what to do. And he was thinking house hacking, wholesaling, something like that to start. And when were sitting in there, he said, I want to do this. And I was like, okay, so if you want to go pay for this three day class, I'll pay half. Because I wanted him to say yes. I wanted him to have some skin in the game. I wanted to know, like, do you really want to do this? Like, are you willing to put money in it? So he's like, okay, fine, that's fine. 
S
Speaker 2
03:12
So went to the three day, and at the end of the three day, I said, okay, do you want to do this mentorship program or not? Because they've given us this blueprint, this booklet of how to do this, so we could struggle our way through and just try to do this on our own or what. The real value in this that I saw, personally, I'm sure everybody sees something different, but I was looking at it like, this is going to connect us with people all over the United States that are doing the same thing. So number one, it was connecting us to people. And then number two, it was gonna connect us with coaches. And so he was like, this is so. And he was willing to. 
S
Speaker 2
03:48
When they sent us outside, I don't know if they still do this, but they sent us outside to just call people. And I was like, I. Asking people for money, you know, I was like, no way. And he's out there on the phone calling people, and he's 17 years old still at this point at the class, right? And he had just graduated high school, he's still 17. Cause he hadn't turned 18 yet. And he was just calling people. And I was like, okay, well, if he's not scared to do this, how am I supposed to be? I mean, I'm older, I should not be scared, you know. So he was. He was an inspiration to me, obviously, because he wanted to do it. And I had been looking for doing something because my professional organizing was very. It's very physical. 
S
Speaker 2
04:23
I'm lifting things in people's homes and I'm organizing, you know, So I was like, I'm getting older. I can only probably do this five or ten more years where I'm physically doing this. I Want to do something that's different anyway. And it's running a business, right? Like raising money or buying property. It's. It's running a business. So I've run a business before. I understand loans. Like, he's coming from a place where he's never bought a home before, so he doesn't know what a variable interest rate or a fixed rate is. Right. Like, I had to explain some of those things because when you're starting this, when you haven't been in any kind of real estate, like, or never even bought a home or anything, maybe you don't know some of those things. Right? 
S
Speaker 2
04:58
So I was like, okay, I'm gonna do this with them, right? Like more as a supportive role. But by the end of that three day, I was like, I could do more than just being supportive. Like, maybe like, you know, so I kind of was. Got into it accidentally helping him, and then I ended up kind of jumping in full force, I guess. 
S
Speaker 1
05:16
Yeah. Wow, that's awesome. That's, that's really cool. I didn't know that about you guys. Is, is Kade wanted to jump in and do it and then you're just. Yeah, you're this there, right? You're trying to help your kid have a good, successful future. Hey, you're not going to go to college. Like, you're going to take some type of education or something, right. Kind of throw them out there to the world. And through that process, you're like, hold on, this is actually pretty interesting. And I think I can, I could jump in and do this. And that's awesome. I love that. So since then, you guys have been working as a partnership. How's, how's that aspect been as a mother, son, duo and working on this business? 
S
Speaker 2
05:58
Well, so it was a little bit of a struggle at first because, you know, like I was saying, he was playing basketball, going to college to play basketball. So when you're an athlete, you've got, you know, obviously your practices and games, but then they have study hall hours and then they have, you know, your class. And so it's like his schedule was totally dictated. He didn't have control over his schedule. And then I was still doing my organizing business with my sister. I partnered with my sister. And so I was trying to do it around my business and he's trying to do it around school. So we didn't have times that really matched up together. So were trying to work on things separate and then trying. So it just, it wasn't really working. And My husband ended up being the first. 
S
Speaker 2
06:39
Like, four months after we signed up, he was in the hospital four times and ended up having two surgeries in the hospital. One of them was emergency to the point where weren't sure if he was septic and was gonna pass away. Like, it was, like, very serious stuff going on. And in the meantime, were selling a home, buying a home, and I was out of the country for. At one point when he was in the hospital, I mean, it was just. It was really bad for a little bit. And it would have been, like, really easy for me to just be like, forget this. This is too much. Like, we already. We already have too much going on. 
S
Speaker 2
07:13
But once we got through, settled everything down and got him home, and through my husband, through all the different health things that were going on, we just. Like, at the end of that semester, like in December or January, I was like, I've gotta just. I had already been thinking about it, but I was like, I've just gotta cut out the organizing stuff. Like, it's just taking. I can't do stuff, start a new business when I'm still running this other business, just with all the personal stuff. I've four boys and the different things they're doing, even though some of them, you know, we're kind of in and out from college. So him and I talked in, like, January, and he. I said, we have to make more room. Like, I. I'm gonna. My sister's gonna take over, you know, his aunt. 
S
Speaker 2
07:54
I was like, she's gonna take over more of the organizing front, running the appointments and that kind of stuff. So I'm not interrupted a lot from that. And I'll just go help her on some jobs if she really needs help. But she's gonna try to take over a lot of it. And he said, well, I wanna. I wanna drop out, basically. But he'd already committed to the basketball team, so he couldn't really drop out till, like, February. But I was like, are you sure you don't wanna finish the semester? Cause we could still. It'll at least cut out your basketball time once that's over. And he's like, nope, I'm done. So it was like, February. We both were. By then, were both, like, 100% in. 
S
Speaker 2
08:25
Like, I was only working, organizing, like, an hour to a week dealing with stuff, and I would try to do it on the weekend. And then he completely dropped, you know, as soon as basketball geeks were over, he completely dropped his classes. So all day long, we just started. We are on all the education we could be and networking a ton. Like, just from on the calls with people. We would see people on there and we'd get together. They started getting. Asking us to get on calls. And so we started like, oh, okay, this is a great way to network. So we started networking a lot. And then went to peak in March, I think it was March. Yeah. And I felt like after that, it really blew up. Like, the networking and stuff totally blew up. 
S
Speaker 2
09:08
And so we had signed up in that summer before, in July, But I want to say, you know, it was until, like, February before we really started working hard on it. And I love the networking and love meeting all the people. Right. So that's easy for me. I was like, okay, just make appointments, talk to people all day long. Right. And education all day long. So we probably did, I want to say, from February till, like, May, were like, on calls all day long, whether they were educational or networking. We had one opportunity to get on a property that we turned down because we didn't like how the underwriting was, and we're not really sure that we liked the. What do you call them, value add things. And were. That was hard because we really wanted to get on something. 
S
Speaker 2
09:53
We felt like were getting to the point where we could learn. And so we had this other opportunity come up, and we felt better about the underwriting and about the team, and were both like, this is a better opportunity. And we had just gotten to the point where we felt like we knew enough that we could work on a property, but we hadn't. And we had started going to, like, networking in person, events near our house, like, real estate investing, and. But we hadn't had enough time to really set up our systems for all that. And then we got on this property, and all of a sudden it was like, we're running faster than, like, we could. It was like, oh, shoot. Like, I really wish we had more time, but we also didn't want to pass up the opportunity. 
S
Speaker 2
10:31
So we just sort of jumped in and tried to make it work. And I would say I probably would have rather had more of a database of people to capital raise from that I had talked to before, and not just my first time having to talk to him, try not to pitch a deal, but sort of pitch a deal because I was on a time limit. So, yeah, it just kind of happened. It happened faster because were putting more time in. We were spending all day doing that, you know. 
S
Speaker 1
10:59
Yeah. Yeah. 
S
Speaker 2
11:01
So. 
S
Speaker 1
11:01
Oh, okay. That was. That was a lot. That you covered a lot. So I wanted, I want. Oh, no, that was great. I, I didn't want to stop you because I love where you're heading with that. But I want for the listeners, like, let's go back and unpack some of that, right? There's a lot of things that happened me and you know, starting with. You got into this business working with your son. There was issues right off the gates of schedules that didn't line up. So in terms of the partnership and working on the business and trying to work together, like that was an issue, right? That was, hey, we gotta figure out what this obstacle and overcome this obstacle. And I think that's. 
S
Speaker 1
11:39
That happens to a lot of people is begin to with either family members or partners or people they just met and they try to work on this, but realize communication is a lot harder than just calling each other or texting these days or whatnot. It's hard and be able to work together in a partnership. So that piece was hard. And then not only that, you guys went and had some family issues with your husband and his health. I mean, I couldn't imagine what you guys were going through. How did you decide to. We're going to keep going with this because you're right. I mean, that was a four month period. That's an easy time. A lot of people would say it was. We lost all this time in our mentorship already and we got just too much going on. 
S
Speaker 1
12:30
We're not even able to work on this business together already. It's not working. We're done. Right? I, I would feel like a lot of people would do that. So like, what was going through your head and your mindset with that kept you just like, hey, no, we're gonna keep moving forward with this? 
S
Speaker 2
12:50
well, so I think having experienced a lot of health issues with my husband, I mean, I guess that's like kind of the biggest one. But not even just that hurdle like going back over my lifetime, you know. Like, my husband was an airline pilot before September 11 and about four years after September 11, they were going through so many furloughs and the airlines were going downhill. So we like started over at 30 years old and that just happened to be when I was pregnant with Kade at the time where he was my third. You know, I'm pregnant with my third. And he, and we're looking at, okay, he spent all this time doing flight school and getting hired in an airline. And is he really going to walk Away from this, Right. 
S
Speaker 2
13:33
And so it's like we had to completely start over, Right? And he. He decided to. There was a couple other things he was looking at, but he ended up doing, like, having his own business. So went and did that, moved back. So were on the east coast, moved back to the west coast, started over, right? So a few years later, 2008, housing crisis, we're like, okay, we're going to start over, buy a home in California. Then we end up losing the home. California, right. So I guess being in some very serious big situations before. And then after the 2008 crisis, within two, three years of that, he started having a ton of problems with his health. So we're like 14 years into. We've had some pretty big crisises with him. There's been years that have been okay. 
S
Speaker 2
14:22
And he has lupus, so it's. If anybody knows what lupus is, autoimmune diseases are up and down, and there's a lot of on and off problems. And so I think when I was probably around 40 years old, he'd been struggling for about four years. We got a diagnosis, he had lupus. And I remember wondering, like, okay, is he gonna make it? Because at the time, his. He was in and out of the hospital having seizures, like, all these different problems. Wasn't able to drive. So I'm trying to drive all my four kids to all their sports. None of them drive yet. I remember thinking, I can't do all of this. Like, I. Like, there's zero way I can do this. 
S
Speaker 2
14:58
And his parents ended up moving by us to help me get kids to where they needed to be and help me get Brent to his doctor's appointments and get him to work when he could work, that kind of thing. And I finally just had this moment where I was like, you know, my kids already have a dad that's sick, and they don't need to grow up with, oh, yeah, my dad was always sick, and my mom was always an emotional wreck or a mess or couldn't get her life together. Right. And so I think for me, you know, having to overcome some of these bumps in the road, it was like, I'm not going to do that. My kids deserve better than that. They deserve a healthy parent that works hard. And despite that. Right. 
S
Speaker 2
15:35
And my husband has worked really hard, too, even though he's had a ton of health challenges. And sometimes digging deep for your children or whatever your why is, can help you overcome that. And so I think reflecting back on those things, it would have been Easy to just be like, okay, we can't do this. Like, our life is too busy. But it was like, this is something Cade wants to do his whole life. And like he, all he wants to do is real estate investing. Like that's his goal. So. And for me, I was like really interested in it. And I'm like, we've made this commitment. We want to do it. We just have to figure out how. It's like, how would we do this? Right? It's like, what can we control? What can we not control? 
S
Speaker 2
16:18
Well, I can stop doing my organizing. Yes. I have to give up some of the income from that and make some changes with what we buy or spend money on. But then what do I get in the process? I get a different career. I get to meet all these people and then more connections because I'm spending more time on that. So it's like saying, you know, the whole thing, like saying yes to something means saying no to something else, right? Like say no to that, then you're saying yes to this. And so I think that's just. Does that answer your question? 
S
Speaker 1
16:51
Yeah. No. Thank you for sharing. I mean, one, you're amazing. You're an amazing mother, amazing person to have to go through those trials and issues and everyone's got their own journey in life and struggles. But you know, it just shows that like you made, you chose that mindset one because you're kind of forced to at sometimes in your life, but you still chose that, right? A lot of people can still crumble in situations, but you chose to be. Have the stronger mindset, this more growth oriented mindset instead of this fixed, hey, we're struggling, we have issues. This negative mindset circle, right? You could have just continued down that road. Instead you flipped it around and said, no. Like we're gonna not only survive, but we're gonna thrive in this. 
S
Speaker 1
17:44
We're gonna figure out the way around it and it's not gonna be like this forever. Right? And I think that's just, that's very powerful that you have that to go on, but you have that mindset that it's just gonna continue to push you forward. There's nothing that's gonna stop you guys now. It's, it's going forward right in that. And that's such a cool lesson. I think for Cade to even have you be that support behind him of, hey, this is what you want to do. Like, we're going to make this happen. Let's figure out how to do that. And so you coming to the table and saying, okay, it's been. A lot's going on, but let's figure out this. Like, this is. We're going to figure this out and move forward with it. And you're right. 
S
Speaker 1
18:26
You made sacrifices after you've already been dealing with a lot of obstacles and sacrifices, he decided to make more to continue this trend of growth. Right. And I, that's. That speaks volumes. And so, I mean, that's awesome. Thank you for sharing that piece. Okay, so that was obstacles section of what your, your story so far, very powerful from there, you know, working with Kade. You guys, you guys took those sacrifices of, hey, I'm going to switch things up in my business. Hey, I'm dropping out of school. I love that he, you know, he's very committed. Right? It's shown you guys are committed. You jump in almost full time into this business to figure it out. And, and not only that, he didn't just figure it out immediately. Right. It took, it took time. 
S
Speaker 1
19:19
It took a process to do that. But you guys were committed to it every day in and day out to learn to network, build those relationships, continue learning and find the right opportunity and not just jump at the first opportunity because a clock's ticking. It's. We're in this for the long haul. And this is what I gathered from that is like, we're in this for the long haul. Let's figure this out and let's make the choices that is going to keep us moving forward in the right direction. And yes, there's some leaps of faith in there is you jump into opportunities thinking that, yeah, we could do this, and then you're realizing, wait, hold up, I'm not ready yet. I, I need it. I need, I need to be more prepared. 
S
Speaker 1
20:01
But you don't realize until you take action sometimes, so move into that piece is like, let's take action. Let's just continue to take action. That's what you guys have done. Yeah, it was a slow start for you guys, but that wasn't from the lack of action. That was, that was obstacles in your way, saying, no, we're not. You're not going to do this. And then you guys saying, you know, yes, we are. We're going to do this. We're going to figure how to do this business. And then from there just, yeah, I mean, moving forward. I love that. Awesome. Okay. Did I miss any? I don't know if I missed A part of that. But that's awesome. So you guys. Okay, sorry, pause. 
S
Speaker 1
20:43
Moving forward, you guys found a deal and you guys move forward with that deal. You like the partnership? You like the deal, how it looked under and you started to move forward and you guys were able to be successful and be partners on that deal and close on it, right? Yeah. That's awesome. So congrats to you guys and how's it going? I know we're touching base a little bit before this. So how's that property going now? How are you guys closed on it? 
S
Speaker 2
21:12
Better than expected, which we already expected it was going to be good. So we're excited about that. We. We got on early enough that were able to go do the initial due diligence the summer like in June. And then we flew out again. It's in Georgia, so we flew out again. Was it like mid October? So it for me, like being there in person and just being there from the beginning was like I was able to learn the whole time. Right. And that was kind of the big thing for us is we wanted to get on a deal that we could work on and we could learn. And so that's why went with a specific sponsor because the first sponsor wasn't. It didn't seem like were going to be able to do as much on that. 
S
Speaker 2
21:52
And it was important for us to be more involved in and learn. And so it's been fun to, you know, be on the property management calls and kind of be able to hear what's going on each week. And our property manager is awesome. She's like pushing rents more than we projected and numbers are looking really good and she's really good at closing. People come in and so it's just been fun to kind of see it be successful already and then learn from people that have experience. So. 
S
Speaker 1
22:25
Yeah, that's awesome. That, that's awesome. Especially in this type of market, you know, some deals have struggled over the few years and the fact that you guys were able to jump in and this deal is already doing better than expected. I mean, that's great. You guys found a good deal and great team to work with. So that's exciting for you guys. So how has things you guys are learning through this now? Now kind of where are you guys headed now that you guys have closed your first deal and you're learning a bunch towards the tradition of the business? 
S
Speaker 2
23:01
Well, it's funny because I feel a little bit like I want to do Everything now because we go to a lot of real estate events and meet a lot of real estate people, which I feel like has been really good for education and talking to investors because I understand a lot more about wholesaling or fix and flipping or you know, rent to own or different, the way different investors are doing Airbnbs, whatever. And so it's been fun to. But the problem is that I want to do all of them. So. But I decided I really want to learn more about RV parks. So I took a course for that and I've partnered up with someone else. Kate and I both have different interests outside of multifamily. So he's pursuing wholesaling on the side and I'm pursuing RV parks on the side. 
S
Speaker 2
23:46
And so I have a different partner with that. But it's, I feel like with multifamily, you know, like once you've done that underwriting, you understand the underwriting, it's really easy to kind of pivot to self storage or RV parks or home parks or whatever, you know, in that realm. And so we're, we're, we still want to do multifamily, but. And we're trying not to be a squirrel and take off and do all the different things. And he's kind of learning that one and I'm kind of learning the RV parks. And so future, we're still going to do multifamily, but we want to learn more things too. So. 
S
Speaker 1
24:22
Yeah. Okay. So that kind of leads, you know, leads me into like the next question of like what is the long term vision look like for you guys in this company? You guys have started, you know, what does that look like now you have these interests to peak and I get that, you know, I, I think RV parks are cool or storage units or even like car washes. Like there's so many different ways and different investments. Once you get into it really opens your eyes that. Oh yeah, like there's so many things we could do that's exciting and that you can be passionate about and that's what's important. But so what does that like, you know, long term vision or just like your guys's purpose, you know, what's that? I guess I'll scale it down real quick. 
S
Speaker 1
25:04
Or what's that legacy you want to build through this, you know, multifamily RV parks or this business venture for, you know, yourself or your family for Cade. What does that look like? 
S
Speaker 2
25:16
Well, I do want to have enough properties going or enough different things going that just funds my retirement, but long term goals for me, I would love to get to the point where there's enough money that I feel comfortable because I don't know if my husband will go out on disability or pass. I do believe he will pass younger than most people. So for me, it's like I want to be able to not be a burden to my kids. I want to have enough in retirement. I don't feel like I'm at that point right now. So first for me, not being a burden to my kids, and second, you know, making sure that they have enough for all the dreams that they have. You know, my oldest wants to be an airline pilot. My second one wants to own his own business. 
S
Speaker 2
25:55
He's in, you know, college playing lacrosse and wants to. He's. He's either going to invent something like Steve Jobs or something, or, you know, I don't know, he's just, he's gonna do something big, I think. But. And then Cade with his realms, you know, I want them all to have the support and the help that they need financially, you know, emotionally, all those things. But if I get to the point where I feel like, okay, they. And what's enough? Right? That's a hard answer. But enough to where they're making, they're doing their own successful things and then we've got enough to do the things we want to travel and things like that. I would really have a big heart for sex trafficking, like child trafficking, an organization that I really like. 
S
Speaker 2
26:37
So that would be a big long term goal, is to get to the point where I'm spending time and money to help that. But yeah, I mean, I think for Cade it's more like he wants to, Even though he's 19, he wants to have family and do all those things. And for me it's more like maybe some generational wealth like leaving. But I do believe that children need to learn to work themselves and not just have those things handed to them. So when I say generational wealth, it's more like teaching them the responsibility of that at the same time. Right. Like if you do have access to the money and wealth that you use that in a responsible way and not just become waiters where they wait around for money. 
S
Speaker 1
27:23
Yeah. Yep. Yeah, exactly. No, but I think you've done well with that from what I've heard so far. Have them just get out there and grinding. Especially Cade, you know, jumping on my phone calls on his own. Right. And just attacking it and going after what he wants. Right. That's awesome. So, I mean there's so much lessons to learn from just your story so far. What if you could go back? Like, what are, what's some advice you can start giving some newer investors coming into this space for them and their journey? Like what? I guess. Yeah. What would you have done? Yeah. What advice would you give if you were starting out again? 
S
Speaker 2
28:09
So I actually talked to new students quite a bit, I feel like. But I always tell them that the sponsor is important and I know that some people will say, oh, you got to build your team and but I think like the sponsor is just as important, if not more important to know that they have, they want to buy in the same place you are or you know what they're looking for. But at the same time, I don't think you should bug sponsors until your education is high enough that you aren't a newbie. Right. Like, you know, you've done the classes, you need to do the four week course. Especially like you shouldn't be reaching out or trying to bug sponsors until you're at a point where you could. And that's going to take a different amount of time for everybody. But. 
S
Speaker 2
28:49
So I do think sponsors are really important. I also think rebranding yourself if you're not already in real estate, I feel like I wish I had done more of that, posting more about what I'm doing because it's like when you, everybody's like, oh, you're a professional organizer. What do you know about real estate? It's like, oh my gosh, I've been like, that's all I've been doing is consuming information and being in class and asking questions. And I've learned so much, but no one knows that, right. Unless I shared that. So, so I think it's important to learn what you need to learn, figure out the sponsors that you want to work with. And capital raising, I would say is important because I feel like everybody needs to be able to do capital raising. 
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Speaker 2
29:34
Even if you're not like the main person or you know, you should. Even if you just want to do underwriting, you need to be able to talk to people in your circle too. Right. Like, so it doesn't fall on just one person in a group or two people in the group that have to do it all. So even if, and I would say, I mean, it's hard to say, oh, this isn't the most important thing you need to learn. But even though we do a lot of capital raising, we had to learn underwriting. So we explain the deal. Right. Like, so when you're trying to capital raise, if you don't understand the numbers or understand the deal, then it makes it difficult to talk to investors. So maybe you start a database. 
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Speaker 2
30:12
I wish I had started a database where every time I talk to someone, I didn't do that until were starting to really talk to people. So then I had to think about like, who did I mention the step to I was talking to. So, you know, so everybody you talk to and then read books about how to approach people if you're uncomfortable about it. I really liked Hunter Thompson's book and how it talked about, you know, starting your capital raise and stuff like that. So. 
S
Speaker 1
30:39
Okay, nice. 
S
Speaker 2
30:40
So. 
S
Speaker 1
30:41
Yeah, yeah, no, a lot, you know, I mean a lot of good points. Is one, educate yourself. I mean that's the first point and that's why you guys get into this or think about it is you got to educate yourself. You got to be knowledgeable in the business and then from there it's starting to network. Yeah. Rebrand yourself that you're doing multifamily or multifamily investor and then start building those relationships with one, talking to people in your network. So just opening your mouth. That's why I like to say just open your mouth, share it. And then on top of that is build strategic relationships with experienced operators, your sponsors that you can learn from, that you can partner on deals with and get opportunities like that to grow from there. And yeah, keep it, keep record. 
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Speaker 1
31:29
Keeping record of people that you talk to is important for sure. Especially when it comes down to do a deal, you gotta do the prep work. You gotta be, you know, planting the seeds in those relationships and keeping track of where you planted those seeds. So you don't know where to water. Right. So yeah, keeping focus on that. Yeah, those are all great, great lessons for those. And then what's along those lines of kind of lessons from this is what was like, I guess unexpected or shifted kind of your perspective when you jumped into multifamily. 
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Speaker 2
32:12
I would say learning that you don't have to have. I don't know how to explain. Like when were in the three day class, for me what was pivotal was like, okay, I don't have tons of experience and tons of money to do this. There are more creative ways and more just, it shifted my whole perspective on money and investing and everything. You know, I think, you know, I was, when I was growing up, I was taught to save Money, not invest money. And when you have one financial crisis after another, like, starting a career over, like I mentioned, and went through the 2008 crisis and lost her home. And, you know, so it was like, we've already started over financially a couple times. And so it's like, I. 
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Speaker 2
33:00
It just opened up to, like, okay, there are other ways besides just working and making money and trying to save, to build wealth and to, like, I can do this with work. I don't have to come in with a ton of money to be able to buy the things that. RV parks or multifamily buildings. Right. 
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Speaker 1
33:21
Yeah. I love that. It does. It's a great shift in just perspective of opening your. Your mind to just investing in general and the power of that and what the wealthy do. It's just shifting your mindset out of that, the saving mentality and into that other. Other world that a lot of people don't. Don't really realize it's there. Awesome. So I want to move to the last questions. I like to call it think bigger questions. It's the last three questions I'll ask you, and the first one is, how do you choose to think bigger? 
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Speaker 2
33:58
I feel like that just kind of has to do with perspective. When you're presented with the problem, it's like, okay, what can I do versus what? What can I control in this situation? What can I not control? I can control my attitude. I can control what I spend time on. You know, those kinds of things. I can ask around on how to solve a problem if I don't know how to myself. So I think having the perspective of when, you know, obstacles come up or different things happen, you're able to adjust and take the steps needed. 
S
Speaker 1
34:37
Just like, being resourceful. 
S
Speaker 2
34:39
Yeah. Perspective comes down to perspective, I think. 
S
Speaker 1
34:42
Perspective. Yeah. Yeah, I love that. Okay, awesome. And then how do you define success? 
S
Speaker 2
34:49
Well, I teach my kids. You know, it's like the whole thing where they say, you know, it doesn't matter how many times you get knocked down, it matters how many times you get up. Right. And they talk about, like, you know, my kids play. A couple of them did basketball. And it's like, you know, how many shots did you never take? Right. Like, you're gonna miss some, but if you didn't even take the shot, then you missed it anyway. Right? 
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Speaker 1
35:12
Yeah. Yeah, I love that. I'm a basketball person as well, so that's. That resonates really well with me, for sure. I just started thinking back to, like, high school. Okay. What shots did I miss? Or I didn't take. Because I missed. Because I didn't take them. So. 
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Speaker 2
35:28
But if you look at, like, Kobe, like, he's, you know, he was. He missed mo the most shots ever or whatever, but, like, he also made the most. You know what I'm saying? It's like he has the biggest amount of shots he missed, but look how great of a player he was, you know, so. 
S
Speaker 1
35:43
Yeah. Yeah, that's great. Okay, last question. What is the best advice you can give multif family investors? And I know we kind of just went over this question, but I guess can sum it up. 
S
Speaker 2
35:54
What's the somebody that's gonna invest in a property or that somebody's a student. 
S
Speaker 1
35:58
A student. Someone new, jumping into the space, trying to. Trying to invest into multifamily, buy their own properties, be a part of this. 
S
Speaker 2
36:08
I think underwriting is important. Like, you would want to understand the numbers, right? Whether you're going, like, sourcing the deal yourself or if you're being asked to be on a deal. Like, you need to understand the numbers and not just jump in just because you want to get on a deal. You know, most people are honest and are being. Are, you know, experienced. I mean, they say they're experienced. They are, but then not everybody knows all the ins and outs of that. Right? So being cautiously optimistic and making sure, you know numbers. 
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Speaker 1
36:44
Yes. Love that. And you're speaking my language. Know the numbers. If everyone listens to me in the podcast, you know, I love the numbers and the spreadsheet, so perfect. Awesome. Well, this was great there. I mean, there's so many lessons to take from this. So listeners, please go back, rewind, relisten to this. Relle. You're amazing. You have amazing story. A lot of, you know, mindset principles throughout this and just endurance and. And perspective that you've. You've done and. And shown. I think it's awesome. So look. Yeah, and so with that, if. If you guys want to get a hold of Relle or Cade, you know, connect with them, reach out to them, their. Their information will be in the show notes. They're awesome people to connect with, and they love doing it, right, love connecting with new people. So reach out to them. 
S
Speaker 1
37:39
And I mean, with that, Rochelle, thanks so much for jumping on and sharing your story and your side of it. I really appreciate it and I enjoyed this. So hopefully, listeners, you guys have well, and if you like this, please, like, share this episode, rate it, review, whatever it is, and we'll see you guys next time. Multifamily mindset podcast. Think bigger.