So I'm finally here, hoping to regularly document my progress to success! It's been over 2 years since Cisco and I got involved with real estate. Why real estate? Well, if anyone knew me before I got involved with real estate, this career would be a very far cry from what I thought I would actually be doing.
My career outside of real estate:
When I graduated from Drexel in June 2004, I was able to line up a nice cushy job as a Strategic Planning Analyst @ Canon USA in Long Island, NY. I got that job because of an application I submitted to the person who would be my boss, Chuck Biczak. He graduated from Drexel with an MBA in Marketing and I guess we clicked, in addition to the fact that we were both Drexel alumni.
My father passed away in February 2005 and around this time, I was going through a lot- knowing that I was not in a place that I wanted to be in my life. I was very stressed at work and knew that climbing the corporate ladder was not where I wanted to be. Other jobs that I worked included event planning for a company in NY, which I really enjoyed. However, Cisco proposed to me on Christmas 2005 and I knew that our plans were for me to move back to Philly.
So what sparked the career change?
In June 2006, about 3 months prior to Cisco and I getting married, he got laid off from his job. We were both worried about everything, since we had a multitude of expenses coming up shortly, but I was confident that nothing bad would happen. Thankfully, he was able to find a job within the company to hold him over for about 2 more years, but at that point, we both realized that we needed to make a change. We both couldn't work a 9-5 job, relying on someone else to mess up the plans we have for ourselves. Cisco getting laid off was the kick-start we needed in order to push us to see what we need to do outside of what we've been doing for SO LONG... working for other people and being an EMPLOYEE!
Randomly, while I was on the shuttle bus to my job @ GPUAC (the non-profit I worked for), I glanced at somebody's Metro Newspaper, and noticed an ad for a "free live training" event hosted by the company Rich Dad Poor Dad. We attended that free live training event and saw so many things in real estate that we have never heard of. Francisco was always interested in real estate, but only after getting laid off and attending the live training event, we saw it as an opportunity for us to earn a living.
Fast forward to 2010!
So since we saw the training in October 2006, I worked at GPUAC until December 2007. Some deals that we've settled on can be found here:
So now why do I want to blog?
I know this will be a challenge for me at first, to get the time to write about my success and failures on a regular basis. But the purpose of me doing this is to 1) empower young women so that they feel confident that being a women means that you can't be a successful real estate investor. For me, I find it really hard to find women that have similar interests as me, with similar backgrounds. I love traveling, philanthropy, fashion, art, architecture, food, photography, etc. As a Filipino American from NY, there are so few people that I feel truly connected with- that want the same things out of life as me!
Now I will never find a perfect match- but what I do want is to inspire someone- anyone, and make him/her feel that being successful/entrepreneurial is within their reach.
I feel like many women I know do not truly understand what it means to be "financially free" and that the traditional way of earning a living is the only option- anything outside of that is just too risky and for people who are "not smart enough to secure a steady high-paying job."
Cisco and I decided that our time is more valuable than working at a high-paying job. However, that does not mean, we want to be poor. The way we want to earn our living is through different streams- real estate being 1 of them. There are other opportunities that we have considered to supplement our real estate income that we still plan to pursue- but so far, we have received the most income through our real estate business.
So... here I am, wanting to share with you all- my ups and downs of where I am with real estate and why this has become such a huge part of who I am in the past 2 years! Wish me luck- my goal with this blog is to empower women, keep me on track and eventually be able share with women the different streams of income so that my imprint on this world/others will be as large as my mind will allow it to be!
