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Podcast Transcription
Dave Dubeau [00:00:09] Everyone, this is Dave Dubeau with another episode of the property Profits Real Estate podcast today, zooming in all the way from Tulsa, Oklahoma. We have a very, very accomplished real estate entrepreneur, accomplished podcast host and a medical doctor doing all of this stuff, all at the same time. Felecia Froe. How are you doing today, Felecia?
Felecia Froe [00:00:32] I’m doing well, Dave, how are you?
Dave Dubeau [00:00:34] Fantastic. Well, thank you. Sure. So first of all, where the heck do you get the time to do all of this stuff at the same time? I mean, most of the doctors I know that said more than a full time gig there in there, you know, rolling up their sleeves.
Felecia Froe [00:00:52] All right. Yeah.
Dave Dubeau [00:00:54] And then you’re syndicated deals. You’re doing podcast right books. You’re a very, very busy lady. So how do you find time to do all of that?
Felecia Froe [00:01:02] For a very long time, I was doing all of those things together, I recently, well, about three years ago, I went part time in my practice. And then most recently, I actually have stopped practicing full time and even I’m very, very part time and just doing travel urology at this time. So now full time real estate investing, podcasting, book, writing, all of those things, and I think about medicine more than I do medicine these days.
Dave Dubeau [00:01:29] So Felicia, I find this fascinating because a lot of people have this image that, hey, doctors have it made financially, like why the heck would somebody is pulling in Dr. Money be interested in real estate investing? So how did that whole journey start for you?
Felecia Froe [00:01:49] That’s a good question. Yes. And I’ve been asked that question before because everybody does think you make plenty of money. Why are you doing anything? Why do you work so hard to do all these other things? And it started for me back almost just right after I started in practice when I realized that I’m going to have to be on this treadmill for the rest of my life unless I figure something else out. And it was it was within that first five years that I knew that medicine probably wasn’t going to be the last thing that I was ever going to do. It took me over 20 years to figure out exactly what it is I want to do with the real estate and how that played a big part. And it does play a very big part. And the reason I now do it and teach people about it, especially doctors, is because we all need to have other options for income. Multiple streams of income is the way to be because it gives you options when you’re tired of doing whatever you’re doing or you just don’t want to do it that day. Or you just like, OK, I’m fed up with medicine and I can leave because I’ve got these other streams of income coming in, or I kind of don’t want to do medicine or I like doing it, and I know I don’t have to do it. So it makes you like it even more because you know, you can chuck it if that’s what you want. So it’s more that wanting to have other options and realizing very early in my career that I needed to have other options.
Dave Dubeau [00:03:14] Yeah, that makes sense because, you know, at the end of the day, a doctor is basically self-employed or an entrepreneur. If you’re stuck practicing, you stop making any money. There’s not exactly paycheck there. So alluding to Rob Break is soggy and rich. Dad, poor dad, even doctors in the rat race, they’re making a hell of a lot of money at it. Yeah, but everybody else, but still, if they stop, the money stops coming here. All right. So you kind of clued in fairly early in your career that you wanted to be looking at some other income sources. How did you get this flash across your radar? Why did you choose that there’s a ton of different ways to create passive income? Why do you prefer real estate?
Felecia Froe [00:04:00] Well, it’s very that’s also very interesting as a position that, you know, we see patients. One of my patients came in and she was young and she didn’t have to struggle getting our appointments. Like, You have to tell me what time to come and I’ll come. So I ask her, What do you do? And she goes, I’m a real estate investor, so I got interesting. We spent most of that next appointment and several of her next appointments after that taught me about real estate investing. The way I bought my first house is that she went with me to look at it. We looked at it. We walked out, she said. Look, if you don’t buy this house, I’m going to buy it. If you buy it, I’ll let you use my crew to rehab it. If you buy it, rehab it and can’t rented or are losing money, I’ll buy it from you. I was like, OK, that sounds like a no lose. So I guess I better do it. And it was back in the day when you could get simple loan and it was a V a Super Bowl, and all I had to put down was five hundred bucks. Wow. Yeah, that and that wasn’t the 1990s, either. You guys, which wasn’t you. It wasn’t this century.
Dave Dubeau [00:05:01] Wow, which is so cool, so you started out with single family homes. What were you doing, what you doing by an old? Were you doing flips?
Felecia Froe [00:05:07] What did you buy and hold? It all started for me after I read Robert Kiyosaki book Rich Dad, Poor Dad and understood assets and understood that as a physician, I really am in the rat race and I’m running the wheel just like everybody else. So it was it all started for me with that purple book, too. So yes, we did. We got like 18 properties in about two years, single family houses, and we thought we knew what we were doing until 2008. 2009 came along and we were not well capitalized and our properties, we were doing a lot of rehabs. The plan was to buy and hold, but we bought crap that needed to be rehabbed a lot. And so we can’t. We lost everything. We lost all of it after digging a deep hole, trying to save it all. It was rough. It was really tough. But after you know, you get back on your feet, the real. I realized that it wasn’t real estate that was a problem. It was my brain and how I thought about it. That was the problem. So took more classes, got mentors, figuring it out. Ever since, it’s a continual figure out. As you know, David, you always there’s always something new to learn and start doing syndications and ultimately got to. So I’ve done a lot. I’ve done quite a few syndication or different kinds of multifamily resort property, just different things that were OK, but just didn’t feed me and didn’t make me feel really happy inside. And then I learned about residential assisted living, which has a purpose. You know, there’s a mission behind that, to me, a social mission behind that, where you’re giving people a great place to live. It’s great financially also. So that’s what I really got into my money with mission and realizing that I want to do real estate investing and business investing that has a social impact of improving more than just my bottom line, but other people’s lives also.
Dave Dubeau [00:06:57] But at the same time, it is contributing to your bottom line so you’re not on the rent purely social Typekit things. You’re looking at social with a profit side to it as well.
Felecia Froe [00:07:07] Absolutely. Social capital is what we’re where we look at as how we are termed is a social capital is we. We can solve a lot of problems as capitalist and make money for ourselves and our investors, as well as improve the community. One of the things I’m doing here in Tulsa is we’re opening in grocery stores and food deserts and doing hydroponic growing indoor controlled farming to bring fresh fruits and vegetables, mostly vegetables, to an area that does not have a lot. They get their vegetables shipped from California, Mexico, Arizona, all these places where we have a lot of water problems and we’re approaching a lot of water problems. We don’t talk about very often in our country, but this indoor controlled farming uses much less water, doesn’t degrade the soil, grows food much faster and will be local so you can get your food within 250 miles as opposed to from California, Arizona, Florida. So that’s what I’m doing here in Oklahoma.
Dave Dubeau [00:08:06] Very, very cool. Very cool. All right. So let’s rewind. You went through that crap storm, and in 2007 2008, you lost everything. You built up a significant portfolio, you know, 18 properties in that time. So that’s a painful loss, but you didn’t. Most people would kind of stop there. But you’re a very, very wise you realized, Hey, the problem isn’t the economy or that the situation, while that is a problem, but it was more how you thought about how you had it. So how did that transition from single family homes into bigger, different vocations happen for you? How did you clue in that? That’s what you wanted to do?
Felecia Froe [00:08:45] Interesting. I believe my accountant at the time recommended. So you need more deductions now? Sufficiently make money, so you got to figure out a way to save more taxes. So she introduced me to a group. The real estate guys who shows people different markets explains different things about real estate investing. I started working with them, traveling with them, seeing their things from single family homes again. But then I was introduced to syndication through them, and that’s how I learned about the big hours. Like, if you want to do big deals, you’ve got to raise big money and that’s through syndication. So I went through a mentoring program with them. And that’s why I took it off.
Dave Dubeau [00:09:28] Interesting, so for people that aren’t familiar with it, what does syndication mean to you?
Felecia Froe [00:09:34] Syndication means giving the average person and I consider myself an average person the ability to own something really big. It’s accumulating or raising money from individual investors who want to invest in real estate but don’t want to manage their real estate, don’t want to be a part of a business, don’t want to be in the business of managing real estate, but they want to have that as part of their portfolio tax benefits, all those things that come with it. So they invest with the syndicator and we raise millions of dollars to buy those gigantic apartment complexes that you see or malls that you see or hotels. All those things are. Probably owned by a whole bunch of different individuals, and they’re making money on them.
Dave Dubeau [00:10:20] All right. Very, very cool. So that first syndication deal? How did you get started with raising capital from these individuals? How did what were your record? What were kind of your first steps?
Felecia Froe [00:10:32] It was scary. It was my friend kicking me in the rear and saying, Just get out there and do it. I started with people that I knew so I can screw up when I go and start talking to them. And I mean, those people that I knew and had, I’m going to say they had respect for me. They knew what I was doing and where I was going and what I was working to do. So talking to them raised my first 50000. I thought, Oh my gosh, somebody just gave me $50000. And it was just a matter of it’s not working for me. It was networking, meeting people, talking to people, understanding them, having them understand me so that know, like and trust. And it’s become that is still scary to me to take people’s money. It really is. I worry about losing their money and it’s stressful. So I would say, and actually the syndicators that I know, it’s fairly stressful to take other people’s money, and I think that’s a good thing because we want to protect it. So it was it’s been networking for me, I don’t have a secret formula, it’s all about getting my name out there, getting to know more people and raising money that way.
Dave Dubeau [00:11:41] Very cool. Very, very interesting. I know. You know, you’ve written books and you’ve got a podcast now. I would imagine that’s been quite helpful for getting to know more people.
Felecia Froe [00:11:50] It is helpful. Is very helpful. It’s actually the part that I like the most is getting to know people and understanding where they’re trying to go with their finances.
Dave Dubeau [00:11:58] And it makes a lot of sense because they these yeah, time flies when we’re having fun, that’s for sure. So very, very interesting about what you’re up to, what you’re raising capital for these days. You know, the combination of real estate, residential assisted living, plus you’re doing these
Felecia Froe [00:12:17] indoor controlled farms and grocery stores and food deserts,
Dave Dubeau [00:12:21] food deserts. So I never heard that term before, but it’s basically exactly what it says, right? You have to import everything. Nothing grows locally. So you’re creating farms where there weren’t farms before and doing it indoors.
Felecia Froe [00:12:33] It is, but that is one definition, but also with the grocery stores. It’s a grocery store in a food desert where there has not been a grocery store. There is not a grocery store within a certain distance. So the people in the neighborhood where we put our grocery store. They’ve not had a grocery store for about 10 years. They shop at Dollar General Dollar Store.
Dave Dubeau [00:12:52] These communities are parts of
Felecia Froe [00:12:55] this is part of Tulsa, Oklahoma. North Tulsa is a food desert. So we’ve built a 16000 square foot grocery store. We’re about to open next week. It’s pretty. It’s all pretty exciting. Yeah, I know nothing about running a grocery store. I’m learning a lot.
Dave Dubeau [00:13:12] Well, that’s one thing I could tell about you. You’re not afraid to take on new challenges. That’s wonderful. Yes. So, Felicia, people want to find out more about you and maybe connect with you. What should they do?
Felecia Froe [00:13:22] Go to money with the mission icon and we’ve got some things on there. You can download my seven steps to building resilient wealth. That’ll be great. If you want to just email me, you can email me at Felicio with that money with mission icon. That’s F. Frank, L. e CIA at money with Mission Accom. And you can do that through the website, too. You can get in touch with me very easily. Money with mission dot com.
Dave Dubeau [00:13:48] Very good. Thank you very much for the interview and all the best for these fantastic social endeavors.
Felecia Froe [00:13:55] Thank you so much, Dave. Thanks a lot.
Dave Dubeau [00:13:57] All right, ready. Take care and we’ll see you on the next episode. Bye. Well, hey there. Thanks for tuning into the property Profits podcast if you’d like this episode. That’s great. Please go ahead and subscribe on iTunes. Give us a good review. That’d be awesome. I appreciate that. And if you’re looking to attract investors and raise capital for your deals, that mean invite you to get a complimentary copy of my newest book Right Back There. There it is the money partner formula. You’ve got a PDF version, an investor attraction book dot com again investor attraction, book dot com. Take care.