Unlock Financial Freedom Through Strategic Investments

What would life look like if you started investing in your early 20's?

Welcome back to "Inspired To Invest". This week, Gabriella Godde is with us for episode 76. To watch rather than listen, click here.

Tune in to discover the incredible wealth-building journey of Gabriella Godde, a distinguished figure from Palmdale, California. Gabriella brings over 25 years of mortgage industry expertise to our latest episode.

Gabriella’s story is one of resilience and transformation, beginning with challenging early experiences in real estate that taught her valuable lessons in property management and financial empowerment.

As she takes us through her expansive portfolio, which spans California to Mexico, Gabriella reveals the strategic use of credit and financial options that have propelled her success.

She shares personal anecdotes that illuminate the benefits of homeownership, offering listeners a window into how her family's influence has shaped her real estate approach.

Tune in to garner invaluable insights as Gabriela delves into practical real estate investment strategies, emphasizing the transformative power of FHA 203K loans for both newcomers and seasoned investors.

She highlights strategic steps for building a robust portfolio and offers practical credit management tips, such as leveraging parental support to boost children's credit scores.

Gabriela’s vision extends beyond financial gain, focusing on maintaining family connections and realizing personal aspirations through future ventures.

Experience firsthand the inspiring impact of real estate investments on financial freedom and lifestyle enhancements, underscoring the critical role of sales skills and strategic property investments in achieving success.

To connect with Gabriella, go to @gabriellagodde or https://californiamortgagegirl online.

“Inspired to Invest” is proud to support the Beyond Success Program, a not-for-profit financial literacy program for students, launched by More To Give & MAK Investments. Find out more at @more2give.ca.

Join us again on Jan. 15 for our next episode!

Thank you for tuning into “Inspired To Invest”, hosted by Serena Holmes & remember, "when you invest in yourself, the sky's the limit!"

Chapters

• 0:03 Real Estate Investing Success and Challenges
• 13:04 Real Estate Investing Strategies and Advice

Transcript

Serena Holmes: 0:03

Hey everybody, welcome to Inspired to Invest. I've got Gabriela Godey here with me from Palmdale, california. She's a wealth builder with more than 25 years experience in the mortgage industry, working with customers ranging from first-time homebuyers to self-employed entrepreneurs and investors. She specifically loves facilitating financing to help clients achieve their goals of home ownership or real estate investment. So thank you for taking time out of your day today. How are you Wonderful? Thank you for having me, serena, so obviously you're really deeply embedded in the financing industry. How did you get involved in that? And, really, where did the real estate investing come into the picture as well? I?

Gabriella Godde: 0:38

started pretty young. At 23 years old, I bought a house in Palm Springs. That was a vacation home with 10% down. And then, at 25 years old, I bought a condo in Malibu. I was not in the somehow, it just I landed in there doing that and I didn't know at the time that it was the best decision of my life.

Gabriella Godde: 1:03

But at 23 and 25, I really didn't know what I was doing in the industry of wealth building with homes. So those two homes that I did buy, I actually gave them back to the bank, so I was not able to hold onto them. And it wasn't because there wasn't equity, it was just because I didn't know what I was doing and really all I had to do is hire a property management to rent them out and get you know, take care of them. And I didn't realize that that's all I needed. At the time I felt overwhelmed. You know I had the Malibu condo. I bought it for 260,000. If I would have held onto it, it is worth today over a million dollars in Malibu.

Gabriella Godde: 1:46

Well, so just some mistakes that I did when I was very young bought a couple homes. I started young but didn't know what to do and so lost those two homes. And when I would say 10 years later is when I got into the mortgage industry yeah, my fault again. I just kind of landed in there and it just taught me the best things in life as far as keeping your credit clean to be able to purchase more homes. And at that point then I started learning about the industry and then becoming the investor now.

Serena Holmes: 2:18

Yeah, so what would you say? Are some of the common issues that you see that you know, maybe people aren't setting themselves up appropriately for success. Based on some of the common issues that you see that you know, maybe people aren't setting themselves up appropriately for success.

Gabriella Godde: 2:29

Based on some of your past experiences, I think that people need to know that if they are a W-2 earner and they're making some let's just say they're making a hundred thousand a year they should be buying a house, and a lot of people don't know that. They don't realize that paying rent is like throwing money out the window and when you own a house, it's like putting money in the bank savings for you because you're building equity on that house. And so, for instance, I bought a house in 2020 for my daughter. With my daughter, we kept it for three years, sold it and made over 200,000. That was just, you know, just recent. So there's all kinds of stories like that that you could be doing with houses to get yourself to build equity or not build equity but build money a lot faster than stocks. And of course, you could do it on stocks, but stocks just faster than stocks. And of course you could do it on stocks, but stocks just it's such a gamble, whereas a home it's not as big of a gamble as it is.

Serena Holmes: 3:33

So I'm just very happy about this industry that I'm in. Yeah, no, absolutely Now. Can you talk a little bit more about what your portfolio looks like at the moment and if you continue to kind of scale and grow after you know these earlier investments?

Gabriella Godde: 3:43

Right now I have a owner occupied that I live in, that it's two and a half acres. I could split it and put another house on it, and that's what I plan on doing on this property. I also plan on renting this property out within a year, moving into another house that I have, that I inherited, but that one I now have the architects and I am building that one ground up to be a beautiful house. It's the house I grew up in. I was I also was born in Mexico and moved to California. I moved to this house when I was two years old, and so now I'm just inheriting this house. So instead of leaving it the way it is I mean it's, it's a, it's a house that's in a million dollar property location it could be up to $2 million right there.

Gabriella Godde: 4:35

But my parents, my parents now I look at my look up to my parents they own a lot of properties as well. They don't have any loans on those properties. They bought them, you know, and then they just paid them off and never. They have never refinanced, never pulled equity out, and so I've learned from them that you know. Basically you're able to hold on some more houses, so so I'm going to turn my house in into a rental, build that house out, have another rental that I have, and then I'm also ownership in Mexico. So we're building, we want to build a retreat in Mexico and then so remodel another house that's in Mexico. So right now my hands are pretty full with everything that I do have, but I do also want to look into other opportunities because maybe fix and flips, you know, basically continuing because this is where I built the most wealth is through the industry of homes.

Serena Holmes: 5:34

Yeah, yeah, no, that makes perfect sense.

Gabriella Godde: 5:36

Whereabouts in Mexico, it's that property, it is close to Puerto Vallarta, so it's about three hours past Puerto Vallarta. Basically it's close to where I was born. So I was born outright side of Guadalajara, which is close to Puerto Vallarta. So right in between is where I was born. But then our houses are right on the beach of close to Puerto Vallarta.

Serena Holmes: 5:57

Yes, and then, in terms of just something that you would perceive as something that you're most proud of, or something you'd look at as your biggest success, what would that be and why?

Gabriella Godde: 6:05

Well, my biggest success, if we're talking family, would be my family, my four kids, but in real estate it would be.

Gabriella Godde: 6:15

So basically I was, we me and my husband were buying homes every like two years. And if you buy a home and you buy it owner occupied, live there for two years and then sell it, you're not going to get the capital gains. So that's what we did for a while. And then the home that I live in now, we bought it in 2009. Now, at the time, our credit wasn't the greatest to buy it, so we went up to the owner, the seller, and asked them to do a lease options. We'd actually have done two lease options in our time, but we bought 14 homes total, but two of them were lease options. One was back in 2001. And then the other one was in 2009, when we bought this house.

Gabriella Godde: 6:57

So I guess my biggest accomplishment I would think would be is to be able to buy a house even if my credit wasn't perfect. I saw a roundabout way to do it and that's basically with the lease option. You kind of have to be in the industry to get that part done, so you need someone guiding you of what to do if you would buy a house. Basically, you're buying a house, you're paying rent. But let's say you're paying them $1,000 extra a month for that house on top of your rent. And that $1,000 a month let's say we did that for a year that would be 12,000. That would go down to the down payment. So we were able to do that just because I was in the in the business, being creative. And now we have the one house that we bought in 2001,. We were able to buy it for 240. We sold it for 500 and something. So once again, just building for our savings account?

Serena Holmes: 7:50

Yeah, no, I think we call that rent to own here. So it's interesting, okay, the different terminology in a different location. Now, in terms of obstacles and challenges, what would you say is something that you have struggled with as you've been trying to kind of grow and diversify in real estate?

Gabriella Godde: 8:06

I think for me and my husband we are both self-employed. So when you are self-employed, your options for your down payment is not as good as a W-2 earner. So basically, as a self-employed in California or in the States, it's basically you're looking at 10% down to purchase and then the interest rate's like a point higher than your normal. I wish me and my husband were W-2 earners again. I would be then again buying again, over and over again every year. I think I would do it every year, but since we're having to put more money down, we don't do it as often. But we're still finding different ways to buy houses. But I would think that's the challenge for us is we're self-employed.

Serena Holmes: 8:50

Now for us here in Canada, if you're buying something commercial so I believe it's five or six units and above it's the property and the income of the property that qualifies, not so much a bearing on your personal finances. Is that the same where you're located?

Gabriella Godde: 9:04

Well, in where we're located, one to four units is considered a single family and so you could buy with the lowest. So, for instance, up to four units, you could purchase with 3.5% down. As long as you're a W-2 earner. Okay, if you're self-employed, of course you could still qualify, but that's as long as you're a W-2 earner. If you're self-employed, of course you could still qualify, but that's as long as you have the net income. We look at the net and what you know. We look at the net income for your tax returns, opposed to the gross income, and a lot of people are writing that off. So that way it's not going to. You know, basically, with their expenses they're writing it off. So, yeah, I would say, I would say 3.5% up to four units. When you get to five units and above, you're talking more like 20%, 30% down.

Serena Holmes: 9:45

Right, yeah, and I mean I think that for the investors that I've connected with, a lot of them will be raising money through joint ventures or, you know, other partners and stuff like that when you're looking at those bigger properties but in general, like they find that it's easier to qualify because, again, being self employed bigger properties but in general like they find that it's easier to qualify because, again, being self-employed, it's challenging on the residential side but commercially it's really the value of the property and the income that they're looking at more so than like. For us it would be like a T4, which is probably equivalent to your W-2 in the States.

Gabriella Godde: 10:12

Yes, and that's definitely something I want to get into more and more. You know, as you are building your networking net worth with different people, that's where you're also learning different things. So doing these podcasts for me it's. I've been able to meet a lot of people and so that's where like definitely want to get into the flipping of properties and more of investments of properties. But I definitely like helping also the people that come to me that maybe have challenged tax returns or you know different ways or portfolios to show them that you know if they buy another property it's going to help their net worth as well.

Serena Holmes: 10:53

Yeah, no, absolutely Now. On that note, we're just going to take a really brief break for our sponsors and we'll be right back. Sounds good. That note we're just going to take a really brief break for our sponsors and we'll be right back. Sounds good. Hey everybody, welcome back to Inspired to Invest. I've got Gabriela Godey here with me today and she's from Tomdale, california, and she has been working in the financing industry supporting homeowners and real estate investors for over 25 years. So before the break, we were talking about her experiences in terms of buying and selling multiple properties, and I guess one of the questions that I have for you I'm not sure if you've got something that comes to mind is what's the craziest thing that you've ever experienced as a real estate investor, or maybe a story that even one of your clients has told you about?

Gabriella Godde: 11:33

I think I don't know about the craziest, but what I do enjoy is the FHA 203k loan. What that does for a buyer is you can buy a house, you can look at that house and let's just say it needs a total remodel done. And basically what we do is we take the, we ask the appraiser, we get a contractor to give us a bid up front. The appraiser, we get a contractor to give us a bid up front. Then we ask the appraiser to appraise the property as if it's already has all the remodeling done so that appraisal value goes up higher. That buyer is only putting 3.5% down.

Gabriella Godde: 12:11

We get the seller, we sometimes we get the seller to pay the closing costs. So all they're coming in with is 3.5. But let's say now we're getting $35,000 to $100,000 to remodel that home and it goes into their loan and then they're able to put it in their loan, they're able to have a contractor start on the house right when they close and within six months get that house, you know, rehabbed and within six months get that house, you know, rehabbed. So a lot of times I think buyers, when they're out there looking with real estate agents I think a lot of them maybe don't know, like oh, there is a loan out there to do that. So I think that's one of the craziest things as far as buyers not knowing that that's there.

Serena Holmes: 12:54

Yeah, yeah, and obviously there's just even sometimes small things that people are discouraged from a home right Like a lot of people don't see it for what it could be, they're just looking at it for what it is at the moment. Now, that was quite the mouthful in terms of the type of loan that was. Are you able to break that acronym down?

Gabriella Godde: 13:10

Yes, it's a FHA 203K. Okay, so basically it's just your traditional FHA loan which is for first time homebuyers. You don't have to be a first time homebuyer to buy it, to use it, you just have to have one FHA at a time. So it's a government backed, it's out of a. It's the government bank loan backed loan from us, and so I believe it's one of the best loans that we offer. It has the lowest interest rate with the lowest down.

Serena Holmes: 13:46

Yeah, that makes sense. Now that kind of segues into my next question about advice. What would you say some of the best advice that you'd have for someone that is starting out trying to build their real estate portfolio?

Gabriella Godde: 13:57

I would say that your first loan would be is to purchase with an FHA loan, 3.5% down. Keep that home for, let's say, five years, Turn that, refinance that one into a conventional in the future once there's enough equity to then get rid of the PMI. So there's that one part of it. But after you buy with an FHA loan, the next step I would do is one to two years after that, buy another home, move from this FHA owner occupied move, turn that into a rental, move in and then purchase another one with 5% down conventional. I believe is the best steps five percent down.

Serena Holmes: 14:42

Conventional, I believe, is the steps. Nice, I know, in terms of lessons and things like that. Is there anything that comes to mind that you wish you would do differently, knowing what you know now?

Gabriella Godde: 14:49

um, when I was younger, um, definitely credit was a challenge as far as um keeping it up to par, and then, once I learned, once I got in the industry, I really figured out how to do my credit. So basically, on your credit cards, keep them at 30% from the limit, paying a mom tie, of course. And then also another trick that I did long ago was I added my son and my daughter to my credit card to my credit express, and not that they need to charge on it or anything like that.

Gabriella Godde: 15:27

It just builds their credit really fast.

Serena Holmes: 15:30

Both my kids, Is there an age for that? Like that, they need to be in order to add them.

Gabriella Godde: 15:34

I believe it's. You know, I don't know the age, but I think it's 16. I remember when I first got credit it was 16. They allowed me to, but I think it's 16. I remember when I first got credit was 16. They allowed me to, but I think that 16 is a good, good age to do that. Yeah, and both my daughter and son, they've had 740 plus FICA scores all their lives. Yeah, and so it really helps them out as far as the future. I also another thing I would suggest is parents to help their children buy a house. I always say, instead of throwing your child a big wedding, you know, put money into a down payment for a house, opposed to a big wedding, and of course, you can have a small wedding, but just, you know, use some of the money for buying a house.

Serena Holmes: 16:15

Yeah, no, I couldn't agree more. Now, you talked a lot about the different projects you have going on right now between you know the property in Mexico and at home. What would you say is next for you in terms of your long term plans? Like, do you have a vision in terms of how big you want to build your portfolio, or other avenues that you kind of want to progress into?

Gabriella Godde: 16:31

My plan is you know my parents when I was 16 years old, they ended up moving to Mexico six months out of the year and then coming back to California six months out of the year, and then coming back to California six months out of the year. So my goal is to build the portfolio to where I can be living in Mexico. I don't think I'm going to do six months. I might do three months at a time because all my four children are here, but just definitely want to be able to have that portfolio. Building a resort in Mexico, building an Airbnb in Mexico so two different projects and then continuing to do fix and flips over here in California.

Serena Holmes: 17:08

Yeah. Now, in terms of things like how real estate investing has changed your life in terms of time freedom opportunities, how would you say that that looks now compared to, maybe, what you think it would be like had you not gone down this path?

Gabriella Godde: 17:20

If I didn't go down this path, you know I would be living off of the money that I've made. You know, on my own I've done very well for my business. I mean for since I would say 2019 on. It's been really good years for me. Before that, you know, let's just say before that was like 100,000 a year type thing. But if you think about it, you can't really save up money off of that, off of that income. So what it has done for me is it has bought me other homes. It has made our lifestyle much more comfortable for us and the kids. As you know, sales is, I believe, the best industry to be in. Whatever you're doing, sales is where you're going to make the most money. But you also want to be able to get there faster, and I believe that buying houses is the way to get there faster.

Serena Holmes: 18:14

Yeah, no, I definitely agree as well. Now, obviously, the name of this podcast is Inspired to Invest, so I always like to ask people if there's a particular quote that motivates or inspires them.

Gabriella Godde: 18:23

My quote is I could do all things through Jesus Christ, who strengthens me. I'm very backed by God and that's where my strength comes from Awesome.

Serena Holmes: 18:35

Now, is there anything that you want to leave anyone that could be listening or watching?

Gabriella Godde: 18:38

with Just that. I wish that I would have purchased more houses as I went. You know my parents, where we were. I inherited that house back in the 80s. I think they were able to buy the our neighbor's house or for like $20,000. And I'm like, wow. So I would just say I know the sales prices are a lot higher now, but they're not going to go lower, they're only going to go higher. And if you can purchase, if you can't afford to purchase a single family house by yourself, purchase it with another friend, purchase it with the family, someone that you trust. Both live there for like five to 10 years and then take that equity in the future for yourselves.

Serena Holmes: 19:19

Yeah, no, I agree, I think that's a great thing. It's something that even my mom has talked about with you. Know, our grandparents like they could buy cottage properties for $600. And now those same properties just the land could be selling for $500,000 to a million dollars, right. So that's not even having done anything if you just kind of kept it and maintained it for years, right? So it's kind of crazy when you just think about that Now, in terms of where people can find you.

Gabriella Godde: 19:45

What's the best way for someone to get in touch if they'd like to reach you? Either my name, gabriella Godey, or California Mortgage Girl. If you Google me, you'll find me everywhere. I've been doing this for over 25 years and I'm all over the internet.

Serena Holmes: 19:58

Great, so we'll leave that in the show notes below for anyone that wants to reach you, Of course. Thank you for taking time out of your day to be with us today. For anyone that is watching or listening, if you have enjoyed this episode, please make sure that you like, comment and subscribe, or leave us a review. You can also follow along on social at Inspired to Invest Podcast, and remember when you invest in yourself.