The 5 Questions Podcast
Join us as we unlock real estate and business insights, one question at a time.
The 5 Questions Podcast
From Setbacks to Success: Deanna Boyden on Empowering Women and Transforming Communities in Real Estate
Have you ever wondered how to turn a failing real estate investment into a community triumph? Join us as we uncover this and more with Deanna Boyden, a certified real estate investor advisor with over two decades of experience. This episode is filled with inspirational insights as Deanna shares her journey of empowering women through Real Power, a group she founded that facilitated an impressive $25 million in transactions in its first year. Learn why visibility and mutual support are vital, and explore Deanna’s diversified investment strategies that highlight the importance of seizing opportunities and maintaining flexibility, especially during challenging times like the financial crisis.
In another compelling segment, Deanna takes us through her experience of transforming an unsafe historic building into a safe haven for single mothers escaping domestic violence. Discover the crucial lessons on when to abandon a failing project and how to repurpose resources for greater community impact. We also discuss the balance between forward-thinking investments and enjoying the present, and delve into emerging real estate trends. By understanding micro-markets and leveraging personal strengths, Deanna demonstrates how adaptability in real estate can lead to alignment with both personal and professional goals, ultimately paving the way to success.
First 12 months of that group, the women transacted $25 million just amongst each other.
Speaker 2:Welcome to the 5 Questions Podcast, where we unlock real estate and business insights one question at a time. Welcome to the 5 Questions Podcast. I'm your host, Mario Lamar On today's show. Our guest has been recognized by ISA International with their Leadership Award for her work with empowering women. She is a certified real estate investor advisor with 20 plus years of investing experience in three different countries, and her motto is building for tomorrow while living for today. Welcome to the show, Deanna Boyden. Deanna, thank you so much for being on the podcast today.
Speaker 1:Thank you so much for having me. This is really fun. I'm looking forward to our chat.
Speaker 2:The concept of the podcast is very simple Five questions about real estate, investing or business, and we get straight to the point. Are you ready?
Speaker 1:Let's get to it, let's go, all right.
Speaker 2:First question you've been recognized with ISA International's Leadership Award for Empowering Women. What are some of the key initiatives or approaches you've used to support women in real estate and business?
Speaker 1:Such a great question.
Speaker 1:You know I come to this.
Speaker 1:I also worked in tech and I did a lot of women in tech activities and a lot of the things that we did there and that I learned there really translate to all parts of business, including real estate investing.
Speaker 1:I'm a business woman first and foremost, so I think some of the same principles that apply across the board for business and investing.
Speaker 1:So about three years ago, I started Real Power and we came together as a group of ladies who were just looking to put a good group of people together in a room to talk real estate, who happen to be women, and oftentimes what women would find is, you know, when we went to larger events or courses and things, there were a lot of men in the room and I noticed that not all of the women were speaking up and maybe not asking the questions that they wanted answers to or needed answers to, and maybe they were learning about, you know, technical things or business things, and so I wanted to create a safe space for them. You know, proximity is power, and so by creating rooms for women, with events and with our Master Her Mind program, we created opportunities where really smart women could come together and talk about things and first, 12 months of that group, the women transacted $25 million just amongst each other which was amazing, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:So we then created courses and we've created these opportunities for the women to level up from wherever they are right, and that might be buying their first property. Up to you know, we have women in our group with nine figure portfolios and I've always believed if you can see it, you can be it, and so if we look around and see more women who are doing this, then it becomes easier. And the and the last thing I would add there that is one of the tenants of that program that I tell the women is we never know. We should show up as our best every day, because we never know who needs to see that. And we're seeing the seeds of that that we planted three years ago, in that the women are now either coming together or looking at each other and saying, hey, if she can do that, I can do that. Maybe she'll help me do that, Maybe I can ask her questions.
Speaker 2:So it's been really quite an amazing initiative for example, and they look at their neighbors and maybe you know they're looking for ways to make it or to make more money because it is difficult as single parents specifically, and I see how having a group of women can influence you know specific circles that they're looking to better their life. So good on you for creating that, and I mean it's not just for single parents, but that was just an example of what it made me thought about. So real good on you and thank you for doing that for women. It brings us to our second question. So you're an investor for over 20 years and your real estate portfolio is incredibly diverse. It ranges from single family homes to historic properties, to even private REITs. How do you decide which type of investments to pursue?
Speaker 1:Well, I think that's a great question, right? I think that's a great question, right. Obviously, we didn't specialize in any one thing. We love real estate investing and what I say that we specialized in was diversification, Right, and so learning all about real estate investing active and passive investing was really the passion and it's led us to understand.
Speaker 1:You know, in real estate investing, we talk about how we all have time, money and knowledge. Those are the three things that we really evaluate in terms of deciding what we want to do. But I realized over the past 20, some years that opportunity and interest are also part of that equation. So, for example, you know, growing up, I knew that I wanted to live in the US part time. I knew that I wanted to live in Southern California, and so we created the knowledge around it.
Speaker 1:The opportunity came up in the early 2000s, during the financial crisis, that we could go down there and we spent some time in the US. We actually wrote 17 offers with a single deposit check of $1,000 one day. That opportunity was there. I mean, it was a pretty incredible opportunity at the time. People that we knew were buying entire streets of homes and just hanging on to them. It was, you know, that was just an opportunity that came up.
Speaker 1:We had enough knowledge to understand that that opportunity was there. We had very little money but we stretched it out and we did it and we spent, you know, the time that we could there. So I think that, you know, keeping in mind to be open to the opportunities and the areas of interest that you have can really sometimes lead to some wins in real estate investing, rather than trying to get caught up on picking one strategy that you'll do for the rest of your life, don't be afraid to sort of veer off a little bit in a safe and, you know, do your due diligence, get some knowledge, get some. You know some people who know what they're doing around you. But you know, we have done almost every strategy there is and have, you know, have learned a lot from it, but it was always something that interested us and there was a good opportunity there.
Speaker 2:I agree with you. There's so many different strategies into real estate investing. All you need to do if you're not familiar, get educated on that specific strategy and you know, because a great deal might present itself and maybe you don't want to miss out on it. So education and different strategies is really important in the real estate world. Is really important in the real estate world Brings us to question number three, and we talked about your over 20 years of experience in three different countries now investing. How have you adapted to your strategies, to the different markets and regulations?
Speaker 1:Yes, well, you know we've been through three cycles now. Over the 20 years. We've seen some crazy things. Like I said, you know we were down in the US when we could buy properties for 25 cents on the dollar, and you know we're in a situation now recently in Canada, jurisdictions where short-term accommodation rules are changing and interest rates were going up at the same time that things were becoming more restrictive. I think that what has served us well on this is the business philosophy of failing fast.
Speaker 1:There's an expression that when you find yourself in a hole, maybe stop digging, take a minute, take a look around and see. I always get nervous when I hear people say oh, I never sell my properties Because I think absolutes can really hurt you. They can keep you from being open to possibilities and sometimes you know it may make sense to walk from a deal, a property, something like that, and move on to something else. And I'll give you a quick example of that. We bought a small multifamily once that we found out after the fact that it was not savable. We had bought it for specific tenant profile, people had moved in, there were families living in there and the building.
Speaker 1:Some information came to light. The building just wasn't safe and it had to come down Right. So we could have continued on the road of trying to make this building safe, but we didn't know enough. We weren't going to know enough until we got it torn apart, and at that point this was a historic building, you know. So how much do you spend on a 110-year-old foundation? You can build as much as you want.
Speaker 2:It sounds like the movie Money Pit foundation.
Speaker 1:You can build as much as you want. It sounds like the movie Money Pit. Yes, exactly Exactly. And so we stopped. And there was a moment we were standing out on the front yard and I looked across and there's a school there, and I said to my husband this should come down and it needs to become units for single mothers. And so that's exactly what's happening. That building has actually been demolished already and new units are being built there for single mothers fleeing domestic violence. Here's the thing that can happen with that failing fast. Right, we said okay, oops, we screwed up, we're in trouble here. Um, and, by the way, the lawyers told us we had an absolute airtight case against the guy who sold it to us, who hid this information, but that we shouldn't even bother going after him.
Speaker 1:Because when we bought it we knew the land value was there as well. So historic buildings are, you know, a bit tricky anyways. Anyways, as we got going with this project, the town that it's located in has three initiatives agriculture, sustainability and families. So we centered our project around that. Mayor of the town signed off on some of the initiatives. A local ag college wants to come and help put in gardens so that the children can grow. There are lots of wraparound services, so that's a really cool story. That happened over a big oopsie I hesitate to say mistake, but I probably shouldn't have bought the darn thing and I found myself in a big hole and we stopped digging for a moment and look at what might be planted there now right.
Speaker 2:This is amazing how we take I don't want to say failure, but, like you said, maybe a situation that you should have not found yourself in first and not just giving up but looking for a way to shift into a better place. And now look what's being done with. This is going to serve, you know, women with single women with children, close to a school and with gardens in the backyard. Like, how much more can you want from you? Know a mistake? I think it's great.
Speaker 1:Yes, and if we hadn't stopped digging we wouldn't have realized that right we, you know, we had the guys coming in to give us the quotes, and so I think sometimes we forget that. You know, maybe selling a property, taking the loss on a project and and redeploying our resources, our time, our money, our knowledge to the next project, you can make it up easier and go ahead faster and maybe even accomplish a little bit more.
Speaker 2:Brings us to our question number four. And I love to travel and I love your motto building for tomorrow while living for today. How do you balance forward-thinking investments while enjoying the present moment in your personal life and professional life?
Speaker 1:Yes, yes, we both share that travel bug and you know fun story of finding ourselves on the same flight one day to Palm Springs, california. That's not a route that I usually see people I know on. To Palm Springs, california. That's not a not a route that I usually see people I know on. But I think you know this comes from my own life. But but I coach people on this as well, because I think it's it's really important that we understand what we want our perfect day to look like, and I mean crystal clear on what you want your life to look like. You have. You should understand what your perfect week looks like, and you know and I actually have like, if anybody wants help with this, I have a little planner that I'd be happy to send people where. Take a day timer for an entire week and write out what you want your day to look like. For me. There are very specific things in there. I want to have lunch with friends one day a week. I want to be able to golf. I want to be able to volunteer and do these things. So, understanding what your life would look like for the perfect week. Then you can attach a number for what that life looks like Once you have that number.
Speaker 1:You start and some, some people you know yourself my husband have fantastic jobs that they want to stay in and that's great, that's amazing. So you take that, you know, take your salary out of that. Then you have your passive investments. You're left with a with you know, generally you should there's, there's some money to make up. Then you get to decide how you want to make that money and I use building blocks for that. So that might be a couple of flips a year. That might be buying properties, that might be a value-add conversion, but you get to decide. That's the greatest thing about real estate investing and again, we don't have to decide today that we want to do the same strategy forever. We can decide, based on the market cycles, what's going on, what's going on in our personal lives, how much time, money, knowledge we have available, what are our opportunities, what are our interests at that point. And then we come up with a plan for the year. So we sit down every you know, december, january is planning time for us we sit down and we plan out what do we want to do for that year.
Speaker 1:This year I mentioned flips because my husband actually said. You know he was itching to be a little creative and do a couple of renovations, and so we did that. We worked that into our schedule, which was amazing. We've had some time open up the last month or two and he's on the tools and loving it. So that's the best thing about real estate investing is that you pick how you want to do it, and to me that's what matters. We want our financial security down the road. We need it for next week as well. But, my goodness, we should be enjoying every single day along that journey, and the best way I know to do that is to be doing what we love in real estate and so sitting down and doing that annual planning.
Speaker 1:I'm extremely passionate about it. Anybody who knows me knows that that is my number one thing, because you know things change. Our situations change. Kids grow up, there are graduations and move outs, and you know there are years when you might be busy. You might have a parent who needs some time, you might want to create time for them and if you keep your plan sort of flexible, you know one or two years but understand where you want to get to financially. It's just that you can decide how you want to do it as you go along, has allowed us to live this amazing lifestyle where we get to live in, you know, live in two countries and spend a month or two in the third. We I like to think of that as more vacation time, but but if, if we can do that, then anyone can do it. And once you understand that, that's your North star and every decision is much more clearer If it's leading you towards that North Star of that lifestyle that you want.
Speaker 2:It brings such clarity on a plan that someone needs to establish for their day-to-day but also their end goal. So thank you for that insight. It brings us to our last and fifth question. Last and fifth question. Now, looking ahead, what kind of trends or opportunities do you see emerging in the real estate market and how are you preparing to capitalize on those trends or opportunities?
Speaker 1:I love this question because everyone wants to know what should I do right? What's the right thing? What's the right next step?
Speaker 2:And the answer is it depends Not the answer that we want to hear, but that's the truth.
Speaker 1:The perfect new trend, new strategy is the one that is right for you. You know, we hear a lot right now about land development and US investing and self-storage. Those are the shiny baubles right now and they're lucrative and they're working for some people. For some people, I think that as you look ahead, you know the next two years of your life how do you want to spend your time, years of your life, how do you want to spend your time? So, for example, we, you know we will be doing a little bit more in the U? S because we have a son living there and we want to spend time with him and we want to help him learn this business. So you know he wants to do some multifamily stuff down there. Great, that's the perfect strategy for us. Now we have to be very careful with the markets because the cycle in the US is a little odd right now Unstable.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:There's. You know there are places, definitely, that things are doing really, really well, Other places that perhaps aren't. You want to be really careful and so you have to have the knowledge, but the interests that we have in that will serve us well. I think that you know this. In Canada, housing crisis is real. I used to work at CMHC. I am passionate about helping to create new homes. I think that infill development and pure land development are very interesting. However, you have to do those in a safe manner, to yourself, to your life, to your partner, to your team, and I think that's really important.
Speaker 1:The last couple of years, I think, we've had a lot of people who were trying to grow and do big things and perhaps weren't really comfortable, and then you have uncomfortable market conditions and that makes it harder. So I also think, take a look at what you're good at and if you can get better at that, if you can make more money, if you can do it better and more efficiently. Go do that. There's something that you really enjoy. That's making you happy and making you money. Do more of that. Right, we have a land development, a large land development. We're doing the first phase with our own money and that's been really great because it's helped us to feel like we have our hands on the wheel right Versus going out and doing the large project other people's money. So I think in uncertain times, you don't have to sort of shrink or be fearful. What you want to do is figure out how you can maintain control of what you're doing to get through these things, to get to the other side Now, as we come into, as things grow, and you want to start to expand what you're doing, then you come at that from a place of confidence, knowledge.
Speaker 1:We use these times to really grow, increase our knowledge in all areas, perhaps increase our team, the strength of our team. Those are really important things, and so I think what's really exciting for me is what's perfect for you in your life right now. If we could right-size everybody's investing, that would be amazing to me because I think you'll do more of it right. So that's, I think there's a ton of great stuff out there. Micromarkets are everything. So even within cities, the same strategy may not work. We live in Calgary in the summertime and condos here were dead for many, many years, but right now they're one of the hottest markets out in the suburbs. So micro markets are. I think that's really interesting to me. I love data, so I love to dig into those sort of things. So I think for people who are looking to do their due diligence, it's a great time, because those are the people that will do well.
Speaker 2:So basically, the answer to the question is there's no wrong answer. You need to figure out where you want to go and what strategy is going to bring you there days.
Speaker 1:How do you want to spend your days? Do you want to do it on a laptop raising capital? Do you want to do it on a job site swinging the hammer? Do you want to be creating homes? Do you want to be passively investing? Exactly those are the answers that are right for each and every one of us, and when you know how you want to live your life, then it's much easier to make that right decision and be open to the opportunities that come up.
Speaker 2:Deanna, thank you so much for being on the podcast today. It was a pleasure talking with you and I'm sure I'll see you soon at an event somewhere.
Speaker 1:We'll see you at an airport, somewhere too, I'm sure. Thank you so much. And we'll chat again soon. Bye-bye.
Speaker 2:Bye. Thanks for tuning into the 5 Questions Podcast. If you enjoyed today's episode, don't forget to subscribe, like and hit the notification bell on our YouTube channel so you never miss an episode. Stay tuned for more insights and tips to transform your real estate and business game. See you next time.