The 5 Questions Podcast
Join us as we unlock real estate and business insights, one question at a time.
The 5 Questions Podcast
Transforming Communities: Tara Omotara's Real Estate and Humanitarian Impact
🌟 Meet Tara Omotara: A trailblazer in construction project management and real estate investing! 🌍
From winning the Calgary Peace Award 🕊️ to founding Freedom Tree, an organization dedicated to reducing maternal and infant mortality in Sierra Leone, Tara’s story is one of impact and transformation. 💡✨
Learn how her masterful budget strategies in real estate and her experience managing large-scale projects can teach you to maximize efficiency and control costs. 📊🏗️
Plus, hear how running a charity parallels running a business, with a focus on measurable results and meaningful change. 🌱💼
Discover how small actions can lead to big transformations—whether in communities or investments. 💪🌟
https://www.freedomtree.ca/
Sponsored by: https://aliferousacademy.com/
#RealEstate #HumanitarianImpact #BudgetMastery #FreedomTree #Inspiration
Because some really terrible tenants that I've had had A plus credit scores, but they were just awful.
Speaker 2:Welcome to the 5 Questions Podcast, where we unlock real estate and business insights one question at a time. This episode is sponsored by Illiferous Academy. I'm Christian Spilfogel and this is your Illiferous Academy. I'm Christian Spilfogel and this is your Illiferous Academy. Finding top-notch real estate education can be tough. Many courses are taught by novices.
Speaker 1:I am Cherry Chen, and this is your Illiferous Academy.
Speaker 2:I'm Seth Ferguson, and this is your Illiferous Academy. At Illiferous Academy, only experts in their field teach the courses. I'm Mark Amiot, and this is your Elliferis Academy.
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Speaker 2:Elliferis Academy all the experts one subscription. I'm Chad Robinson and this is your Elliferis Academy. Dive into self-paced courses, regular group coaching and stay ahead with fresh content every month. Sign up now at eliphorusacademycom. Welcome to the 5 Questions Podcast. I'm your host, mario Lamar, our guest on today's show. She has been recognized with a Calgary Peace Award. She is a specialist in construction project management and real estate investor and she is the founder of Freedom Tree. Welcome, tara Omatara.
Speaker 1:Hi Mario, how are you?
Speaker 2:I'm very well, Tara. The concept of the podcast is very easy Five questions about real estate or business and we get straight to the point. You ready.
Speaker 1:Okay, I'm ready, let's go.
Speaker 2:Well, first off, every time someone has been recognized with an award, I'd like to talk about it. And you have been recognized with a Calgary Peace Award. That's right. What does that honor mean to you personally and professionally?
Speaker 1:You know it was really wonderful to be recognized by my city you know, the city where I live, calgary for work that we have done internationally in Sierra Leone, and so the Peace Award was specifically to recognize individuals or organizations who have done exemplary work in the area of not just non-profit but really kind of changing their city, changing their environment or changing another location and, you know, changing the lives of people, and so that was a really big honor to get.
Speaker 2:And, I'm sure, professionally, it opened quite a bit of doors for you.
Speaker 1:It did. Yeah, it did open some doors. We had a big celebration, as you know, Freedom Tree and the board and even our supporters. We came out and actually celebrated that to receive the award.
Speaker 2:That's really great. That brings us to our second question, which I'm going to talk about Freedom Tree in a little bit, but first I'd like to talk about your experience in real estate. We mentioned at the beginning you were a project management specialist and you worked on really big projects up to $750 million projects. That's right. What budget control strategies have you carried over into your real estate investing career?
Speaker 1:That's a really great question. I think it's to not ignore the details. And so, with budget control, sometimes we look at the big numbers and we're so focused on what the big numbers are Like. You know, this is going to cost a hundred grand. You know, let's see how we can make it. You know how we can make it cheaper.
Speaker 1:But when I was, you know, a construction manager, it was the small things that ate away at the budget. It was ordering that extra gallon of paint that we didn't need and that would eventually sit there and you had to throw away. It was, you know, deciding to carry out work on a day that it was too windy, and so you couldn't do it. And so you have a guy show up on the job. You know he spends two hours looking around and deciding you know what. This is not a good day to do work, and he goes home, but you still have to pay him for that two hours, and that's two hours that's wasted.
Speaker 1:And so it's the small things. And so making sure in real estate that you're efficient, that you make decisions that are, and that you, that your team around you, is efficient and they budget conscious as well, and so I think that's one of the things that I've carried forward into real estate and, you know, when it comes to a handyman, you know like if you have somebody that's going to repair things, not someone that's just going to, you know, spin the wheels and try and figure out what, what to do for seven hours while he charges you for seven hours of work. It's, it's those little things. It's the little things that causes issues.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's true, you know I can't agree more than enough with you. A lot of small holes leaks. The boat leaks a lot more. It's easy to fix one big hole because it's easy to see right, but all little holes, you know, some can go unnoticed. So I 100% agree with you. And not a lot of, not enough, I should say. Real estate investors focus on those small leaks.
Speaker 1:It's the small leaks.
Speaker 2:That's where the bleed is. Yeah, it's the small leaks.
Speaker 1:It's the small leaks, that's where the bleed is.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's the small leaks. That leads us to our third question, and I'd like to talk to you about your approach for your tenant management and screening, especially when it comes to properties outside your local area. How do you do that?
Speaker 1:Yeah. So with properties outside of my local area, I rely on a good property management company to do that. They, you know, they're familiar with the neighborhood, they're familiar with the area, they're familiar with the kind of typical tenant profile that would make a great tenant or not. And so I rely on a good property manager and you have to kind of get that on your team. For me personally, I mean there's definitely screening questions that you ask and you have to kind of get that on your team.
Speaker 1:For me personally, I mean there's definitely screening questions that you ask and you get you know, you make sure you do a credit check or reference, make sure you do a job check, make sure your tenants can pay the bills. But to be very, very frank, meeting somebody in person is a very good determinant of whether or not they're going to be a good tenant or not, because some really terrible tenants that I've had had A plus credit scores but they were just awful, just bad attitude, always complaining, always moaning, and so when you meet them in person, that just tells you a lot more of who that person is. And going with your gut and being able to read people I think is a great skill when it comes to tenant management.
Speaker 2:Absolutely. There's nothing better than going with your gut, but, um, maybe you, you probably build a structure for your property managers, uh, that you use so I do, I build a structure.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I build a structure. I give them a guideline. They usually have their own internal processes in terms of what they do, but I build a structure and give them a guideline. So, yeah, to be honest, a lot of them, I find property managers weed people through by making sure that those that they only show the property to are those who can answer a million questions up front, and weed them out at that level, which I actually don't agree. I don't agree with that method because I think that you're going to lose some people in this generation who just don't have the patience to do that. But they're looking for a certain type of person who's pedantic, who follows rules, follows instructions and that sort of thing, and that doesn't necessarily make a good tenant, but that's what they do, right?
Speaker 2:Well, I think we're going to spend more time on the fourth question, because this is something that is dear to you. You are the founder of Freedom Tree.
Speaker 1:That's right.
Speaker 2:And you to make a real difference in Sierra Leone. First of all, maybe a three-part question what is Freedom Tree, what prompted you to create that initiative and what impact have you seen that Freedom Tree did?
Speaker 1:Yeah, so Freedom Tree is an organization that I started over a decade ago now and it was to address the root causes of maternal and infant mortality in Sierra Leone, west Africa. So Sierra Leone has the highest rate of maternal mortality in the entire world. It means that every two minutes. So by the time that we're done this podcast, about seven women would have died in the country just from giving birth. It's ridiculous, it's? You know? If this was happening in Canada, there's no way that we would have died in the country just from giving birth. It's ridiculous, it's. You know. If this was happening in Canada, there's no way that we would have allowed it, you know.
Speaker 1:But for different reasons, you know, due to the lack of education, lack of health care or infrastructure as well you know Sierra Leone, women are very high risk of maternal mortality, and then infant mortality is also extremely high and infant mortality is closely linked to maternal mortality. You know in that way, and the fabric, you know the fabric of the family or the society. So that's what Freedom Tree is all about.
Speaker 2:And then, what made you decide to start that initiative?
Speaker 1:I started it due to a passion. I went to Sierra Leone as a volunteer. I saw what was going on and I kept saying to somebody I said, you know, somebody needs to do something, somebody needs to do something. And then I realized pretty quickly I was like, wow, this, you know, maybe that somebody is me, maybe that somebody is me. And so you know why not?
Speaker 1:Sometimes we think that the answer to the problems that we see around us, somebody needs to take care of that. I hear that all the time. You know, oh, look at the homeless on the street. The government, the city needs to do something about that. Well, no, not really. Maybe you can do something about it If you can change somebody's life, one person's life, and you make a difference. Imagine if we all did that, if we all made a huge difference in one person's life, we could solve the homelessness problem just like that. And so I think it was the same, you know the same attitude that I looked at with this particular issue. Even you know if, even if it's five women whose lives have changed now, we've changed hundreds and thousands of women's lives. But even if it's just a few, imagine what I, you know what that means for those specific women and what we could do with that.
Speaker 2:So it's easy to pass the bucket to someone else to pass the buck. Yeah, yeah. And then the third part of the question is is maybe the impact that you have seen since you started Freedom Tree?
Speaker 1:Ah well, so we on average, reach about 100,000 people a year. You know, between 70 to 100,000, depending on our reach and the impact that we've seen. We've seen entire villages where a woman used to give you know, used to die every month, or you know every two months, to no deaths whatsoever. So the first place that we built a clinic at was actually 10 years ago now, in 2014. We celebrated the grand opening of that clinic and they used to see women die all the time. They would have at least 10 women die a year. We built the clinic there and to date, there has been zero, zero women that have died in that community, and so that's the kind of impact that we're having.
Speaker 1:We also deal with the holistic family, and so, when it comes to men and women and the relationships between each other, so we deal with that as well, and we're seeing the relationships between men and women change, the relationships between husbands and wives change, where husbands are recognizing what their role is when it comes to birth, taking care of babies, and that's making a huge impact, and so that was not an intended consequence, but that's something that happened, and so when I go to these villages, the men are like, wow, thank you. We had no idea that you know our role and the things that we do makes a huge impact in the wellbeing of a woman because they have age old cultural practices, just like we do here, and assumptions of what relationships between men and women are supposed to look like.
Speaker 2:So yeah, that's amazing.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And I know you also built a school this year. That's right.
Speaker 1:We're in the process of building a school. So we're halfway there and, mario, thank you so much because you were one of our supporters and donators to that school. I posted pictures recently. I'm not sure if you saw it, but we've brought the school up to full height, so the next stage that we need to do is now put a roof over the school, and so it's coming along. It's coming along.
Speaker 2:That's amazing. We'll make sure to post the link of people who want to donate for the cause.
Speaker 1:That's awesome, that would be wonderful, that would be wonderful.
Speaker 2:Yeah, well, that brings us to our last question, and I wanted to tie real estate with Freedom Tree. So how does your experience in real estate and construction benefit Freedom Tree's mission and projects?
Speaker 1:So managing a charity is actually very similar to managing any kind of business Making sure. So we mentioned earlier look at the small leaks. I am pedantic about looking at the small leaks, even in Freedom Tree my staff they get very upset with me sometimes because they feel like I'm so pedantic on it. But I'm like look at the small leaks, like, make sure when we are doing our projects, that we're actually being efficient. Make sure that when we that we do an assessment prior to and we do an assessment after we've done a project and so we can actually measure the change.
Speaker 1:We just don't go into a community and say, oh yeah, we made a huge difference and everyone's happy. No, we measure it. Make sure that it's success is measurable, because it always is. And it's actually more difficult to do that in a nonprofit setting because usually in a for-profit setting we measure success by profit you know how much money you've made but in a nonprofit it's much different. And so being pedantic about the processes, managing a project, making sure everything is efficiently done, is something I'm extremely passionate about and that's something that I learned, I think, from my time when I worked in construction as a construction manager, managing projects, and then I've brought it into FreedomTree as well as real estate as well, because you know like I've managed renovations, you know my real estate project or builds and you have to be pedantic about those details and you know don't let them slip through. I know don't take them for granted. Measure everything.
Speaker 2:That's you know. I'm so glad you came on the show because I think for real estate investors that are listening, you gave great insights of not forgetting those small leaks. It's easy to look away, but they're very important, and then the work that you do is very important. Sierra Leone they're lucky to have a woman behind them that offers all that help. So thank you for being on the show today.
Speaker 1:Thank you so much. Thank you, what an honor to be on the show, mary.
Speaker 2:Thank you so much Thank you.
Speaker 1:What an honor to be on the show, mary. I've been looking forward to this for a long time, so yes, we tried to catch up to each other for a while. We're very busy.
Speaker 2:And that's okay because you do great things. But thank you for being on the show. I'll make sure to post the links of people who wants to donate to the cause and we'll probably talk to you very soon.
Speaker 1:Okay, all right, I might see you in December probably.
Speaker 2:Probably yes.
Speaker 1:Okay, all right, thanks, mario.
Speaker 2:Bye-bye, have a great day. Thanks for tuning into the five 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.