Marketing Toward Women in Real Estate
Welcome to our Women's Series for Women's History Month! Today, Abigail chats with Nancy Chillag. Nancy, formerly a lawyer, has now started her own multifamily investment company geared toward women. Today, she talks about what that transition has looked like and her decision behind having an audience centered around women.
Key Topics
What made you move from law to full-time real estate?
Your target audience in your company now is women, what was the thought process behind choosing women as your audience?
What are some challenges you have face being a woman in real estate?
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SUMMARY KEYWORDS
women, Real Estate, mobile home parks, business, lawyer, tenants, investing, American Dream, law, multifamily, construction, love, apartment, creating, finance, flipping, people, practice, difficult, units
SPEAKERS
Abigail Thomson, Nancy Chillag
Abigail Thomson 00:01
Welcome to the Next Level American Dream Podcast brought to you by Thomson Multifamily Group. Your hosts, Abigail and Sean, will discuss how you can take your American Dream to the next level through real estate investing, business practices, and personal development. Join us as we share our experiences as a father daughter duo who are trying to accomplish our goal of financial freedom. We hope you learn more about how to define and achieve your American Dream. Here's another episode of Next Level American Dream. Welcome to the Next Level American Dream Women's Series in celebration of Women's History Month. We have a wonderful guest for you today, but first, please make sure you've subscribed if you haven't already. We also love getting your feedback through likes, comments, ratings, and reviews. Today, Abigail chats with Nancy Chillag. Nancy, formerly a lawyer, has now started her own multifamily investment company geared towards women. Today, she talks about what that transition looked like for her and her decision behind having an audience centered around women. If you found any value from today's episode, please share it with a friend and help us grow. For more information on our sponsor, visit: thomsonmultifamilygroup.com to start taking your American Dream to the next level through passive investing. Hi, Nancy, welcome to Next Level American Dream. Thank you so much for joining me. How are you today?
Nancy Chillag 01:28
I'm doing great. Abbie, thanks for inviting me onto your podcast! This should be exciting.
Abigail Thomson 01:34
I'm really excited. You're one of our women series guests and I am really excited to share your story and your background with our listeners. I think it's going to be really amazing.
Nancy Chillag 01:44
Great!
Abigail Thomson 01:46
So, let's get started. You have an extensive career background. Can you tell us a little bit about it?
Nancy Chillag 01:52
Sure, well I'm a lawyer. And I had my own law firm specializing in real estate and construction. And in 2013, I retired, I just was done and ready to move on and do something different. And so, after I retired, I started doing real estate, I'd always done real estate. When I was practicing law, I used to do real estate for fun. Yeah, after I stopped practicing law, I just started doing more of it.
Abigail Thomson 02:29
That's awesome. So, when you retired, you were just thinking like, I need something else to do, keep yourself busy, kind of idea?
Nancy Chillag 02:37
Yeah, exactly. And what's nice about real estate is it doesn't have to be you know, your typical nine to five job and it isn't, you know, you can spend as much or as little time as you want with it. And so that's nice, because me a lot of flexibility.
Abigail Thomson 02:52
Right, exactly. So, you've always kind of owning your own law practice. You've been an entrepreneur, in a sense for a while now. But what was the change in what that looked like moving from your law practice into full time real estate investing?
Nancy Chillag 03:06
Well, as a lawyer, I had my own practice, I had employees, you know, it was the full-blown business. And with real estate, a lot of what I'm doing is more independent. In other words, you know, flipping houses, I hire a contractor, I hire a crew, but I don't have a full load of employees. And that's sort of nice.
Abigail Thomson 03:34
Yeah, a little bit more self-control and kind of can do what you want in your own time kind of idea.
Nancy Chillag 03:41
I can scale it up, or I can scale it down.
Abigail Thomson 03:46
As you want it to be. So, in your real estate business, your target market is women. What brought on that idea? How did you get to that being your audience?
Nancy Chillag 04:00
Well, for flipping houses, it really isn't. And I have transitioned over the last, I'd say a year and a half into doing real estate syndications, which is, you know, putting people as investors into apartment building projects, right. And I'm focusing on women as investors, because I think a lot of women are intimidated by finance and intimidated by investing. And there really isn't any reason to be intimidated. And so, what I'm hoping is that I can make women feel comfortable doing investing. And, you know, take more control of their life find financial freedom.
Abigail Thomson 04:49
I'm all for it. Women Empowerment for sure. Have you seen any success in that? Have you seen a lot of women reaching out to you saying this is awesome? I'm loving the resources, things like that?
Nancy Chillag 05:00
Absolutely, and I think women feel comfortable talking to another woman about investing. And seeing that I have done it. And so, they can do it. Yeah. And I think it just gives them that vote of confidence.
Abigail Thomson 05:17
That's amazing. I absolutely love that. So, in the sticking with these women feeling empowered, what are some of the challenges that you've noticed, in your law practice and in real estate, for yourself and for your investors? What are some of the things that you've noticed?
Nancy Chillag 05:36
Well, as a lawyer, when I started out, which was a while ago, there weren't a lot of women lawyers, you know, you had law firms where you might have 30 partners, and only one of them was a lawyer, woman. And so, it was difficult to sort of break the glass ceiling as a lawyer. And in real estate, most of the people involved in real estate are men. And, you know, trying to play the game with the boys can be difficult and challenging. And so, what I find is, if you can partner with other women to do investments, that's very exciting. And women bring a whole different perspective, to real estate investing law to, you know, and instead of trying to compete and match the way men do things, I think it's important for women to recognize the unique qualities they can bring to anything and embrace that.
Abigail Thomson 06:51
Yes, I like the way you put that embracing the characteristics that we hold that are different from men and using those to our advantage. And even in spaces that are heavily male dominated. I really like the way you put that. That's inspiring to me, because I work with my dad, but I still have my own challenges.
Nancy Chillag 07:12
Well, I started out in flipping houses with your dad. We had our own companies, but we were all under the same franchise. That's how I that's how I got to know your dad.
Abigail Thomson 07:26
He's the greatest we love him. But what are some of we touched on it a little bit? What are some of on the flip side of that? What are some benefits that you have found to being a woman in in law, and more specifically, in this new real estate space that you're in now, and we're talking about a little bit before we started recording.
Nancy Chillag 07:47
So, in law was just a totally different approach. I was doing construction law. And back in the 80s and 90s, there were not very many women doing construction law. And so, it was actually pretty funny because most of the male attorneys, a lot of them had been in the construction field at some point and right, weren't quite sure how to treat a woman lawyer and construction. And so, they would underestimate me, which I always use to an advantage.
Abigail Thomson 08:25
Absolutely.
Nancy Chillag 08:27
And in the real estate syndications. It's a matter of how you look at the projects, you're doing the tenants, you know, if you are renovating a building, and renovating individual units, you know, bringing a woman's perspective to how the space works. Well, how do you set up a kitchen? Those types of things? Are there any little things that you can add to apartment units? That would be beneficial? Because what I find is, a lot of times the women are the ones choosing the apartment. They're the ones shopping, they're the ones that go and check it out. And then they bring their husband along. And so, if you can add things to your units that appeal to women or are sensitive to the things that they're looking for, I think you have a real advantage.
Abigail Thomson 09:29
My mom and I are always talking about how to make things feel homier, because are in this business we are creating. Yes, we do buy apartment complex, but we're creating homes for people who live in these complexes and in these buildings. And if you can keep that in mind that you're always trying to create a community is so beneficial. And I think that women stereotypically naturally have that ability to just be able to like we're always thinking about creating families and creating a home for ourselves. And it's not just renovating an apartment unit, it's how is this person? How is this family? How are these people going to live in this space? And so, I think that's a really good advantage that we had to me really agree with that.
Nancy Chillag 10:16
Well, and also just realizing that one of your biggest costs is tenant turnover. And if you can really create a community, then people are less likely to move away. Absolutely. And creating a community means maybe you sponsor activities with kids on holidays. And you set up you know, you have your property manager set up a mother's group, or, you know, social gatherings on a monthly basis where all the tenants are invited to maybe you throw barbecue. Yeah, doing those kinds of things, I think, can really enhance the love that your tenants have for a community. And then they stay.
Abigail Thomson 11:08
I think that's also a really good way to attract for you, specifically women who are wanting to invest is women look at things like that. They want to see, oh, what is my money doing for me? Oh, it's creating a community, it's creating homes, I see that they have a mother's group or all these other things. And they're like, okay, I feel comfortable using this as my investment platform or using this to diversify my investments, things like that. And I think that that's really powerful. And there's so many untapped women who do want to do this, but are scared to like you said earlier, and I think that's really amazing. Okay, so what got you into law in the first place, and then, like real estate, so your law practice was real estate and construction, what was your first draw to doing that? avenue of law,
Nancy Chillag 12:08
I have always loved real estate. Actually, when I was growing up, you know, my parents did not invest in real estate. But I heard about it, I read about it, I loved it. And so, it was a natural draw for me when I became a lawyer. And within a year of being a lawyer, I bought my first investment property with some friends, which was a five-unit Victorian, in San Francisco. We had no idea what we were doing. But we managed it we put in the tenants, we arranged you know, the purchase the loan, everything. And it was a lot of fun. And we held it for just a little over four years and made a ton of money. And it was I was I was just absolutely hooked. And I just kept. I exchanged that money into a couple other properties. And, you know, the rest was history. So, it was natural when I retired from law, that I would do real estate.
Abigail Thomson 13:16
So, during your law practice, I think you mentioned a second ago, you had a separate business flipping houses. Yes?
Nancy Chillag 13:25
Well, at the time, my husband, now ex-husband and I would flip a house maybe once a year, once every two years. And it was just fun. You know, we did it as a hobby.
Abigail Thomson 13:39
That's a really awesome hobby. That makes you money. When flipping houses, were you focusing on just like the flip and sell or were you using them as like renovated rental?
Nancy Chillag 13:55
Well, I flip houses in the San Francisco Bay Area, mostly. And it's very difficult to have rental properties here without having hundreds of 1000s of dollars of your money tied up in the property in order for you to get a loan that will pencil and that means, you know, being able to have the rents cover your mortgage, your insurance, your taxes. You just have to tie up too much capital. Yeah, I bet. So, I used to invest in California. I've liquidated everything I have here but yeah, it doesn't make sense. So, my flipping business is basically I rehab houses and then sell them.
Abigail Thomson 14:46
You've done a couple other avenues of real estate as well. I think you did the RV park was that what it was?
Nancy Chillag 14:54
I have I have some mobile home parks,
Abigail Thomson 14:56
Mobile home parks, right. What made you attractive to that specific type of real estate?
Nancy Chillag 15:02
What I like about mobile home parks is that the tenants own the mobile homes. So, all you're really doing is renting dirt. And you can create a community. But these people own their homes. And so, they're responsible for the upkeep, the maintenance, the insurance, all of that, and they're just paying me to rent the dirt under their mobile home. So that cost is a lot less. And, you know, it's affordable housing. And people that are in apartment buildings A lot of times, you know, especially if they have kids, they're looking for a little space of their own some grass, some dirt. You know, they get that with a mobile home park. Yeah. And the other nice thing is that, you know, people think mobile home, but those things aren't really that mobile. Right? I mean, once you move them in, you know, it can cost you over $5,000 to move it to a new park. And most people just don't have the finances for that.
Abigail Thomson 16:12
Right. That's an interesting concept because I was thinking the same thing is mobile homes, I feel like that would be really come and go, your turnover would be pretty, pretty high. But I guess it's not because those things are there. There. They do stay put for quite a while.
Nancy Chillag 16:29
Well, again, there's two models. One is, you know, where your tenants are renting not only the dirt, but the mobile home itself, in which case there is a lot of turnover, right. But if they own the mobile home, there's not as much turnover.
Abigail Thomson 16:45
Right, because they're kind of establishing more of a home in that space. That makes a lot of sense. So, what made you interested in moving into multifamily from there?
Nancy Chillag 16:55
Diversification, easier to get loans, it's very difficult to get a loan on a mobile home park. So, you know, if you're starting in that area, getting owner financing a lot of times is the only way that you can finance a mobile home park, where with apartment buildings, it's much easier to get financing. The other thing about apartment buildings is if you have a property manager, and they're not working out, there are five or six others in the area where you can take your business, and with mobile home parks. There aren't that many companies that manage mobile home parks. And they're a whole different animal. You know, you might have an apartment building manager, manager, mobile home park, it just doesn't work.
Abigail Thomson 17:45
makes a lot of sense. Still, mobile homes are way more niche or niche, as opposed to apartments are a little bit more common. It's easier to get the financing and broaden them as businesses.
Nancy Chillag 17:59
And it's Yeah, it's just a different infrastructure. It's a different type of tenant. So, finding a manager that handles mobile home parks is difficult.
Abigail Thomson 18:10
Yes, that makes total sense. Okay, so final, real question. We asked us to all of our guests, but what does the American Dream mean to you? Then, on top of that, how are you planning on taking that to the next level and achieving those dreams?
Nancy Chillag 18:29
Okay, well, American Dream, you know, the, the typical response you hear is that you can really do anything here. If you put your mind to it, you're willing to work, you can do anything that you want. As a woman, you know, I experienced that, you know, I just put my head down and said, Yes, I can be a lawyer. Yes, I can have my own law firm. Yes, I can. I can do whatever men do. And I was able to do that. So, my next step, how I'm taking it to the next level is to empower women to do the same thing to understand finance to understand investing, and to be able to take control of their financial future. I find that very exciting.
Abigail Thomson 19:22
I also find that very exciting. And that's one of the biggest reasons I really wanted to have you on today is because that's your whole focus is you set your mind to dominating male focused field or male heavily practiced field. And I think that's so inspiring. And then now that you've shifted your business into specifically real estate, your focus is to reach out to women and say, this isn't a scary place. I can help you welcome. Let's do this together. I'm in it. I'm in it with you and I absolutely love that. I think it's so inspiring and it really motivates me specifically even though we're doing the same thing I, I get to see your business and go off. It's just the most incredible thing in the world to me. And I'm so excited that I got the opportunity to interview you today!
Nancy Chillag 20:18
Abbie, I really enjoyed it!
Abigail Thomson 20:20
Final thing is how can our listeners find you or your company or get to know more about what you do?
Nancy Chillag 20:27
Well, the name of our company is 23rd Street investors. And you can go to www.23rdstreetinvestors.com. We also have a podcast which is educational. It's called, "The Artful Investor."
Abigail Thomson 20:43
Okay, well, I will link all of that in our description. I'm so excited that we got to have you on today. Thank you so much for joining me and I'll see you next time!
Nancy Chillag 20:55
Thank you.
Abigail Thomson 20:56
Thanks for joining us for another episode of Next Level American Dream. If you would like to learn more about what we talked about today, want to contact the team directly, or are interested in passively investing and being a part of our deal room, head over to our website at www.thomsonmultifamilygroup.com - Before you go, please leave a review! Your comments help us create more episodes for you to enjoy.