Experience the Inspiring Journey of Veena Jetti Embracing Life’s Challenges to Real Estate Success

Transcript

[Mattias]
Welcome to the REI Agent, a holistic approach to life through real estate. I’m Matias, an agent and investor.

[Erica]
And I’m Erika, a licensed therapist.

[Mattias]
Join us as we interview guests that also strive to live bold and fulfilled lives through business and real estate investing.

[Erica]
Tune in every week for interviews with real estate agents and investors.

[Mattias]
Ready to level up?

[Erica]
Let’s do it.

[Mattias]
Welcome back to the REI Agent. We have Erika back. Yay.

[Erica]
I feel like these always start this way. I’m here.

[Mattias]
And when I’d be by myself, I’m like, sorry, guys. It’s just me today. But yeah, now we got Erika back.

We’ve been trying really hard to ramp up the production so that we can get kind of caught up whenever little scheduling snags happen. It’s hard when you don’t have a couple recorded in the background. So Erika has less windows of time available since you are still a practicing therapist.

And so we have kind of our slated times. But if those get thrown out the window, if a scheduling change has to happen or kids are sick or whatever, yeah, we don’t always have the fortune of having you on. So I’m glad you’re here.

[Erica]
Thank you. Well, I pop in when I can.

[Mattias]
We had a fun weekend. So at the time of recording, it was peak fall colors, right? We went camping.

[Erica]
Yep. We went to a campground that had 10 miles of hiking trails that were right off of the campsite, easily accessible. And it was just beautiful.

[Mattias]
Yeah. It was cool, but it wasn’t too cold. I think the lowest was maybe low 40s.

Did it ever get into 30s?

[Erica]
I don’t think so. But it was very chilly at night and in the morning, and then it would get up to about 67, 70 during the day.

[Mattias]
I mean, it was kind of ideal. I was thinking about how much I like that over it being really hot when you’re camping outside. So we were able to get out.

I didn’t bring enough warm clothes, but I had enough that I could get out and kind of make a fire and make coffee and get that rolling.

[Erica]
Yeah. Our girls brought their bikes and our youngest bike, her bike, it was like this kind of junkie, like $10 bike that we bought for them to learn on. And so it doesn’t have any rubber on the handlebars anymore.

And so in the morning when she was trying to ride it, she was saying that it was like the metal was freezing her hands. And so that’s when we took two socks and put them on the ends and I zip tied them together so she could have something to hold on to. But you didn’t, I guess you didn’t see.

And then at one point we were packing up and you’re like, well, I see we have zip tied socks. What are these for?

[Mattias]
They were in the basket. I was like, that is just, that’s classic. Like a kid had some idea in their head and you’re the kid and you had the idea in your head.

[Erica]
Hey, but you know what? It worked.

[Mattias]
It did. Once you explained it, I understood. It was great.

I would say a theme for the weekend and something we can talk about from it is when crisis happens, when the big things happen, how do you handle it and what approaches do you take? And I have a couple parallels. One of them, the first thing that happened was I had a tenant call me at five 30 in the morning.

The first night we were camping, luckily we had a service at this campsite. I thought about this as like, you know, I had no idea going into it if we would or not. I didn’t really think through this.

But I had a tenant call me at five 30. He called me twice. The first time, I think it kind of woke up and I was confused and just kind of went back to sleep.

And the second time I was like, okay, what’s going on? And then he left a message and I read it and there was water pouring out of the ceiling of his apartment. So, there’s a person above.

I was like, okay, that’s obviously a water leak or something in the person above’s apartment. So, I first texted that apartment, the person above, the one that had the problem and then asked them to look to see if there’s anything happening, if there’s a leak somewhere. And didn’t get a hold of him.

And by the time I kind of did that, I was kind of waking up. I got another call from this tenant. So, I answered.

And I guess what I want to talk about though is like the whole time that I’m working through this situation or thinking through how am I going to handle this? Oh, no, this is going to be really expensive. What’s the worst case scenario?

What’s going to happen here? I think I had my like, I’m the owner hat on. And I just kind of like took a break, took a second to think.

I was like, okay, you are the owner. You’re two hours away. There’s nothing you can do.

You got to think about being the property manager too. Like put on that hat. When you put that hat on, what’s the logical thing to do?

And it was call the plumber, right? In our area, we have probably like… I have one go-to plumber that’s known to be a little bit more expensive, but they have all the things.

They have emergency hours, et cetera. They can take care of the situation. And it’s always like, ah, do I want to call them?

Because it’s going to be extra money to have the emergency hour. They’re going to be a little bit more expensive, blah, blah, blah. But you know what?

I just want it done. I want it handled. If I was the property manager, this is the decision I would make.

Boom, let’s do it. So we did. Turns out it was a hot water heater leaking in the above.

The rusted at the bottom and was just spewing water. And so we were getting that handled. And I could then kind of relax after I just took care of it.

Put on the property manager hat and just kind of did what was logical. But when you’re… It’s different hats that can confuse things.

And I was thinking about that, too, with parenting and how we had a little crisis, a little meltdown, which is just to be expected. If you go into a setting where there’s a lot of the differences in routine, you know, not sleeping near as much, kids are going to be put through the gamut and they’re probably going to lose it a little bit. And I’ve been in professional roles as a behavior therapist and been able to be very calm.

But for some reason, when it’s a kid, that’s my kid, I have a really hard time doing that. And yeah, I’m super thankful that I have Erica to step in at those times. How do you stay calm in those scenarios?

[Erica]
Erica Well, I mean, you know how you said you put on your project manager hat? I think in those moments, I tend to put on my clinician hat. And, you know, when meltdowns like that, it was a big one.

It wasn’t by any means small. It was a big one. And there are some safety concerns happening.

At the very beginning, you just remember that logic conversation is not a thing at this point. You can’t reason with a child that is dysregulated. And their brain is just not connected in that way.

It’s not going to make sense. It’s going to make you mad. Your main concern at that point is calming them down and safety, which usually means very minimal words.

You really don’t want to talk a whole lot. And for parents, a lot of times it’s just regulating yourself and staying quiet and just trying to breathe. And so I think that’s why I kept repeating to our child, I kept repeating, I don’t have anything to say right now.

Because we were trying to, we’re in the car, we’re on the highway when it was happening, we’re trying to get to a park where we could park. I don’t have anything to say right now. When we park, dad and everyone else will go to the playground and then you and I will talk.

And I just kept saying that over and over because I knew there wasn’t any reasoning at that point at all. And then once you get to a point where you know everyone is safe, and I helped her recognize what calm looked like. I said, I’m looking for a calm body.

I’m looking for slow breathing. And when you’re able to talk to me about how you’re feeling, and until then, you and I are just going to sit here together. And that took a little while.

It took a couple of, I am calm. But then at the end of it, I was able to say, I am so tired and hungry. And I just reflected that back.

And I said, we’ve been doing a lot and we’ve been sleeping in different places and there’s been a lot happening. And that makes a lot of sense. And then we had to do the repair too.

There were some points during that meltdown. I didn’t say that to her, but there were some points where you were hurting others or others were being hurt. And so we need to go back and repair some of those relationships before we can continue on.

And then we came and did that with you guys. And then we moved on. It’s a slow, crisis de-escalation is a slow process sometimes and you just have to stay regulated yourself.

[Mattias]
Yeah. It’s funny how hard that is for me when it’s my own kid. And yeah, I don’t know.

I kept putting my AirPods in. I have active noise canceling.

[Erica]
I saw that. That was a good call. That was a really good call on your part because I knew you were struggling not to engage in the argument.

[Mattias]
Yeah. And that helps. I forget if we talked about this in the podcast before, but you have these loop earbud things that just kind of dull the sound and AirPods have this adaptive setting that you can control how much audio comes through.

There’s only three different settings, regular, more or less noise coming through. And I find that if I put it on the most, I can still mostly hear what’s happening. You’ve complained sometimes that you don’t think I can hear anything.

[Erica]
I generally talk quieter anyway. And so when you have some sort of interference in your ears, it doesn’t even pick me up at all. Yeah.

[Mattias]
Well, yeah. When you first said your first set of loop earbud things, you had a more noise canceling version. And so you were talking really loud.

I was like, I can finally hear her. It was great. No, but that, that it’s, I think it’s, that’s something also that we’ve just kind of realized more and more that like, as parents with all this stuff happening, we get like overstimulated.

And I don’t know if that was ever really a thing before kids for me, but it is.

[Erica]
Yeah. It’s really hard to stay calm as a parent, just stay regulated. It’s really tough.

And even have the awareness when you’re starting to get like dysregulated yourself.

[Mattias]
Yeah.

[Erica]
It’s, it’s, I feel like the, in the awareness of that is pretty new. They’ve done, like there’s a lot more education out there about that. I don’t think that was really a thing for our parents growing up.

I don’t know if that was really talked about or even known how that impacts children.

[Mattias]
Yeah, probably not. But that was, so yeah, I mean, we had, we got through it. I mean, when we look back on the weekend and it was a lot of fun, I don’t think of this as like a, you know, such a hard weekend.

Why do we go, why do we do this? It was really fun. And we just had two moments where I guess we had to put on different hats and put our professional hats on in a, in a personal setting and yeah, just, just take care of things.

And yeah.

[Erica]
Yeah. I mean, I, I will just say yet at the end of that, I can tell that it takes a lot of emotional energy for me. Like after it’s all said and done, cause I have worked so hard to be so calm and neutral and responsive that at the end of it, I’m just like depleted.

Cause like as soon as it was done, my, my thought was, Oh my God, I want to go back to the campfire and I want to drink a beer. And I was like, that’s the stress talking. And I need, it’s a really good sign.

I just need to kind of refuel at some point.

[Mattias]
That was tough. Like, cause you know, it’s not like, I mean, we can work together and give each other breaks, but I mean, often when you want to break, it’s like the kids are going to cling to you more. Cause they’re like, sense that you’re leaving them or something.

So yeah, I mean, you’re, you’re a trooper. I really appreciate that you can handle that stuff so well, because it, it had my, my blood boiling. And I think, you know, most people would think that like the hardest part of the weekend would be the water pouring out of the tent ceiling.

It definitely didn’t get me as worked up as the, as the meltdown.

[Erica]
So, yeah, well you were also driving on the highway and that was really stressful.

[Mattias]
So I’m trying to figure out where we’re going in a busy area. It’s not fun.

[Erica]
There’s a lot playing into it, but yeah, it ended up being a really good weekend. We’re back. And you know, we’re, we’re meeting with Vena Jetty and yeah, go ahead and talk a little bit about her.

Cause I feel like you know more.

[Mattias]
Well, yeah, Vena is, is a powerhouse. So glad to have her on here. Vena is, has done over a billion dollars in apartment syndications out of the Dallas area.

So she’s a known leading expert in this space. It’s really cool that she is a woman and that she is, you know, powerful. I think she has kind of a niche where she can lead other women and help them feel like they can do it too, which of course, and she, I think I saw one video about her talking about how she would go into an appointment.

So probably when, before she was like more well known, but she’d go into appointments and sit down and be ready to start. And there’d be like, so when’s your husband getting here? And she’d be like, I don’t know.

When’s your, when’s your wife getting here? Which I think is amazing. So anyway, super excited about this conversation.

So, so without further ado, here’s Vena Jetti. Welcome back to the REI Agent. We are honored to have Vena Jetti with us.

Vena, thanks so much for being on the show.

[Veena Jetti]
Hi, thanks for having me. I’m excited to be here.

[Mattias]
Yeah, no, I, first of all, it’s a floor that you accepted. I, I’ve known about you for a long time, a mutual friend of ours speaks so highly of you. So I’m super excited for you to be on here.

[Erica]
Thank you. I’m excited to be here. Yeah.

Just, just to get started, can you, I was curious where you’re at in life right now in the season, just in the fall with Halloween coming up with your kids, what projects you have going on? What is, what’s life, what’s the pace like for you right now?

[Veena Jetti]
Oh my gosh. I, you know, it’s so funny you’re asking me this because about a month and a half ago I had my own event in Chicago. I had a masterclass and I was like, you know, this is a really nice like ending to my travel for the year.

I can start slowing down. That has not happened a little bit. Um, I think my October, I had more speaking engagements than I did in all of September.

Um, and I was like, okay, you know what? After October, you know, Halloween will be the end. And then I am speaking on November 1st.

I am speaking on November 4th. I’m speaking on November 8th. Like I have three in the first week of November alone.

So, um, to answer your question, it has not slowed down even a little bit. Um, and I am making sure, you know, I’m home for all the Halloween things cause I have young daughters, they’re twin five-year-olds. Um, so I am, I am, and I’m dressing up too.

We had our community event with Halloween costumes. So I wore like my tiger, I’m Raja the tiger from Aladdin this year. My one daughter is being Jasmine.

So I’m, I’m Raja and she’s, um, taking full advantage of ordering me around. That’s great. So, um, yeah, definitely not slowing down at all, but it’s a, it’s a good busy.

Um, November 1st is also Diwali, which is like a really big holiday for us culturally and religiously. So festival of lights. Exactly.

Yup. The festival of lights, good over evil. And so, um, you know, we’re going to be celebrating and having a party at the house and you know, we’re doing all the things that’s so fun.

[Erica]
You know, you talking about how many speaking engagements you’ve had made me think back to a reel that I saw of you wearing sparkly, like diamond D socks.

[Veena Jetti]
They’re shoes. They’re actually shoes. Yes.

[Erica]
And they’re like the best ever. I thought, Oh my gosh, that’s like working through a loophole. Like I don’t want to be uncomfortable anymore.

I’m just going to wear these really cool socks.

[Veena Jetti]
That really was how, so there are shoes meaning like they have a full soul, like an actual shoe bottom, but then the top is, it looks like a sock. It’s like a mesh shoe and they’re like, everyone’s like, Oh my gosh, those are incredible. And they’re like, those must’ve been like $3,000.

I’m like, they were $25 on Amazon. And in two days you can have them too.

[Erica]
There you go. You could become an ambassador for that one.

[Veena Jetti]
Right. They should make me one.

[Erica]
Once in a while.

[Veena Jetti]
There you go.

[Erica]
10 cents at a time. Oh man. You sound so, you sound busy.

Is this a pace that you typically really enjoy or what kind of pace feels good?

[Veena Jetti]
You know, I don’t know that anyone’s ever asked me that. Um, does it feel good? I think I’m just a person that needs to always be doing something because I think whenever I have like free time or downtime, I fill it with something else.

Um, cause you know, there’s like a never ending to do list forever and ever and ever. There’s always stuff we can be doing. Um, but I’m also a very intentional person, especially now that I have kids.

I feel like, you know, having kids is like trying to stop time and I’m like just trying to hold on to every single moment. And so I’m very intentional. I’m very present when I’m with my kids.

I’ve gotten better about drawing boundaries around my work life, um, because of my kids. And so I think this is just the cadence that I’m at for now. I have a lot of things I want to do.

[Erica]
Mm hmm. Yeah. That, you know, you’re talking about kids.

We were talking about our kids in the, in our intro. Um, and, and just recognizing that kids really push you to be more aware of yourself as a, as an adult, like as a human that like things you didn’t really quite recognize before you had kids and they, which is a great thing. It can be a kind of a train wreck if you’re not.

[Veena Jetti]
Yes. And it can still be a train wreck even if you’re paying attention to it. Yeah.

But yes, we try. Yeah. Did your girls start, um, kindergarten this year?

Not yet. So they’re July birthdays. So we wrestled with this for a long time and we were like, do we send them to, and they’re ready, like academically, they’re very much advanced and so they’re ready academically, they’re ready socially.

But then I actually did like this unofficial survey of mom friends and like stranger moms on the internet. I was like, Hey, if you had a child, that’s like a summer birthday. Cause I’m August 18th.

So I was always the youngest in my class. And I was like, was it where you, do you regret red shirting them? And what I found was that every single parent that red shirted their kids, not a single one of them regretted it.

But then the parents that sent their kids half were like, I don’t regret it at all. No issues. I’m glad I did this.

The other half were like, I really wish I would have held them back a year. But it was one mom that said to me, well, the way I see it is it doesn’t hurt them to hold them back a year and we get an extra year of childhood where they’re home with us.

[Mattias]
Yeah.

[Veena Jetti]
And for me, I was like, say less. I’m in like, I want, I want to hold them back for like seven years now. So I have, yeah, yeah.

So we’re going to give them one more year. So they’re in a transitional kindergarten right now.

[Erica]
And then, um, transitional kindergarten.

[Veena Jetti]
Yeah. It’s like, it’s a Montessori. It’s like a free type program, but they do like more kindergarten type stuff.

Um, and then we’ll move them. I think we’re thinking we’re going to do like the public school. We have a good public school system here.

Um, but I, you know, there’s also that little like homeschool bug that is like clicking in my brain. So I don’t know.

[Mattias]
Yeah. You need more probably to do Veena.

[Veena Jetti]
Yeah.

[Erica]
I know. Right.

[Veena Jetti]
And to be very clear, I am not smart enough to homeschool my children and they’re already smarter than me. We would hire like, I found out the official name of someone who like homeschools your children for you is called a governess.

[Mattias]
Oh wow.

[Veena Jetti]
So yeah, we would maybe do that. We have a few friends in the area with like similar age kids that we’ve been talking about, like starting a little pod and maybe doing like a homeschool curricula. I don’t know.

We really don’t know what we’re doing. If it’s not clear enough.

[Mattias]
That’s the thing that we’ve learned too, is I feel like parents, uh, we, we just kind of always assumed our parents knew what they were doing, but now that we’re parents themselves, we’re like, no, no, we just, we’re just going to make this up.

[Veena Jetti]
Yeah, for sure. We’re making it up. Uh, and you know, it’s hard too, because now we just have like more access to information.

So we know that like, you know, some of the things that were popular and normal and okay in the nineties are just like not okay anymore. Right. Like now it’s like creating space for their feelings and acknowledging that they have feelings and they’re humans just like, and like, you know, like the children should be seen, not heard.

Like that’s not a thing that we do. And so it’s just like a really interesting dichotomy now, parenting children versus when like our parents were raising us. Yes.

[Erica]
It takes a lot more out of parents now because of that, because it’s be more engaged, be more present, be more exactly, exactly. Yeah. Wasn’t it, uh, Malcolm Gladwell that talked about, um, like birth, uh, like when you’re in outliers.

[Veena Jetti]
Yeah.

[Erica]
Yes. Yes. Yes.

And how I think he was talking to you about how, um, you know, you want to be like, you want to put your children, you’re talking about colleges too, but also with sports, but you want to be in the top, what, two thirds of where everybody is at. That way you feel challenged enough, but you don’t feel like you’re on top of everybody and you don’t feel exactly you’re in the bottom third. You just feel like you’re getting run over.

Um, yes. I was just kind of curious with what, when you started your career, how was that for you? Did you feel like you were running in the top two thirds?

What was the process like getting started and where did you build from there?

[Veena Jetti]
So, okay. I, so I graduated high school when I was 16 and went to college. So I was always the youngest, significantly like in most rooms that I was in.

And I graduated my degree in finance when I was 20, went and worked in corporate America. Um, honestly, I don’t know if I was in the top or not. I just, I didn’t really like working for someone else.

I was just like not a worker bee. I didn’t like being told what times, when, where, how to dress, what I had, like, I didn’t like any of that. So I didn’t last very long in corporate America.

Um, in 2012 I ended up leaving my corporate job and started my own companies and obviously found footing there. Um, and you know, I, it’s funny because, do you guys know what the CliftonStrengths are? I have heard of those.

I couldn’t recite it to you though. Oh my gosh. Okay.

Uh, this has totally changed my whole life.

[Mattias]
Okay.

[Veena Jetti]
So I coached with a woman named Rosie Noel and she specializes in CliftonStrengths. And basically CliftonStrengths is an assessment. It’s like, you guys know like the disc assessment and all of those, right?

Okay. So similar in concept, but I think it’s way better because it’s backed by Gallup. So it’s like a multi-billion dollar research company.

It’s like scientifically backed and studied. It’s not just like I made it up at my kitchen table or like, you know, it’s just, it’s actually rooted in data. And so CliftonStrengths says there’s 34 themes or talents that everybody has.

And you take this test, it takes like 20 minutes. It’s like super easy. And it gives you your results and it ranks them from one to 34.

And basically your top 10 are always on and you like lead with those strengths. Like you can’t help it. And I love it because it gives you permission to like be who you are and then reframe those strengths so that you can show up in like a better way for your team, your spouse, your kids, relationships in general.

And my number one strength in CliftonStrengths is competition. And so like I want to win at everything. You know, like I love a board game.

I’m prepared to lose all of my friends and all of my family members to play Monopoly. And so I’ve always been competitive. And when I was younger, I used to kind of be like, oh, am I better than that person?

But it’s not really a good metric, because like you don’t always know who you’re measuring up against. You don’t know what advantages or disadvantages someone else is working with. So it wasn’t until I started coaching with Rosie that I was able to kind of shift my perspective around competition.

And so I think I’ve always been not smarter necessarily, but I think my third, my second is competition. My third is woo, like winning others over. So I’ve always been a people person.

And I think my people skills have been in like the top few percentage points. And I think that really overcame my lack of ability in other areas. So I don’t know that I was like, at the top or the bottom or in the middle.

But I will say that I’m now like really more competitive just with myself. So I’m just trying to be better than I was yesterday, or, you know, two days ago or 10 years ago. And so I don’t know, I don’t know where I land.

I don’t know if I’m in the top or not. But I’m proud of what I’m doing. So yeah.

[Erica]
Yeah, you should be. Yeah, it probably more depends on how you feel. It’s me talking.

Yeah. You know, but if you feel like you’ve got the resources and the strength to make it through and keep pushing your way through, then, you know, it probably feels like you don’t have too much of a challenge ahead of you where it just feels defeating.

[Veena Jetti]
Yeah, yeah. It’s always like a healthy amount of fear and a healthy amount of acceptance. And a healthy amount of optimism.

It’s like the exact right combination.

[Erica]
You know what, though? Fear and acceptance. That’s a really good combo.

[Veena Jetti]
Yes, yes. I mean, it has been beaten into me by the world, I think, over time.

[Mattias]
I was gonna say I had to reframe with competition too, because I had definitely been a competitive person. And I’ve always looked at or I always kind of was taught or thought that that was bad. Like I shouldn’t want to say that I’m competitive.

But I think that really, when you do just kind of internalize it, it’s like, I just want to continue to get better for myself. It’s awesome. I mean, it’s a great motivator.

[Veena Jetti]
100%. And it’s also like, I think for me, the reframe to not just like competitive with myself, but also like, recognizing that when my team wins, like I’m winning. And so that was like a really big shift because now I’m like, oh, wait, if I can help both of you win, then I can take credit for your win too.

And so it just like leads to more abundance and better relationships. And like, my life is just so much better because of it, honestly.

[Mattias]
That’s awesome. So when you got out of corporate world and started your, did you go right into apartment syndication? Or where were you at that point?

How long did you get to that point?

[Veena Jetti]
Yeah, I wish I did. I just didn’t know I could. So instead, I went the more typical path of single family homes, bought a lot of single family rentals.

And I still have a few in my portfolio. I try not to, because it’s just so much of a management headache. But I keep the ones that I’m like, oh, maybe in the future, we’ll want to like go back and live there.

I mean, I don’t know. It’s stupid. We probably won’t.

But in my head, that was what I thought. So we have a few still. But ultimately after I bought, I put five under contract in one week.

[Mattias]
Oh, wow.

[Veena Jetti]
And it was so much. Yeah. Oh, wow is one response you can have to this scenario.

It was a lot. It was just so much effort. And the other thing I learned by owning single family homes, I’m like a really, really bad collector of rents because I’m like a bleeding heart in a lot of ways.

And so I would have people that’d be like, oh, Miss Vina, I can’t pay my rent. It’ll be like a week late because my daughter needs like diapers. And I’m like, okay, just skip rent this month.

I’m like, can’t really be profitable and run a business like that. And so it’s like kind of striking that balance. And that’s where I started getting into multifamily because now I don’t collect the rent.

I don’t have to be the one that does that because I’m not good at that. And so we have a team that does that. And instead, I get to be the one that’s like more driving the strategy and how we’re going to do this and what moves we need to make to get where we need to go and talking to investors and like doing all the other things that require a lot more soft skills.

And that’s where I found competence. And that’s where I found my like, that’s where I can shine. That’s a value I can bring to a team.

[Mattias]
Oh, that makes a lot of sense. Yeah. I think that the single family route is usually the route most people take when they get into the investing world.

Talk to people in there, out there, like thinking about getting started. Would you suggest jumping into syndications, apartments, multifamilies, or how would someone go about starting? Yeah, 100%.

[Veena Jetti]
If I could go back and do it all over again, I would have skipped single family. I just didn’t know that you could skip single family. I actually didn’t even know I could own multifamily.

I thought multifamily was for like Jeff Bezos and Oprah. I didn’t know Vena Jetty could own multifamily assets. And now knowing what I know, I would have totally skipped that very stressful period of my life and gone just straight to multifamily.

And there’s different stressors that come with multifamily because now when you’re raising investor capital, it’s a whole different ballgame, right? People talk about like OPM, use other people’s money, get OPM. And that’s all great in theory, but in practicality, it’s really hard to do this because you won’t sleep the same.

You just won’t. It’s so different. It’s a different responsibility for me to have investor capital than it is to have my own money.

If I lose my own money, okay, it sucks, whatever, I’ll make it back up. But when I have friends, family, investors that are trusting me with this responsibility, I don’t take it lightly. So if you raise capital, which you should, any business that wants to scale needs to know how to raise capital.

But if and when you do raise capital, just be prepared to never sleep the same again because you won’t.

[Mattias]
Yeah. And then there’s the other end of it too, the investors, right? They could, instead of putting down payment down on a townhouse or whatever, they could invest in a syndication.

What would that look like for somebody?

[Veena Jetti]
Yeah. So LPs. And I see this often where people even in real estate just don’t know that this is a thing and it’s mind-boggling.

And the crazy part is, is I didn’t either. And I come from a real estate family. I come from an institutional background.

And so my last corporate gig in 2012 was at Tishman’s Fire. I had a billion, $1.2 billion asset that I was on the management side of. And I still had no idea that this was a thing.

It wasn’t until a friend of mine told me that this is what he was doing and asked me if I wanted to partner with him that I was like, okay, yeah, okay. What could possibly go wrong? Thankfully, it was at a time that was like back in 2014 or 2015.

So it was at a time where the market was just like starting to get hot and was getting hotter and hotter and hotter. But as an LP, right, and we were accredited investors. If you’re an accredited investor, it means you make over $200,000 a year for the last two years with a reasonable expectation of maintaining that.

$300,000 if you’re married or you have a net worth of over a million dollars excluding your primary home. And we were accredited investors. My husband and I were accredited investors.

Not a single person approached me about investing into a syndicated deal because these are called like private placements, right? So we use private placement memorandums or PPMs and it truly means it’s private. So this is where, you know, who’s in your network that’s going to make the difference on whether or not you, or if you’re listening to this podcast, right?

Like now you know something that I didn’t know and we didn’t have access to like this kind of education. Podcasts weren’t really a thing back then. They were just getting started.

And so as an LP, the really great thing about investing into a syndication is you can choose an asset class. It could be any asset class. Like we focus primarily on class B value add and core plus assets in the Sunbelt and Arizona.

That’s all we do. That’s our bread and butter. But like we’re invested into syndications where we’re invested into a storage, like a self storage fund where they buy self storages.

We’re invested into retail. We’re invested into assisted living. Like we’re invested into so many different asset classes and I don’t have to know how to operate them.

I have a great partner or the general partner or sponsor who knows everything there is to know about those fields. And so I don’t have to do things with it, which is great, but I get the benefit of being invested. I have an equity position.

I get the tax benefit. I also get the income from the asset. And then when they sell the asset, usually I get an opportunity to roll my money into some other deal and I generate returns way above what the market does.

So like multifamily on average for the last 25 years has returned 9.75% above the S&P 500. And the S&P 500 is usually like what any finance manager, fund manager, mark to market, you’re trying to outperform the S&P 500.

[Mattias]
And rarely can.

[Veena Jetti]
Yeah. And it’s very tough to do that, except in real estate. And it’s because there’s so much inefficiency in real estate, especially at scale, that you can generate significant returns by investing into multifamily, certain hotels, dare I say office or hospitality.

There’s so many different avenues and you can be invested into so many different things. Like we have industrial in our portfolio. So now I’m not limiting my exposure just to the multifamily assets that we do, but I’m raising the capital, buying the multifamily assets.

Of course we invest into our own deals, but now all of my eggs aren’t in this one asset or these five assets, right? Now they’re in so many different diverse sectors and I have a little bit here and a little bit there. And we have crypto and the stock market and all these things exist that we still invest into.

But you want a diversified portfolio and it’s just a part of diversification.

[Mattias]
Yeah. No, it really is. And it opens, like you said, there’s not a need to fully understand that market.

You should understand enough to know what you’re getting into and know what questions to ask, but you don’t really need to be an expert of running an apartment complex. That’s your job and you can get into it and reap the benefits. And if you’re a real estate professional, you get additional benefits when you get that K1, when you get the depreciating that are huge as well.

And I think there’s a lot of real estate professionals out there that don’t know what I’m even talking about.

[Veena Jetti]
Yes, you’re absolutely right. And that’s actually what I was going to say is if there are any realtors or brokers listening to this, you could be investing into these deals and you actually benefit from a tax perspective more than someone who doesn’t have full-time real estate professional status. So yeah, absolutely makes sense all day long.

[Mattias]
You get to claim more of what’s being depreciated on your taxes and it goes towards your income. And so there’s been a lot of high-income spouses, like spouses of somebody who’s a high-income earner that will become a real estate agent or a lot of people are getting into the Airbnb space to kind of get that designation. So it’s definitely a huge sought-after advantage once you understand it.

[Veena Jetti]
Absolutely, absolutely.

[Mattias]
So yeah, so you’ve done, like you said, mainly apartments. What are you looking for when you’re out looking for an opportunity?

[Veena Jetti]
So our buy box today has definitely shifted than where we started almost a decade ago. So today what we’re really looking for is highly stabilized assets. We’ve kind of shifted away from even heavy value add to more value add and then core plus is kind of what we’re looking at.

And that’s because we are really boring investors. We like very vanilla, boring deals. I tell my investors, look, it is more exciting to watch paint dry than to do what we do.

And I want it that way. And yes, the returns are lower compared to something that has a lot of drama and excitement, right? Because that’s what you’re getting paid to do is to handle the drama and the excitement.

I don’t want that drama in my life. I’m good without it. So I have enough drama on our own assets that I don’t need to add to and go out looking for more, right?

So for our assets, we look for that class B. We want that sweet spot right in the middle of workforce housing and class A housing. And the reason that we want that is because generally in recessionary times and in great times, our assets still have a good tenant base.

Class A tenants come down to class B, class B go down to class C during a recession. And then the opposite is true when the market’s booming. And so we want that insulation from either good markets or bad markets.

We want to be like super boring right in the middle. And then we typically are looking at population growth, location of the sub market, making sure that our tenant base has enough income to be able to support the rent that we’re looking for, especially for renovating. I think a big miss new investors make is they go, oh, okay, we’re going to spend $12,000 renovating this apartment complex.

And then we’re going to get a $250 rent premium. And then they go to charge, like call it $2,000 post renovation. And the median income in the one mile radius is like $70,000 or $60,000.

You can’t really afford a $2,000 rent premium in order to afford it. Like the asset we’re under contract on an asset right now, in order to afford to live at our asset, you have to have three and a half X the income as what we charge in rent. So if we’re charging two grand, you have to have $7,000 a month in income, gross income in order to just qualify for our asset.

And 88% of our tenants at this asset we’re acquiring meet or exceed that standard.

[Mattias]
Okay. Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. So you do with this strategy, you are also renovating.

It’s not just like a management tightening up the management practices. Is it a combo of both or depends on the deal?

[Veena Jetti]
Yeah, it depends on the deal. Usually it’s some combination of both. The deal that we’re under contract on right now, it’s primarily going to be management.

And we’re not really doing a whole lot to interior renovation. We’re really just enhancing some of the amenities. So like there’s 120 units that need washer and dryer hookups.

Some of the units are already getting rent premiums for the washer and dryer hookups, bringing the asset rent like up to market, bringing fees up to market. So it’s like these small movements that make a big shift when you’re in multifamily because you’re just getting it at scale.

[Mattias]
Right. Yeah, that’s the thing that really is pretty crazy that if you fully understand cap rates and you fully understand how getting that each little line item to adjust to be more profitable, how much of an impact that has on the overall value of the apartment. If you haven’t done a deep dive on it, it’s a great little rabbit hole of like, wow, that’s possible.

[Veena Jetti]
Yes.

[Mattias]
I created millions of dollars from what?

[Veena Jetti]
Yep. Like adding a $20 parking spot, people are like so surprised at how much alpha that generates for you.

[Mattias]
Yeah. That’s awesome.

[Erica]
Vino, what are some of the assumptions that you have had to work through that investors have come to you with or through speaking engagements or just interacting with people in the business in general?

[Veena Jetti]
Oh, gosh. Many assumptions. Well, I think the lowest hanging fruit we could talk about here is that I am a woman and a minority in this space and private equity rooms generally don’t have a whole lot of women and they generally don’t have a whole lot of minorities.

I check all the boxes there. I had this guy come up to me after I spoke at an event and he goes, I have to apologize to you. I was like, do we know each other?

I’m like, why is this stranger apologizing? He goes, I have to apologize to you because I judged you based on your appearance but man, you’re actually really smart. Wow.

I was like, okay. What? You stated that.

I was like, okay, well, thank you. I think I made a comment a few minutes later and I was like, you know, not everything we think has to be said out loud sometimes.

[Mattias]
I’m happy you’re growing but it involved me.

[Veena Jetti]
Well, the funniest part is he kept finding me at the event every few hours and he’d be like, you’re not mad at me for saying that, are you? I was like, no, I’m not mad at you because I don’t know you but it’s a weird thing and you should have more foresight than this as an adult member of society. Exactly, right.

Let me give you the number of a good therapist. Right, link in the bio, there you go. I’m like a huge fan of therapy so I wish I would have thought to say that back then because he probably really could have used it and he wouldn’t listen to me because he thinks I’m smart now.

Yeah, he was special and then I’ve had comments like that over time. Actually, just recently, like less than 6 months ago, I spoke at an event. It was a big event.

It was like 1,000 or 2,000 people. It was all multifamily people and my social media team had like put together this reel of me like speaking on stage, you know, like the takeaways or the highlight reel from the speaking event, whatever, and this guy comments and goes, um, he said something like, it doesn’t hurt that you’re wearing a short skirt or something like that because, you know, I was in a skirt and a top. I was in my stage outfit and I am somebody like, I am not going to be in a three-piece suit on a stage.

I’m just not. Like, this is not who I am. This is not how I, like, if I wanted that, I would have stayed in corporate America.

It’s very buttoned up, very stuffy, but I’m like, I get to be me on a stage and so I, you know, I’m wearing my outfit, whatever. And he makes this comment and I’m like, I have bought and sold over a billion dollars of multifamily assets and the only thing you took away from me speaking was the length of my skirt. Shame on you.

And, um, you know, and I, of course, I like to say my alter ego is petty jetty. She’s dangerous when she comes out because she doesn’t care about anything or anyone. And, um, so I said that except I took a screenshot and I put it onto my Instagram stories and I got so messy and I, I called him right out and I tagged him and I was like, shame on you and you have to do better because he, he’s just starting out.

He was like a starting out syndicator and I’m like the biggest champion of somebody like starting something new because it’s hard to start something new. And I am somebody that like, I will cheerlead you, I will help you, I will give you whatever resources I can to make you successful because I want to see you win. And I remember what it was like to be there.

Like someone helped me too. And so, yeah, I posted on my stories. He did not love that.

Um, but what I found is less people stay stupid things and comments when they know you’re not going to just let it slide because for a long time I did. And I think women in general do this. Um, you know, we let these assumptions go unchecked and it wasn’t until I had my daughters that I was like, wait a second, this isn’t okay because it’s setting precedent for how the world shows up for them.

And that’s not okay for me. And so, you know, now I just, I say, I say the thing, I say the quiet part out loud and I call it out. Um, but so I think that those are like some of the biggest assumptions is like around my gender or my race, um, my competence generally, like how I look apparently is a deterrent.

Uh, but I think women and minorities make up for it with like a very unique and fresh and important perspective. And so I think diversity is just really important in all facets of every business.

[Erica]
It’s really unfortunate for that guy too. Cause if he was, you know, just starting out, he probably could have really used you and your insight and your knowledge and that bridge.

[Veena Jetti]
Yeah. The good news is there are plenty of men in this space who generally don’t wear skirts on stage. So I’m sure he’ll find one of them and be really great with one of them.

[Mattias]
Well, are there, I guess, have you had to work through like, I mean, well, how do you get up and tell yourself that like, you know, uh, I am going to be successful. I don’t care what other people say or these comments or, you know, I’m sure that’s, that’s hard. I know a lot of people who would take the victim mindset and not persevere through.

[Veena Jetti]
Yeah. I, and that would have been me a few years ago for sure. Um, and you know, I, I even still get imposter syndrome.

So like, please don’t hear me say like, Oh no, it doesn’t bother me. Like, no, I have imposter syndrome all the time. Um, the difference is one I’m surrounded by people who cheer for me so loudly.

It’s impossible to notice the people who aren’t cheering for me. Um, so that’s like, number one is like have a really good friend, family support circle. And if you don’t have that, go find it.

Cause they exist. Like these communities absolutely exist. If you don’t have that, come find me in my community.

We, we got you. Okay. So that’s number one.

Um, number two is, you know, like there’s a saying, don’t take advice from someone you wouldn’t trade places with. Um, I wouldn’t trade places with him. I’m sure he’s got a really nice life and I’m sure he’s a great individual and I’m sure he’s got a lot of really great things going on, but I don’t want to show up like that for anybody or for the people that, and I’ve worked really, really hard on myself and I do a lot of personal development and I go, I’m in therapy and I work with Rosie on a almost daily basis.

I coach with her because I want to just show up better than that person. And so for me, it’s like, I don’t take advice from someone that I wouldn’t trade places with. And I’ll say, um, it’s especially hard for women on social media because we get disparage and knocked down so much more than our male colleagues.

Even if we’re saying the same things, it doesn’t matter. Um, and so for women out there, especially, I would say, just accept that that is going to happen. And this is the advice I got a good friend of mine, uh, Jesse Lee, she passed away last year, so rest in peace.

But she left this legacy because I take this to heart so much. She said to me, and she had millions of followers. She was like one of the biggest network marketers on the face of the planet.

So she got a lot of hate all the time. She sat me down at brunch one day and she said, you know, people that talk negatively to you on social media, they know that you’re good. That’s why they’re paying attention to you.

And they know that you’re so good. They’re not going to stop you. They know that she said, but what they’re doing instead is they’re distracting you.

And the more time you spend distracted by people who are not adding any value to you or your business or to your life, let them be, let them spend their time doing that. You don’t have to give them, you know, like free rent in your head, let them be. And she said, in fact, when people say crazy and like, she’s had some like crazy viral videos that have been like, so nonsensical, right?

Like there was this one bout of videos where people were like, Oh, she kidnapped people. And like, no, it was a retreat where people signed up to be in like a bootcamp. And she told him this is going to be hard, but it like got so out of hand from people that weren’t even there.

And she said, you know what I did? She’s like, I thanked all of the people that were hating on me because it got more eyeballs. And that means there are more people who need to hear my message that do align with me that saw it.

And they did it for free because the algorithm loves engagement, loves organic engagement. And I was like, yeah, that’s a it’s just a reframe. It’s a shift in perspective.

And when you’re doing something that’s in alignment with who you are and what you believe in. I mean, it’s hard to like, not still do it.

[Erica]
Yeah, it’s a really nice way of flipping the power dynamic instead of feeling like it’s happening to you just take it and use it. Absolutely.

[Mattias]
I feel like another way to look at it is like feeling sorry for them that they are embarrassing themselves in this way, which I don’t think I would be good at doing it. I would like to respond that way. But I, it would be would be hard to be very personal and you’d want to defend yourself and all that stuff.

But I feel like it’s just not a good look for them. And they’re Yeah, got stuff they have to work through that they’re trying to project on through the internet or whatever. It’s just it’s kind of sad.

[Veena Jetti]
Yeah, if they don’t pay your bills, and they don’t live in your house, then like, thank you for your opinion. I don’t know what else there is to say about that. So yeah, you just got to keep you just got to keep going.

You got to do it anyway. The first time I had a very viral video, I was like 8 million views. And it was, you know, they tell you don’t read the comments.

The first thing I did was go and read every single comment. And people were mean. They’re so mean when they’re not like talking to a real person.

You know, they’re like, sitting behind a keyboard. And it’s so easy to be a jerk like that. And I started responding to comments.

And I was like, you know what? Why? Like, don’t you don’t need to respond to this negativity.

You can just let it go, like give them a hug and release them back into the world. And so I started doing that. The problem is, is when you have a sister who’s very protective of you, she was going in on the comments.

I was like, Kriya, just stop. It’s not worth it.

[Mattias]
It’s also kind of great.

[Veena Jetti]
It’s funny, too. And I mean, I if it were the roles were reversed. She’s my baby sister.

So I’m like extra protective of her. I would have been like, oh my god. And that’s why I don’t I don’t put my kids on social media for this exact reason.

I cannot handle negativity about them. I mean, for me, like, fine, say what you want. I don’t care.

I mean, probably some of it’s true anyway. But for my kids, I can’t handle that. Yeah.

Yeah.

[Mattias]
Vena, I wanted to ask you about a favorite book you have if you have any go to books that you think are everybody should read fundamental for you or anything that you’re currently reading that you really like. You probably read a lot of books. This is one.

[Veena Jetti]
Yes. And it’s so funny because as I was like trying to think of which book I would recommend, I was initially going to say Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell, which kind of organically came up in the conversation because it’s one of my favorite books. I and I love Malcolm Gladwell.

He’s one of my favorite authors. Yeah. And I read his books like over and over.

So like I’m in the middle of talking to strangers and I’ve read it like three times already. But I actually just finished another one of his books that I really loved and I hadn’t read it before. And it’s something I’m like kind of passionate about.

So it’s called I Hate the Ivy League. Have you guys read it?

[Erica]
I haven’t read that one.

[Veena Jetti]
Okay. It’s really good. I hadn’t either.

It popped up as my recommended because I keep rereading his book. It’s called I Hate the Ivy League. And it’s basically talking about like the inequity in our education system because I’m really passionate about education because I think it’s the one of the only ways that you can like break the cycle of poverty is by educating.

Right. And like even in third world countries, the concept’s still true where if you educate girls, then they wait to have babies till they’re older. And when they wait to have babies, they are less likely to continue cycles of poverty.

And so I think like education is a route to solving a lot of systemic issues. But so anyway, it talks about like Ivy League schools versus HBCUs and it talks about different like dynamics between like state schools and talks about like the inequities in the college system, in the university system, in the education system as a whole and like how we how we rank schools. And it’s like it’s very in depth, but it’s really, really fascinating to read.

And it’s definitely worth a read, especially as college is becoming like more and more unaffordable and more and more obsolete in a way. So I think it’s just like a really interesting read. I also and I there’s another book I really like, which is kind of not very useful unless you’re like me and you like like trivia and facts and things like that.

There’s a book called Who Ate the First Oyster.

[Mattias]
Okay.

[Veena Jetti]
And it’s a great read because it’s like each chapter you can read like one chapter and you don’t have to read it in order because it’s like a full complete thought. But basically each of the chapters like who drank the first beer and then one’s like who had the first name and who was the first person to wear clothes. And like it talks about the history of how all these things came about, including who decided to eat the first oyster.

So it’s just an interesting read.

[Mattias]
That’s fun. Yeah. Malcolm Gladwell could probably write about like drawing paint and make it interesting.

[Veena Jetti]
Oh my gosh. Yes.

[Mattias]
He’s unbelievable in his storytelling and delivering factual information. It’s great.

[Erica]
Yeah. Yes.

[Mattias]
Well, you got you got two new new ones for my list. I haven’t heard those.

[Veena Jetti]
So I know people always want me to be like, oh, you know, whatever finance book or real estate book and like, yeah, okay, fine. But like I don’t actually read those. I consume most of my like current events knowledge and real estate knowledge through like blogs, articles, newspapers, stuff like that.

But like when I read, I read because like I want personal development or like something that I’m interested in. My friend Jen Gottlieb has a book called Be Seen, which is also a fantastic read. And it’s about like why you need a personal brand and how to build one.

And so there’s just there’s so many good books I can name, but almost none of them are finance or real estate related.

[Mattias]
No, they definitely don’t have to be. That’s your favorite genre, right, Erica?

[Erica]
Real estate.

[Mattias]
And finance.

[Erica]
I know. Yeah. The last book I read, we went to Cancun a couple of weeks ago and I devoured The Women, which is like a, it’s a Vietnam War kind of.

Oh, okay. Yeah. Fictional historical fiction, but it’s really, really, really good.

[Veena Jetti]
Okay. I have another book called, it triggered my memory called Invisible Women that’s on my list and it’s not historical fiction. It’s actually nonfiction, but it’s, it talks about the invisible labor that women do, like the emotional, invisible, unpaid labor that women do.

And I read the book Fed Up by Gemma Hartley and that was like eyeopening for me. And so that’s my, that’s going to be my next read. Cool.

[Erica]
I’ll have to, I’ll have to look into that one. Yeah.

[Mattias]
That’s right up your alley.

[Erica]
Yeah. Yeah. Enjoy that.

Thanks, Veena.

[Mattias]
And if people are inspired to leave you positive comments, is there, where are you most active? Where do you want people to react?

[Veena Jetti]
You can leave me negative comments too, because the algorithm doesn’t know if they’re positive or negative. So you can leave me all the comments and I’m not mad about it. You can go to my Instagram Veena Jeti, V-E-E-N like Nancy, A-J-E-T-T-I.

Or I have a free Facebook group called Mastering Multifamily with Veena Jeti. And a lot of our community leaders are in there and answer questions, but I respond to everything on my own Instagram. And then I’m on like TikTok and Facebook and all, all the, all of the social media sites.

I’m on all of them as Veena Jeti.

[Mattias]
Okay, cool. We’ll have those linked. Yes.

So cool. Yeah. Thanks so much for being on here.

This has been such a fun conversation.

[Veena Jetti]
Yes. Thank you. Thank you for having me.

[Erica]
Yeah, absolutely. It was great to talk to you. Really fun to learn more about you too.

[Veena Jetti]
Yes. Likewise. Thank you.

[Erica]
Thanks for listening to the REI Agent.

[Mattias]
If you enjoyed this episode, hit subscribe to catch new shows every week.

[Erica]
Visit REIAgent.com for more content.

[Mattias]
Until next time, keep building the life you want.

[Erica]
All content in this show is not investment advice or mental health therapy. It is intended for entertainment purposes only.