Meet Your Next Real Estate Partner: How Our Nationwide Community Connects Like-Minded Women

Our online community is officially opening its doors from November 12th-22nd on Circle, our private community platform, and founding membership is just $84 for the quarter or $255/year. Make sure to join the waitlist! 

When you join, you get instant access to member-only events like deal analysis sessions, Q&As, and live hot seats, along with our library of recorded trainings and a searchable member database for finding partners. You'll even get in-depth feedback on your own listings and the chance to connect with experienced investors who share their best strategies.

Inside our community, you’ll meet women from all over the U.S.—and even some from Latin America and Europe—who are investing in everything from tiny homes and beach houses to ranches with friends. We’re here to make real estate investing more fun, flexible, and achievable. If you’re ready to turn your “what if” ideas into reality and join a network of supportive, like-minded women, make sure to check the link in the show notes to join the waitlist!

Tune in and be part of a movement where real estate dreams become a reality through the power of collaboration.
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Open House Education founder, Kristina, and Community Manager Katie, discuss the unique vision and structure of the Open House Education community. The conversation highlights various community engagement formats, the power of networking, and the meaningful connections formed among members. They also outline future plans for the community, including accountability programs and a member directory to enhance collaboration and support. The ladies explore the benefits of a national network, sharing personal experiences, and highlight the need for ethical and community-minded investing.


Chapters

00:00 Introduction to Open House Podcast and Community
02:20 The Unique Vision of Open House Education
06:54 Building a Supportive Community for Women in Real Estate
11:07 Engaging Formats and Events in the Community
15:55 The Power of Networking and Collaboration
20:27 Creating Meaningful Connections Beyond Real Estate
22:47 Community Structure and Future Plans
24:15 Building Connections Through Community
27:33 The Power of Accountability Partners
30:52 Exploring National Networks
34:05 Diverse Real Estate Opportunities
38:20 Making Money That Feels Good
44:59 Exciting Community Initiatives

Get in Touch

Comments, suggestions or feedback? Email Kristina at kristina@openhouseeducation.com

Here is our new Instagram account! It needs some love, please follow :) 

Check out our new website!

If you know of any ladies I should connect with about this new venture for potential partnerships, please send them my way.   Email us! 

Transcript

0:01

Welcome to the open house podcast where women talk real estate. I'm Christina Moderus, the founder of open house education, where our mission is to empower women nationwide to connect, collaborate and build wealth through creative real estate strategies. Wow. That sounded very rehearsed. I'm not used to doing this still by myself. So bear with me. So I was recently on an episode of house hunters and it was a very unique episode because it was me guiding, two friends through the process of buying a house together. What's really cool is that one of the girls is in our community. Her name is Alex Reyna. She was actually on an episode of this podcast as well. you know, as I'm recording this, I have not watched the episode yet. So I'm really hoping that it's not the most embarrassing thing in the world. But Just had to mention it, shout out to Alex who, you know, spent three days, three, four, four days recording this. was long, grueling out hours. I really get paid that much for doing it. I didn't get paid anything for doing it, but it was a really cool experience. And I do think there are a couple other girls that were in the community that were actually in the episode too. Dost and Carly, shout out to y'all. I know you're in like the last scene of the episode, I think you should be. Anyway, just had to shout that out and. Now we can move on to our episode. Okay, today's episode is super special because we're diving in to what makes our nationwide community so unique. So we currently have a hundred founding members in there. I started this in August. I really didn't have that big of a plan, but I had like this vision in my head where I was like, I want to attract women who feel very similar to me about real estate where they want to make money that feels good. It's not all about these spreadsheets and numbers, although that is important, but it's like about being creative, you know, being a good host, being a good neighbor, collaborating. And that is when I started this, 100 women joined and I was like, whoa, this is great. And then in this episode, I'm actually speaking with our community manager, Katie McCauley. She, you know, joined as a founding member and then naturally, because this is her background, she started like moderating the community. And now she works here for real. So I'm talking with her today, actually just spoke with her and it was really amazing. I was like, we're only going to talk for 45 minutes. And then we just like kept blabbing and it was awesome because it's really exciting to both of us. It's something that we both really wanted and had been seeking out, which is like-minded group of women who see real estate in this very unique way. And yeah, it's, cool. Let's just, let's just get into it. Let's dive in. Hi Katie. How's it going? Hi. It's great. I'm really excited to talk about this today. Yeah, me too. Do you want to start off just by kind of letting everyone know who you are, how you found us, everything like that? Yeah. So I'm Katie. I live in Austin, Texas. I've lived here for the last 12 years or so. And I found open house education because a few years ago before I was ever ready to buy a home, I knew I wanted to and I stumbled upon, you know, open house Austin and other people who were very real estate minded and like really interested in creative real estate. And so I have been following along with Christina and her real estate journey for a few years. Fast forward, I bought my first and only property in October of. 2022 and the interest rates were pretty high with the intention of refinancing. It's still the plan. And my plan has always been to house hack and like really utilize this property to open some doors for creative real estate for myself. So when Christina launched open house education and the online community, I immediately jumped at the chance to join. And I'm working with Christina as the community manager because my professional background, my day job is building and nurturing online communities. I've done that the last decade or so for companies like Google and Square and it just feels really full circle and really fun to be able to use that in a topic and a passion project that I love in my personal life. Yeah, I remember I started the community and I was like, yeah, I don't know really what I'm doing. Like I've started like Facebook groups before, but I've never like and in-person communities. But yeah, I had never done this before. And I remember you were like, hi, do you need help? In the most kind way. And I was like, wait, yes, I do. I really, really do. Thank you. Yeah, it's like, how do I message her and offer help without sounding like I noticed you need help? Because that is not it. It was more like, I'm responding to everyone's posts and emoji reacting to everyone's posts. I don't want to look too excited, but here's why I'm doing it. Cause I do this for my job. I can't turn it off. I love that. Yeah. It was very helpful, especially in the beginning. Cause it's almost like when you are leading, like when you jump on zoom and like you're presenting and no one is like chiming in, you're just like, am I here by myself? That's kind of how it felt at first because, you know, people were also like, do do I post? Like, what do I do? And so Katie was just like encouraging conversations and like really jumping in it. And I was. Yeah, it was amazing. And that happens with every new community. If you think about it, like if you walk in the door to someone's dinner party or house party, you kind of get acclimated and you want to know, like, OK, what's the like? vibe check, what's the house rules, what are the norms before you start diving in? And I knew that that would happen with this community. And I was like, I need to make sure Christina knows this is so normal at the very start. And people are already really, really contributing, which is so exciting. Yeah, it has been amazing. And for context, I started this online community in August. And I was like, I don't know how many people will join, whatever. I had a hundred people sign up and I was like, my gosh, this is amazing. Like people who are already in the community, hundred founding members who are like contributing now. Yeah. Yes. yeah. That's clarity. A hundred founding members in there right now. you know, they kicked us off. Like they got it started and you know, we're getting ready to open up the doors for 500 other women. And I feel really lucky that I got started with these founding ladies. They're really cool. Like we've had, you know, when you first join, everyone does a little introduction and I feel like they, there was like some very inspiring people in there. At first I was like, maybe it's just going to be, you know, a lot of new people, which is totally fine. But you know, maybe I'm going to have to like be the main person in there, like pushing forward the conversations and like teaching everyone. But honestly, like, It's turned out exactly how I really want it to be where, you know, I'm not the only person in the room who can offer things. Everyone in there, even someone who just started out, you know, can offer something to the community. And that's kind of how it's been working out. Yeah, I've been so pleasantly, I wouldn't even say surprised. I've been so impressed and relieved to see that there is a mixture of women at a variety of points in their real estate journey. I myself consider myself like not totally green to it, but I have one property I haven't fully house hacked it yet. So I'm still relatively new. So I'm somewhere in the like early to mid stage and there's definitely, you know, women like me in there and women are in an earlier step than me too. But I would say there's, you know, 25 % of the members in there right now have experienced doing this and they're not real estate agents, they're not mortgage lenders. They're just women like us who have learned by doing and actually participate and chime in and answer questions for women who are asking for advice or guidance or opinions. And that's been so validating to see that like, yeah, there are women who want this. We just need to find each other. Before we jump like too far into what's going on in the community, kind of tell us like, what is this format? Like, what are we talking about when we talk about this like elusive community? Right? Community is such a buzzword now, especially if anyone listening works in like nine to five or tech or marketing. We're talking about a literal space where women are gathering virtually. So our online community of open house education gathers on Slack and we chose Slack for a few reasons. Couple of them being, we wanted the format to feel familiar. A lot of women who have nine to fives or work from their computer. A lot of them already use Slack for work or for other passion projects. So that's a platform that we figured a lot of our members would be familiar with. They could toggle back and forth during their work day. It's already part of the routine. We also wanted to make sure that because the content and the conversations are so valuable in this community and this subject, we wanted to make sure that those conversations were searchable. Slack has a really great search function. and that they wouldn't disappear. We decided to invest in making sure that that content is evergreen and you'll never get that message of like, you hit 90 days and you reached the limit. Like you're able to look back in these conversations that have already happened no matter when you join the community. And so as we're on Slack, we have a variety of channels. Like Christina mentioned, we have Introduce Yourself. We have a channel dedicated to house hacking. a channel dedicated to buying with friends, like all of the specifics and questions that come with partnering with someone, you know, other than maybe someone you're legally bound to, you know, a friend or a sibling or someone who's a new friend that feels very vulnerable. And I personally haven't found any other place that's talking about that. And we felt that this format. would meet that need of, know, when you're Googling something and you Google your question and you put Reddit on the end of it because you just want to dive into people who have done it and are talking about it, that's what these sort of channels and topics are meant to do. So while we gather on Slack and have those asynchronous conversations, we also have live formats like our virtual events. We have them multiple times a month, sometimes once a week, depending on the time of year. And those range from, you know, members doing sort of an AMA. We've had a couple of members like Alex, Reina, who was on the podcast recently. She sat down with an, she sat down for an exclusive AMA with our members to talk about that journey and have that back and forth conversation of buying a home with a friend. We also had another member, Allison, who she spotted a bed and breakfast opportunity and I mean, she is so organized and creative that when she led the call, she had like already a little slide deck put together of here's the deal I spotted, here are the details, here's what a partnership could look like, here's the next steps and sort of like pitched it to the group. was amazing. I feel like that kind of set the tone for like how members are presenting, right? Like now it's like it's pretty exciting. You get to create something that you know a lot about, like a little presentation, you share it with others. And it's very, it feels casual, but so informative at the same time. Yeah. And I really think that speaks to the type of women who are in the community. These are women who are motivated, interested, ambitious, but also not at the expense of things that are important to them and their values and... you know, life balance and kind of the softer side to things. And I do want to say that if you're listening to this and you're, you consider yourself early in your journey, I find that attending those events, for example, the one with Alison, where she presented that possible deal, those are great ways to sort of like exercise that thinking, right? Like I am not in a position right now to, partner with someone, but I know that that's something I want to do eventually. And I want to get really comfortable speaking that language of When I look at a listing and I'm really excited about it, how do I ask the right questions? What are the things that I look at? And so it's almost like a great practice run attending those calls, even if I'm not in a position to partner. So true. like when she was presenting this as well, she was, you know, offering it up to the community. Like, is anyone in here interested? Maybe we could partner. And that's another thing is like, you will learn, you know, I think everyone is always like, how do I? you if I want to buy a house with my friend, what do I do? How do I take it to the next step? Like, and there's not one right answer. Like every single situation is different. So just like coming to this and seeing how she kind of put this kind of this type of deal together, it was like, kind of like unique, you know, bread and breakfast kind of commercial, but also residential. just seeing that and taking what you like taking what you can from that and like learning that way, just so you can implement that as well. It's like so. I've also found it really valuable in attending events that I maybe at first glance on the topic, I'm like, I know I can't invest in a B &B or with Alex. I know I'm not in the next six months ready to partner with a friend, but I attend because I'm passionate about the topic and I'm like, we'll see what I learn. And every time I'm actually really surprised at it dispelling some myths, right? For the B &B example, Alison presented a format of partnering as multiple partners, like eight to 10 people, which really, really cuts down on the actual financial investment. And that dispelled the myth that I would never be able to do something like that, especially if it's out of state. There was way more creative possibilities than I assumed. And then with Alex, her talking about partnering with a friend, it dispelled the myth to me that it's gonna be really risky. because I live with my boyfriend, I own my home. We don't have an operating agreement. He has sweat equity into the home and we're, we are arguably more risky in our arrangement than her with her friend and partnering. And I'm just really grateful that I'm not, you know, counting myself out of these events as too advanced for me or too like six months, 12 months down the line for me. Cause it's really helping me change my thinking on how how this is way more possible sooner than I thought for me. I love that. And I was just talking to my friend Megan today. She's helping me with like copy for my website. And she was like, I feel like when you leave these spaces, like it's like you feel buzzy. Like you're just like buzzing after. And I was like, I love that. Like that's exactly how I feel after these events. Even if it's like, like you said, maybe why am I coming to this? Is it like something I'm going to do right now? Maybe not. but you leave being so inspired and feeling like that buzzy feeling of like, I'm so excited. I didn't even know this could be a possibility. Also, the more you put yourself out there in these situations, might not know, like someone will like chime in and say something and that might resonate so much with you that later you'll go back and message that girl and be like, hey, actually want to meet up and like, you know, hang out and talk more about this. Like you just never know where that's going to go. Yes. Like It makes it so much easier to naturally meet other women in the community because you have a reason to connect and a reason to talk. It sort of reminds me of like when you move to a new city as an adult, the advice is like be a yes person, like say yes to everything. And that would be my advice to anyone joining the community is say yes to attending things like this so you can have those meet-cutes with other women. And that kind of makes me think about, know, there are members already meeting up. and we haven't even launched publicly. Should we talk about that? Yes, definitely. Because I discovered this just because I'm like right now I'm just like on social media a lot, which has its pros and cons. The pro was I noticed this, which was a lot of, know, I follow all the community members or the founding members and I saw, you know, one girl, Kenesie had posted that she was like, you know, going to a meeting with this other girl in our community and I like messaged her on Slack and was like, Hey, did you like meet her from the community? And she was like, I did, I did. And we're like meeting up and we're going to do like a little, I'm going to look at our house and give her some advice about her property. And I was like, my gosh, that's, that's amazing. And Kenesie lives like, doesn't live in the same city as this other community member, but she was happened to be in town and like they met up and it was, it was amazing. and then I saw one of our other members, Kara, she lives in Tahoe and I think there's a few other girls that also live in the Tahoe area and I talked to her the other day and she was like, yeah, I'm gonna grab coffee with this girl that I met through the community. I'm very excited. She just moved to Tahoe so she's super excited about looking at real estate over there and she just started a ceramics company. cool. studio over there. And yeah, it's just lots of really cool things. even I, I asked the community about this. And then I was like, wait, I also because I was like, Hey, guys, who's met up recently? And then I was like, wait, I actually met up with two members. I met up with Grace and Erpy because we both we all play pickleball and we happen to live in the same city. And we were like, why not? Let's meet up and like, play together. And it was so It was so cute. love that pickleball brings everyone together too. my gosh. Do you play? I'm like, I'm going to get you out there. I don't mostly because none of my close friends play shockingly. all, it's like all acquaintances. So I think we might have to do like a weekly meeting at a pickleball court and just go play. I love that. I am a part of one that's walking distance to my house. So I'll see you there. And then, I mean, there's more, there's, we have so many other women who met up that I can't They've taken Pilates classes together. They, you know, another pair of members, know, Stephanie and Melissa met up in their small town or like, I think that they both live outside of a big city and two different small towns and they met up. in a central point and got coffee and like explored the little small town together and just had a girls day. success, right? Yeah. I feel like that's success of an online community is like you're learning a lot from each other. It's a lot of virtual, but you're also, you know, meeting up in person as well and becoming friends. Yeah. I could tell from our early conversations, Christina, that like it was more than just, hey, I want to learn how to creatively invest with you know, another partner. It was also, I want to meet other women who care about this and like almost like do life together, not to sound cheesy, but it's so encouraging to see that members are doing things that have nothing to do with real estate. They're just finding that they have, you know, things in common and similar passions. And it's sort of that cheesy phrase around like you become like the five people you're around the most, like It's kind of a, you know, overused phrase, but I personally, as a community manager, find that it's really important to create opportunities for a member to connect more than just the topic that brought them together, because that's where real meaningful relationships happen. And the fact that so many of our founding members are already doing that without us creating those moments for them, it just like really speaks to the kind of women who are already here. That's so true. Like I feel like I just kind of threw this group of women together and I was like, I got to figure it out now. And, you know, me and you have sat down and we have created a lot of, you know, more structure of what's going to be going on when these other 500 women join us. And I'm very excited, but it's really cool to see that we just like threw in this. I threw in this, didn't, I won't drag you into that, but I threw in this group of women together and was like, we'll figure it out together. like, actually it's working really well and it definitely has a lot to do with your you helping and a lot of other women in the organization in It sounds so professional. In the community. So formal in the community have also like been there just you can see that they feel ownership. It's not like this is mine. This is Christina's and like she's the leader here. It's like we're all leading and like learning and you know. For example, we had a member teach us about an introduction to land investing and I was like, I don't know anything about that. I'm not an expert on everything. I know some things. I was mentioning structure and what we've been working on. Do you want to tell everyone what we got going on? Yeah. So we've talked about the Slack community and the different Slack channels. And I only mentioned a couple of them, by the way. And then we've talked about live events. If I didn't say it before, those live events are always recorded. We have them in a video library where they're easily findable. You can watch them any time. You can pop them on like you're listening to a podcast while you're doing the dishes if you can't attend live. And before the live event, you can always submit your questions too. So you can make sure that if you have a specific question that you want answered, we can get to it. So on top of those things, We also have a few other ways to make sure members are connected and getting what they need. So one of those things is a monthly newsletter, What Did I Miss? that keeps everyone informed about what's going on in the community, what's happening events wise. You know, our hope is that eventually we can do some in-person things. So making sure that no matter how often you're in the community, whether that's once a week, multiple times during the week, that you at least have something that you can feel good about. checking to stay in the know based on how busy your life gets. You shouldn't have to check the Slack community every day to make sure that you're not missing what's happening and can sign up for or participate in what you want. And the two other things that I'm really excited about is an accountability partner program and a member directory. So these two things exist to help our members find and meet with people who maybe have a specific interest or expertise or a goal that they're trying to achieve. So what's the difference between the two? So first, the member directory is exactly what it sounds like. It is sort of a list or an index of all of our members who opt in for it, where they have like a little profile. They have a photo, they have a little bio, they can tag, they can self tag, you know, where they're located, if there's an area of the country that they're interested in investing in. what they have experience in, maybe they're a first time, you know, homeowner, maybe they have an investment property. Maybe they know about house hacking. Maybe they know about partnering with sweat equity and zero cash. being able to search and find in that member directory rather than relying on randomly scrolling in our Slack community and clicking on people and kind of guessing this helps you find them in an easier way and do a warm reach out. I'm really excited about this. I love that because you can use it in so many different ways. You could search, if you're like, I'm interested in Cincinnati, I don't know. And so you search there. You find the people. You can also go back and say, I want to take that. And I'm going to put their name in Slack and see what else they've said in Slack recently. And you can learn a lot from them that way. It's really cool. You're exactly right, Christina. You the whole intention is to point everyone back to the community so they're not just a name on a profile in this directory and it's intended to help you connect. So if you're in the directory if the members in the directory they know that they might get a ping from another member and so it might feel like a cold DM but it's really not you know you're you're putting yourself out there as. you can reach out to me. This is what I know about. This is what I, what I want to learn about. And so there's that really spirit of mentoring and being mentored because we all have something to teach and we all have something to learn. And I think a lot of us join the community thinking I have so much to learn, but we actually have a lot to share too. And we want to make sure members have a way to share. Yeah, I love that. And with the accountability, because when you say the member directory, I feel like, you know, I might think, well, I'm just going to put my name in there and that's the end. no, because so with the accountability, I personally have had an accountability partner, I would say for like eight years now. what is an accountability partner? I mean, some people it might be obvious, but maybe not fair. So how I have used it is, you know, I kind of write down main goals of like how I what I want to accomplish for the year. And every week you're like, mean, every week, every month, whatever you can set the cadence, you are meeting with that person, talking about your goals, telling them what you're doing weekly or monthly or whatever it is to get there. And it sounds really basic, but you would be very surprised that just talking about that and meeting with someone will get you where you want to go. It's like, it sounds shocking, but it's like, It's literally as simple as writing it down on paper, meeting up with a person and then like someone asking you about it and you're like moving towards that thing. Like it's, it's very, it works. It works. It's worked for me and I'm showing, you know, we're creating this program similarly to how I've done it in the past. So you can go and do this yourself and be paired with like a like-minded woman, to accomplish that together. Yes. I haven't ever consistently had an accountability partner, maybe when I was in college, but nothing for like a, a specific interest related goal, like real estate. So I'm really excited to participate in this in myself, like myself. I also want to reiterate, like I've been doing this whole episode is like, this is for anyone, no matter where they are on their journey. The great thing about this program is members will be able to indicate again their interests, what they're looking to gain, what they have experience in, and also like their experience level. And so the idea is if ladies are wanting to be matched with someone in a similar stage in their journey, they can indicate that. If they're hoping to be matched with someone who has more experience in a certain aspect, they can indicate that. I find it really valuable because it's more than just the accountability of like, set this self-appointed deadline and I have someone who's going to help hold me accountable that I won't miss that. It's also, I have an extra brain in this other person. It's not all on me to figure it out. Personally, I won't know every answer. that my buddy probably will have, but I am really good about knowing how to search, knowing how to research, knowing how to Google. Like, can't go over it, can't go under it, gotta go through it. I'm good at that. And I know that that's something I bring. A hundred percent. And that brings up a good point of like, so right now my accountability partner is someone I met through this community. I was on the search for, you know, I just had a baby, so I had stopped doing that for a little bit and was looking for a new accountability partner. found actually it's Jen who I just interviewed two weeks ago on the podcast and she has a corporate background. She's not I mean, she is entrepreneurial to me, but I've learned so much from her because she will be like, we do this thing called I don't remember but like in our in a corporate setting. And, you know, did you know this you could do this and I'm like, I had no idea like, you know, we we we really balance each other out in like what we know, what we don't know. And it's been really helpful. And we've never met in person. We have, I'm very excited to, actually this could pivot into our next kind of conversation about moving in or meeting in person. But, you know, we talked about her space. So she bought a tennis facility, seven acres. And it, she also lived there. was like old historic home. She renovated it and She was telling me the other day, like, my gosh, I want to do a retreat, like a little tennis retreat. And I was like, if you want to test it out on this community first, I would love to help you plan that. Like it sounds, I know it's a lot of work, but it's really fun and it would bring us together. And so, you know, we're definitely in talks and meeting in person. This is like outside the Picanos, Picanos, Picanos. Yeah. It's beautiful over there. And is that a New York state? Right. I don't know. quiz for Christina. It's Pennsylvania. It's in like the north. It's close. Yeah, it's the northeast area. because she drove to New York City for her bachelorette. it's gotta be, yeah. Yeah. I think the Poconos are like maybe straddling a couple different states. think so. But yeah, we sound very much like Texans right now. Which also kind of brings up a point of, you know, what's the benefit of having a national network? of members. think we've kind of touched on it, but it's, you you have women who become genuine friends, but also have that expertise and their local market that would take me, like if I tried to Google and do some sort of self research on Milwaukee, for example, I visited once and I loved it. I'm like, why are people not talking I was about say, why are you talking about Milwaukee? But now I'm curious. It's amazing. I hope we have some Milwaukee listeners who will add us and Validate what I'm saying, but it's walkable. There's like beautiful historic homes. It's right on the water Great food scene, but number one if I had not randomly visited there to visit a friend I would not have known and so having an a community of nationwide members like helps put cities on your map that maybe depending on where you live in the country, like Texas, I would have, I don't know people who visit Milwaukee for a weekend, right? But then also you would have boots on the ground that know the nuances of that city, not just neighborhoods, but times of year. Like I think that there's a political convention that happens in Milwaukee every year. And that's a huge short-term rental spike. And I never would have known that, you know, like that's where a lot of short-term rental owners. get 25 % of their income for the year. Those sort of intel happening in our nationwide members' local markets is so helpful. And opening up possibilities of investing at a state where you maybe not consider That's fair, because also I know a lot of people are like, I want a second home or vacation home, and I think I want it in this area. I always, because my sister and I bought a house in Florida. We manage it from afar. We bought it. like sight unseen and people are like, what? Like, is that possible? And I always say like, I knew that area. I would not have done that if I did not grow up going to that area. And now, you know, you do have a network of people where if you're like, I want a vacation home, someone might be like, I want one too. And then a third person might be like, I live in like this cool town. Maybe we could talk about this more. you know, there's, there's so many possibilities that way. And like, boots on the ground is definitely very important. And that kind of brings up a great point around the diversity of real estate possibilities that we've seen in the community. Christina, you mentioned Jen, your accountability partner, who owns that property that has the tennis courts attached. I mean, like the community went wild because I think she was the first one to kind of like really share a really unique property. And all of us were like, This is possible. I'm always like, you need to have your own TV show. I'm so interested by what she's doing over there. And then my friend Natalie, she owns a ranchette outside of Austin. She's a self-proclaimed horse girl. And so she's owned the ranchette for a few years, but she bought it with big dreams. And I think she describes it as like not knowing what the first step for those dreams would be, right? She wants to have it as a multi-use property as not only her home, but turning it into a nonprofit. You know, one idea is like connecting kids with horse programs who are interested in it, who otherwise wouldn't have access because having access to riding horses and caring for them usually is really expensive. And the average kid, especially in rural Texas, you know, can't afford it. And another really cool idea that she has that I would sign up for is teaching women tool and ranch skills, an environment where they feel really empowered and not belittled in the boys club that kind of can exist. And I'm really interested in like moderate homesteading, you know, like a little light homesteading. And I don't know where to start with that. And she wants to teach women how to do that. It's really cool, like the spectrum of women who this attracts and like I'm so curious about every single one of these things. Not even that I'm going to do it myself, but just to see someone like myself doing something like this is really cool to see. That's the whole point of this because it's a bunch of dudes out there. That's why I started this. I tried to find other like-minded women and I just ended up with a bunch of guys who were... It was like an ego thing and it was just... It's it's it's the Gary Vee of it all, you know, it's even worse than Gary Vee. It's like, okay, actually, let me okay This is how it's this is what it's like. So Carly a girl in our community She messaged me the other day and was like have you been to an what is it called the RIA? It's REIA event and I was like, god, don't get me started. So it's real estate investing Something it's like they have them all over the country I too have gone to one of these events because I was like, I'm going to find people who are interested in real estate. And you show up, you're in the back of like a Chili's in like a weird lighting. There's like an old, like there's like all these dudes trying to tell you to like, you know, put no money down and wholesale and da da and like all this like stuff that you're like, I know that doesn't sound interesting to me. Like the way you're presenting it, it's also like you're trying to sell me something. Why are you giving me this like sheet of paper with like your like information at the end and it's like, I'm buying something. It's very weird. It's like they salivate over the idea of becoming a landlord and like that is not the whole purpose of this. Like, yeah, that's not like the, that's not going to be your end all. It's not, it's not, it's not it for me. It's not community minded. Yeah. It's not community minded. It's not. I want to find her message and just be like, and like, exactly what she said. was she was just like, should I be concerned? Like I, I don't like, I don't like this. she said she, yeah. And also she was like, I, I now understand why you started this community. Like she said after going to an RE, it's a REIA, REIA, I definitely see the need for what you're doing much more clearly. And I was like, yes, because I've been there too. And it was a very weird environment. It's like, totally. I think organizations like that combined with just kind of the stereotypical cookie cutter idea of real estate investing for the average person, which I think a lot of times is like buy a home, rent it out and then buy your next home and rent it out and like become this like capital L landlord, you know, and build your empire. I think the combination of those things have really deterred a lot of people from one, thinking real estate investing can be good or feel good or be, you know, ethical and whatnot. And so I would just love to hear from you, like, what does it mean to you to make money that feels good? And how does our community embody that? Yeah, to me, making money that feels good is it's it's where I start with my values, like what is important to me, community, being creative. you know, like helping others with my skill set. And that's how I approach real estate because, you know, it is an investment. It is not passive. This is not something for people. I mean, there's lots of ways you can get into real estate, right? The way that it feels good to me is how I just said, right? Like using my values to, you know, get into real estate. And it's really being very creative. being collaborative and yeah, not like, and being empathetic. you know, if I have, you know, I rent, I'm renting out, I upgraded my house in the last couple of years and instead of selling my old house, I rented it out to some friends and it's, you know, if, something goes wrong, whatever, I'm talking with them. We're not like, I'm not like cut the grass, do this. Like we're, having a commu, we're having good communication. We're, we're. I'm seeing their side, I'm trying to get them to see my side as well. Like we're talking and I'm not like trying to raise the price on them like $500 a year every year. we're not, it's, you know, I'm seeing more than that. So it's really that. And that home was an intentional purchase. You lived there when you moved out of it or made the plan to move on from that home, you evaluated, think I'd like to hold this and here's why, like it's for this reason. like, Now in the future you have options to, you know, maybe pull equity from the home to fund another project. It's not this like snowball effect of like building your empire. It's making smart, intentional, community minded, generative decisions around this aspect of your financial picture. Yeah. And I'm not trying to hoard, you know, I'm not like, we're getting 50 million properties and the, like it's, you know, that's not the vibe here. And I will say like, I think from going to a lot of those like events, like those bad real estate events, I've gotten a really bad idea of like real estate investing, like that term. Like I do not, it feels icky sometimes. And I will say that there's, like we said, there's a spectrum of women in this group. And there is one woman in particular that has kind of changed my mindset around like wholesaling, which if you don't know what that is look it up. don't even want to try to explain it. I like, like, I get it. Like I do. And like there, think there's different ways of going about it. I don't love the concept. I hear in this community to be open minded, we're attracting women who are compassionate, kind, open minded as well. And there is a woman in the community who does that, like, you know, has done that before has like bought a property through wholesaling. And she's changed my perspective on it because you know, she Like I kind of want to read what I wrote because I kind of called it out in Slack and I said she's the first person I've met that has made me change my perception a bit about this whole world because she's so kind, honest, helpful. I trust her as a resource. Yeah, I just feel like I know her on a personal level and I know she's in this community. She read what it's about and she is that as well. Like she has a nonprofit. She like is doing this in a very thoughtful good way and yeah that's also part of it. We need more women period but we need more women like her to be in these kinds of industries. I think I made the comment in the community recently of like I think that this industry counts on this being just generally this being too confusing for someone who doesn't work in it day in and day out to keep people like this community member or name any of our community members to keep them feeling like this is too hard or confusing to participate in. So the industry stays the same. It stays a boys club. It stays, build your empire. It stays, you know, infiltrating actual communities and pricing people out rather than having people who are very community minded, ethical minded, finding ways to balance this and ways that feel good are actually good. And Christina, you and your story of buying a vacation home with your sister really changed my mind around that because it was a mixture of like, you know, I'm middle class. I'm not going to be able to do that. But also like, do I feel okay doing that? Like, in terms of like my values, like what, what message does it send if I'm buying a vacation home? Like, but my partner and I, love spending time in Colorado. His one of his closest family members lives in a mountain town, winter park, Colorado. And we go there multiple times a year, definitely during snow season. And my partner and I have talked about, it might actually be possible to buy a property up there with maybe two other couples that we love. And, you know, have these traditions that you and your sister and your own family have of like spending Thanksgiving at the beach, but like we spend it in the mountains and like, feels good. Like it is. speaking to our values of like making memories and prioritizing family and choosing a market that it makes sense and it actually supports the economy with tourism and it totally dispelled the myth I had around second homes. you're gonna go to that place anyway and you're going to spend money at these hotels. Who owns these hotels? You know, it just there's so many layers to this and we can go on and on. But yeah, I'm glad that like, this has opened up your mind as well. And, you know, I didn't think that my sister and I could do that. We you know, just kept talking about it. then we were like, actually, if we partner together and if we pull out some money from this or and we just kept talking about it and moving forward, accountability partners, we made it happen within like a few years of even just chatting about this regularly and seriously. we've covered a lot and I would love for us to tell people, you know, what exciting events or initiatives like can they look forward to that are on the horizon for the community? I'm so excited. So we're going to open up. the community on November 12th, so just in a few weeks. And our first Lunch and Learn event that's taught by a member is with Kara. And she just sold a short-term rental management company, which she has learned a lot. Like she was telling me all these things that I was like writing them down and was like, okay, you have to like tell everyone else this. So that's gonna be our first November Lunch and Learn. Kara about telling us all the tips and tricks about short-term rentals. We're also going to have, you know, like a new member event where, you know, we, everyone, once you've joined, we're going to hop on and kind of show you the lay of the land, tell you what else we have going on here, set you up for success. And then also, you know, we're going to set you up with your accountability partner if you so choose and kind of get you started off on the right foot with your accountability partner. Yeah. And so those are just like a few things and me and Katie meet. weekly and chat about all the other things that we're planning. So yeah, I guess the thing to say here is as soon as you join, there are going to be multiple ways for you to dive in, not just into like the content and reading the conversations, but in meeting other actual real women who are in the community too. So if they're listening and they're like, where do I sign up? How do I join? What's the next steps? Yeah. So like I said, so we're opening up, I hate opening up our doors. Sounds funny, but November 12th and then we close it the 22nd. We're going to allow 500 women to join and I'm hoping to get like a lot of women from all over the country. I think that's going to be really exciting. You can go to openhouseeducation.com. So I just launched my new website. It's I'm, I'm so Excited for it's so cute. Yeah, I love it. I love it It feels like all the vibes that I've been like spitting out to my graphic designer she like took it and really Ran with it and put it down on paper. So to see say but yeah, so that's how you can join and follow us on Instagram and I'm gonna be posting a lot of things on there just like community updates and and all that jazz. So yeah Thank you, Katie. I'm so glad you're like a wonderful like I'm so glad that you are the moderator, that you're part of this community. Like you're, you're amazing. Thank you. This is like one of the most fun part-time jobs I've ever had. And I think the last thing I'll say is if you're listening to this, I and Christina both likely know how it can be kind of like hard to start the conversation with a friend around real estate and like what creative real estate with a friend could even look like. So I would encourage you just to send them, send them this episode, even if you know, Joining the community is like too far down the conversation for them. But just to kind of get this in their awareness of like what is possible and that there are tons of other women who want to do this too. share this episode with them. Just shoot them a text. Yeah, thank you. I love that. I always forget to like pluck myself. like, here's all this information. Bye. Yeah. And I did not mean for that to be like, like subscribe, like follow our YouTube channel. I genuinely mean like, I know it's like, How do I bring this up over glasses of wine? I'm like, hey, do y'all wanna buy a piece of land and build some stuff on it? That's so true. I feel like that has been the main thing people have said in the community. They're like, yeah, how do I take this from the glass of wine sitting around and being like, let's buy a beach house. How do we actually, I want to be taken seriously. yeah. Yes, send them an episode and say that there's tons of other women doing it.