Gladys Diaz-Jourdain - Finding The Money To Build My Dreams
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Gladys Diaz-Jourdain, is a bilingual Cuban American residing in vibrant Miami, and is a dynamic figure in the world of real estate. She specializes in affordable housing finance. Co-Founder and Managing Director of Urbaniza Group since 2001 (along with her husband Ray), Gladys has guided growth of this mult-million dollar business across business development, finance, marketing, public relations, and technology integration. She was a visionary in the 'tiny house' movement and developed a historic Coral Gables property into a collection of ADUs, which was featured on HGTV's "Small Space, Big Style" show. An architect and Cornell University alumna, she's a knowledgeable captivating speaker, sharing her wealth of insights on real estate and property development.
In this episode, you will be able to:
- Explore Creative Living Spaces: Discover innovative housing options that can revolutionize affordable housing solutions.
- Gain Real Estate Industry Insights: Learn about the latest trends and strategies in the real estate market to stay ahead of the game.
- Discuss Affordable Housing Solutions: Dive into effective and sustainable approaches to providing affordable housing for communities in need.
- Highlight Property Management Strategies: Uncover expert tips and techniques for effectively managing properties and maximizing returns.
- Explore Innovative Housing Options: Delve into unique and unconventional housing solutions that can address the challenges of affordable housing.
The key moments in this episode are:
00:00:00 - Embracing the American Dream
00:04:08 - Creating Affordable Housing
00:08:29 - Problem-Solving in Real Estate
00:11:31 - Transitioning from Renter to Owner
00:15:14 - Getting in the Game
00:15:37 - The Importance of Growth Over Time
00:18:25 - HGTV Experience and Affordable Housing
00:21:03 - Real Estate Investment Strategies
00:23:11 - Solving the Affordable Housing Crisis
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Gladys Diaz-Jourdain
I'm an immigrant. I came to the United States when I was five years old. My parents came to this country because they had the courage to leave something that was very nasty and very unpleasant, a communist country. When we come to the United States, what you want is you want to own your own property. And Thomas Jefferson, who, by the way, was an architect, he wrote in the Declaration of Independence and in a lot of his papers how he would found a country where a person could come and own his own land and own his own enterprise. And I think that we are forgetting that owning a property and owning your own land is part of our DNA.
Mike Swenson
Welcome to the REL Freedom show, where we inspire you to pursue your passion to gain time and financial freedom through opportunities in real estate. I'm your host, Mike Swenson. Let's get some REL Freedom together. Hello, everybody. Welcome to another episode of REL Freedom, real estate leveraged freedom. We're talking about different ways that people kind of carve out their path inside of the real estate industry. We do have another great guest for you today. If you are interested in getting started in real estate, check out our website, freedom through realestate.com. There's a lot of great intro information for people looking to get started or looking to scale. So go check that out. But without further ado, today's guest, we have so many topics and subtopics that we could talk about with. We have Gladys Diaz-Jourdain, and you are out of the Miami area, an architect by nature. However, you've got a previous life that you've merged well together inside of real estate. You work side by side with your husband, selling real estate and also helping inspiring people and finding affordable housing and financing their dreams. So welcome to the show, Gladys. We're so excited to have you.
Gladys Diaz-Jourdain
Thank you.
Mike Swenson
Yes. And why don't you just give us kind of the brief cliff notes version of your background in real estate or getting into real estate, and then we will dive deeper from there.
Gladys Diaz-Jourdain
First of all, architecture is something that I wanted to do since I was 14. And I used to draw the interiors of my house. And my father, who was an engineer, kind of pushed me like, oh, you would really love to be an architect. And I'm like, oh, yes, of course. So when I finished architecture school, I went to Cornell, which is a great school. I finished my master's degree in urban design, which is city planning. And I moved to New York City and I wanted to learn finance because I figured that was the piece of the puzzle that I didn't understand or I didn't know much about. And so I figured, I'm there, Wall street is over there. Those people print money. I'm going to go work there. And I wound up working. First I worked for a public agency that did municipal bonds. Then I learned those two words. Then I worked for a guy who used to buy properties as tax shelters. And then I wound up on the trading floor of a stock exchange firm because I spoke Spanish. And I worked on the Latin America desk, and I was at Bear Stearns during the heyday, know, big stuff. It was awesome. And then I decided, ok, I've done my time on Wall street, which is doing time on Wall street, by the way, is a phrase. And I wanted to have my own business always, and I wanted to integrate. How do I help developers do create better building, create better cities. And that was my pathway to figure out how to source the funding and how to create the buildings. And I came from New York to Miami, back to Miami. And it was during the savings and lung crisis of 1990. Were you going to get a penny to build a bus shelter? And I thought, okay, well, I'm going to specialize in getting money for affordable housing. The Affordable Housing act was going through Congress and that became what I was doing. And I have to tell you that it has been the most rewarding phase of my career. And I love the fact that I have been responsible for thousands of units of affordable rental property in Miami Dade county. And I'm proud to say that they are beautiful because we created a committee with the Miami Dade Housing Finance Authority to create design criteria for developers. And then developers, they get their municipal bonds, but then they have to adhere to these design criteria. And that means that the way that affordable housing is built in South Florida is very different than what it was when we started. So that's my legacy. If you a public, I've seen your podcast, and you have a public of people that want to learn about opportunities out there, right? And they have to realize that market upheavals are part of being in the real estate business. Okay? It's just going to happen. The market goes up, the market goes down, just like the stock market. That was also a very interesting roller coaster ride. And you just have to be willing to pivot and to change your direction so that you can survive and you can flourish. Right? Those are the things that I always tell people. And I created a program for students in architecture to come to Miami and do internships in affordable housing development because I think that that was going to help them to understand how to finance what they believed in, and that was very fun as well.
Mike Swenson
So what you're doing is you're combining, like you said, kind of that mixture between passion and creating a difference because you're not just doing something you want to do for the fun of it. You're also doing it to make money, and you're also doing it to help people. And so you're somebody that's kind of carved out that path and found a lot of roadblocks along the way and a lot of red tape along the way. But talk about maybe just the mission of helping people and combining your passion with helping people and doing it in a way that's going to bring you income to pay your bills.
Gladys Diaz-Jourdain
Well, I think, first of all, working in the three pillars of the built environment, which is basically finance, construction, and real estate, okay? That gives you a big, broad sense of what people need. And my husband practices as a broker, and he brings me into his transactions as an advisor for people that have concerns about the structure of the property, concerns about the future of the structure, because they see a big piece of land and they're like, oh, can I add a pool? Oh, can I do this? Can I do that? And so I provide what's called design coaching for the customers, and they get what they need in order to make a decision. And once they make a decision, I sit down with them and I say, okay, here are the things you can do with the property, and then you can hire the person that you desire. My goal is to give them guidance in their ideas so that they can realize their dreams, because everybody has a vision of what they want, where they're living, especially now, after we've been watching hdtv for 20 years, everybody has like, I love this, and you want to make it that way. So how do you get it there?
Mike Swenson
You're really carving out a niche in the market because you can add value, by the way, that you and your husband work well together. And so a good way to differentiate yourself from every other real estate agent that's just helping people buy and sell homes is you're really providing consultation in addition to kind of the normal real estate agent services and really helping people. Now, you had mentioned a story offline about a roof, right. That had some troubles. This is how you can really help people by solving problems that come out of what would be a new construction type home. Do you want to maybe just quick share a little bit about that story and how you helped?
Gladys Diaz-Jourdain
We have a property that we are listing that is almost brand new construction, and it has roof leaks. And my husband and I were like, what's going on? So the builder, who is still responsible for the property, said to my client, the owner, I think we need to put in a whole new roof. And I told my client, I said, no, I looked at the drone shots. The skin of the roof is in perfect shape. There's got to be something going on with the roof drains. And sure enough, I brought one of my contractors in there, and I said, let's look at the plans. And we looked at them, and sure enough, we realized the leaks are located exactly where the roof drains are located. That kind of knowledge, that kind of ability to see beyond what's evident, the simple solution is, oh, let's put in a new roof. No, not everybody can afford that. And even if they have a high end home, they don't want to spend that kind of money because it's not fair. It's really not fair. And what I want is from my customers to get the best value for what they have. If they're selling it, and if they're going to buy something, that they get something that they can create their vision and make it their own. So that's the idea. And as I told you, when a person is looking at buying a property, you always have the inspections. Right? And I call it the four horses of the apocalypse. The roof and the building envelope, mechanical, electrical, and plumbing. And each of those is a system unto itself that works within the structure that needs to be dealt with. If you're going to buy something, you're buying a machine that you're going to have to handle, and you need to operate that machine, and you need to know how to operate. And now there's a lot of great apps that I can recommend, some that I think are good for that, that help homeowners to kind of manage stuff.
Mike Swenson
Yeah. Because being a homeowner can be a lot of work when things aren't going well. And, yeah, you had used the, quote, a house as a machine for living.
Gladys Diaz-Jourdain
That's Lex Lucia, a very famous architect. He said that in 1923.
Mike Swenson
Yes. And for people that don't own homes, you may not realize all the work that goes into it. Stuff breaks, stuff's expensive, you've got to maintain it well for it to last long. And so it's not just, oh, I go buy this house, and then it's going to appreciate and I sell it, and I make a lot of money. There's a lot of work that goes into that as well. And what better way to understand that than somebody in your shoes. That really knows all the behind the scenes that happen with that.
Gladys Diaz-Jourdain
Yeah. And it's fun, too, to help people learn all that. And I'm a firm believer, and by the way, there's been a lot of media about rent, don't know because it's a lot of problems and. Oh, my God, and why are you going to do that? I'm an immigrant. I came to the United States when I was five years old. My parents came to this country because they had the courage to leave something that was very nasty and very unpleasant, a communist country. When we come to the United States, what you want is you want to own your own property. And Thomas Jefferson, who, by the way, was an architect, he wrote in the Declaration of Independence and in a lot of his papers how he would found a country where a person could come and own his own land and own his own enterprise. And I think that we are forgetting that owning a property and owning your own land is part of our DNA in the United States. And I firmly believe that that's something that I want to make sure that I communicate to my customers that, yes, you can rent as long as you want to, and I'm a landlord, so trust me, I like that idea. But it's something that is always, what's your goal? How are you going to continue and where are you going to raise your family? So that's kind of the thing. And we try to help people understand when it's a good time to switch from being a renter to being an owner. That's a planning thing. And so one of the things that we've done, we've owned a lot of rental property over the years, and we've had adventures with Airbnb and all that. And one of the things that we did is we invested in performing notes. We became the lender. And that has been a very rewarding situation. And as you go forward in your career, you have to look at balancing. You're a real estate person, you're getting commissions. Correct. But what if the market dips for a little while? You want to have the steady income from your investments and building up wealth, and you can invest in performing and non performing loans. Performing is for cash flow. The yield is about 10%. The non performing is for capital gains. And you can put that into an IRA, and you can keep the money in the self directed IRa so that you're growing it much more exponentially than if you were putting it into a mutual fund at 2% or something like it. So anyway, that's something that I'm encouraging a lot of people to take a look at because it's something that is valuable. And the whole private lending industry blossomed after 2008.
Mike Swenson
I think for somebody listening to this, me hearing you share your story, it's like, oh, my gosh, you've got so many different things that you're doing. And even like notes, there's people that spend a lot of time learning how to do notes. There's a lot of people that spend a lot of time learning how to invest. There's a lot of people that spend a lot of time learning how to manage properties well. Right. And you're doing all of that however sequentially. Where I'm going is it takes time to get there and you've got to start somewhere. And I think that the message I always want to communicate with people is instead of sitting on the sidelines, you got to get in the game to learn to grow and get better. And so you're not going to be the expert note investor or the expert property manager day one. But because you started, you then have provided yourself the opportunity to get better and to add another stream of income or another investment opportunity on top of it. And it's just this little bit over time is where you really see the growth.
Gladys Diaz-Jourdain
But you got to, and there are a lot of people that can coach you along the way. I mean, in the property management business, we joined an organization called Door Grow, and they do their mastermind and training because you don't know everything all at once. And it's also, you do it in stages. And you have to remember that I'm not 35 anymore, so that means that I've been doing 36. Yeah, there you go. And you're doing things in stages of your life that match your energy level, your location and your priorities at that moment in your life. So you can morph from doing this to doing that to doing that. And you could buy a portfolio of rental property. Then you're like, okay, I'm done with this effort. I want to do something else. And that's kind of where we're at and we're saying, okay, let's liquidate what we have. Let's put it all into performing notes or some into non performing, or invest in a fund that's going to give us a good yield. So there's real estate funds that are actually doing well. So you have to choose your activity based on your life, and that has to be based on your priorities, family fund and money. And in that order, not necessarily in that order, you have that fund, obviously. And that's the idea, as you said.
Mike Swenson
Well, yeah, somebody like, we were talking about this offline. We're in two very different stages of life, too, like raising three boys. There's a little bit different amount of things that I can take on them and willing to take on versus in your stage, you may have some more additional time, and you've certainly gained a lot more expertise along the way and kind of knowing where you want to insert yourself for growth. And I'm still figuring things out a little bit more. But season of life matters, too. Don't be overwhelmed hearing your story of like, oh, my gosh, you're doing so much. You've also had time and also sought help from other people, coaching programs, things like that. Now, I know there's a lot of bad coaching programs. There's a lot of bad advice out there, and so you got to choose the right stuff. But you've definitely chipped out along the way and done well. Now, I do want to ask, because you did mention HGTV, and I know that back in the day you were on HGTV for a segment about tiny homes or adus. I think the listeners would love to hear just a little snippet of that experience. In doing a segment on HGTV, we.
Gladys Diaz-Jourdain
Invested in a historic landmark village in our city, and it's a group of about seven structures that are on one site. And I own these cottages that are made out of coral rock, and they're 20 x 20 foot spaces. So I lived in a studio in New York city. I can squeeze inches out of anything. I mean, I'm really good at that. And when we bought the property, I told my husband, I said, we're going to renovate it. We're going to do this, we're going to do that. And I did all the ugly stuff first, the mechanical, electrical, plumbing and the roofing and all that. And the manager of the city said, you know, HCTV called me and they want to do a thing, and I would like you guys to be on the show. And I said, sure, to have them come over. So they came over and they looked at the property and they just loved it. It's very different. Okay, I'm going to give you an example. At the beginning of your career, when you were young, single and ready to mingle, one of the things that I tell people at that point is buy a duplex or buy a quadruplex. You can still qualify for Fannie Mae, but you can live in one of the units and rent out the other three and then you can move out and buy a single family home when you're ready, right?
Mike Swenson
Yep.
Gladys Diaz-Jourdain
Well, this is that, but on steroids because it has a single family home on one end of the property and six cottages on the other side of the property. And so it's been really a lot of fun because we host creative people. It's that kind of environment, and that's kind of what the feature was about. It was about what is it like to live in a tiny house? How can you enjoy it? And it's about how the relationship of the structure has with the exterior, how the relationship is with the exterior. And that's what living in New York, when you live in a studio, you're in New York City, you're walking around all the time, you're always out eating out. You don't cook. And that's the way it be doing. I'm condo converting them so that people can buy each unit, each little condo. And that's kind of my exit strategy for the rental property. So this was one of the first rental properties that we invested in a long time ago.
Gladys Diaz-Jourdain
In our neighborhood, most of the small houses are in the million dollar range, so this is going to be below that. But in actuality, these are small houses and we're very pet friendly people who live in high rises in Miami, they hate it because they have to carry their puppy or their dog or their cat when they go out for walks. They have to really make. It's stressful for them. So I love the fact that this is like a little house. You can open the door and you can walk out to the sidewalk and take your pet for a run. We're about four blocks from the golf course. I love my neighborhood. My neighborhood is very traditional neighborhood. Lots of people walking the dog and doing the children and the little perambulator. My favorite is the young dads with the kids in the backpack. That's my favorite. And I think that was kind of fun. And so I had my 15 minutes of fame. I'm on HGTV. Woohoo.
Mike Swenson
That's awesome. Yeah. You living in the Miami area, going back to affordable housing, it's a lot more dense than even me in Minneapolis St. Paul. It's not a small area, but it's nothing compared to Miami. And so solving that affordable housing crisis, that's going to happen. It's really important moving forward, and there's a lot of opportunity there for the people that can kind of. I wouldn't say solve that, but chip away at that, right? Because that issue, it's not going to go away. It's not going to get solved. And we're like, okay, we're done with affordable housing. Let's move on to world peace and world hunger. It's still going to be out there, but you're certainly somebody that's doing a lot to be creative and to find ways to help people through that.
Gladys Diaz-Jourdain
I think that the future is the ability to have adus as part of your property, or they used to be called granny Flats, because in Miami, we have a culture where you have extended family, and now you have millennials coming back to live at home. And so you always want to have enough space to be able to host your family, your extended family, whatever that might be. Maybe it's just friends that you rent out to. And I think that that is the future. There was legislation passed recently for the low income housing tax credit that was very important. So the state of Florida created a new legislation called Live Local act, which allows you to have more density on your property. Those are the kind of things that I look at as, okay, all of these pieces contribute to adding more inventory, and I think I never thought of, you brought it up, and thank you for pointing it out that these little cottages could be affordable for people that are not able to buy a single family home, a big super duper house, but they're still in this neighborhood.
Mike Swenson
Awesome. Well, you've just got a ton of cool stories of different things that you've done over the years. And thank you so much for coming on and sharing your time with us. And we'll find a time to dig deeper into some of these things down the road. But for people that want to reach out to you and learn more about you and what you're doing, how can they do that?
Gladys Diaz-Jourdain
They can email me. And if you can put it on the caption, it's gladmag at urbaniza. Urbaniza us. And by the way, urbaniza means she develops in Spanish. And I did that because when I started the company, I was helping the county and the city with affordable housing in different developments. And I wanted to share that excitement, if you will.
Mike Swenson
If you're listening, definitely reach out to Gladys, learn more about all the great things she's doing. And thanks again for coming on and sharing.
Gladys Diaz-Jourdain
I hope you help.
