From Crisis to Real Estate Empire Through Unshakable Grit and Community Power with Millie Pendola

Transcript

[Mattias]
Welcome to the REI Agent, a holistic approach to life through real estate. I’m Mattias, 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. I am here with my lovely world traveling wife, Erika.

[Erica]
Hello. Hello.

[Mattias]
We may look like sun-kissed gods right now because we just got back from a little anniversary trip to Cancun.

[Erica]
Yeah, it was a quick Friday to Monday weekender that we’ve never done before.

[Mattias]
Yeah, this all started because, well, you wanted to go to New York City and do a Broadway show, which we still needed to do.

[Erica]
So, well, this was for our anniversary, right?

[Mattias]
Right.

[Erica]
And a Broadway show is on my bucket list. And so I asked you to help me plan it.

[Mattias]
And then we ended up going to Cancun. To give a little bit more context, we actually got a Capital One credit card. We’re not affiliated, but I will drop a link if you want to sign up.

We got a Capital One card. Our airport has a Capital One lounge, and we heard a lot of good things about it. So we wanted to try that.

That was one of the things. The Capital One card comes with the ability to get global entry or to, say, pre-check. If you do global entry, you have to do an interview in person, basically coming back from an international trip.

So going to Cancun, check that off our list of things we needed to accomplish, because otherwise we’d have had to travel two hours or an hour to do an interview, and it just seemed hard. And, you know, we got to use points, credit card points, for the majority. I did a couple things to make it more expensive.

[Erica]
This was also the first trip that Matthias planned. Usually I’m the planner, but he planned this one. He booked the hotel.

He booked the flights. He did everything. And so I actually didn’t even know where we were staying or where we were going.

What time our flight was or what our flight even was. This has never happened before. How did I do?

[Mattias]
Uh, you did okay. I’ll give you a pass. The first thing is when we were checking in, I bought just, you know, regular economy, cheapest tickets I could find that was direct flight.

But when I was checking in, I saw this upgrade option for first class. And I was like, you know what? It wasn’t too bad.

And we basically got it for free, the flight, because of points. And it wasn’t too bad. I was looking at it like, when are we going to be doing first class again?

And this is something I know she hasn’t done. I haven’t done before. Let’s try it.

So I got that as an upgrade. And we were sitting in the Capital One lounge. I was kind of excited about the whole trip and excited to show her, to see her surprised look when we sat in first class.

And I, you know, she was, yeah, we were getting in the line to go into, you know, to board. And I knew that we were going to be first to board. And so I was kind of like trying to make sure that we were there when boarding started.

She didn’t get suspicious when we started boarding right away. Then we were literally the very, very first row. We were seat one, A and B or something.

And so I was like, this is us when we got up there. I tried to film it. If you go on, no, that was just a real story.

[Erica]
But I mean, instead of the look of joyous surprise, you just got a look of extreme distrust.

[Mattias]
Are you pulling a joke on me? Like, what? And I wasn’t sure.

I thought you might be a little annoyed with me when you found out that I sprung for first class when we were trying to keep this. We were trying to make this trip basically just on points. That was one of the reasons we went there instead of New York is that we could really, you know, kind of justify it by just paying for it with points.

[Erica]
Yes. But I think sometimes you forget that I actually really like being treated like a little princess.

[Mattias]
So if I would have asked for permission on this one.

[Erica]
I would have said no. But well, this is why you’re, I like it when you go to Costco and I like it when you go inside Wawa by yourself. And when you plan stuff like this, because you tend to take more luxuries than I ever would.

But I really like it when you do it. I don’t have to consent to it or be in charge of the finances. It’s really fun for me.

[Mattias]
So we were in the plane flying and I asked for a drink. I was like, Erica, do you want one? And you’re like, no, I’m okay.

And then at some point, I think I just assumed you realized it was included. But then I was like, you know, it’s free. She’s like, I’ll take a red wine.

But anyway, so fast forward, we get to Cancun and we’re staying. I had done some research about trying to find something. With a short time like that, I just felt like we wanted really good food.

That was kind of like the focus. I have a friend that is from Cancun. And so I was picking her brain about places to stay as well.

Had some reviews that I read online, etc. And we ended up at Atelier, is that how you say it?

[Erica]
Atelier.

[Mattias]
Atelier. And the food was good. We’ve had another really, really good experience at another Paradisus resort.

We actually went with the whole family and that was actually a ton of fun. Because the kids got to just play in the pool all day. But this one was the food was really, really good.

Especially we sat through a timeshare presentation so that we could get a free upgraded meal at this Michelin star restaurant. And that was incredible.

[Erica]
That was a three hour dining experience. That was really fun. They did some really unique things that kind of tickled us a little bit.

Like they changed my napkin to be the color of my dress and they said it would match my outfit better.

[Mattias]
And I went to the bathroom like three times. And every time I went, I came back to a freshly folded new napkin. And Erica said that they took some tongs to get my old one.

[Erica]
Yeah, I just got such a kick out of that. As soon as he would leave the table, a waiter would come over with tongs, pick up the dirty napkin with the tongs, and then use other tongs to put the freshly folded new napkin down on the table. It happened every time you walked away.

[Mattias]
When we sat down to eat, to begin with, there was this nice plate with a cover that I thought maybe we have an appetizer or something in there to get us started. But they opened it up and it was a napkin. They laid it across our lap and took it away.

I mean, it was, I think, that place, that resort. And you can tell by the way we’re talking, we’re not really fancy people. We don’t really go to these kind of things and expect luxury and expect this stuff all the time.

But it was kind of a fun thing for us to do. And honestly, when we got married, we were really not comfortable with this kind of thing at all. And we’ve come a long way in being able to enjoy something, treat ourselves a little bit.

But everything in this resort was just kind of really focused on that experience, giving us a luxurious, fine experience. And so it was nice. It was good.

I think we maybe could have done one more day if we’re looking at it. But other than that, I mean, I think at a resort, there’s only so much you can do. So you’d really need to do some other excursions and stuff.

And so even though it seems really short and fast, it’s not a long flight. It didn’t take that long to get there or back. And we kind of got out of it what we wanted.

Maybe an extra day would have been nice, but not much more.

[Erica]
Yeah, it was fun and restful, long enough that we could get away from it, kind of de-stress and relax a little bit. But for whatever reason, this particular trip, I was missing the kids more than I normally do when I travel. And so I was kind of anxious to get back to them, too.

I don’t know why that was. Some trips we’ve done, like Greece, we were gone for eight or nine days, and that was totally fine. But for whatever reason, I think I was just very aware that I was going up in a plane and my kids were not with me.

I don’t know, just some anxiety there. But once we got there, I was able to relax more. It was a really good weekend.

[Mattias]
Yeah, and just to talk a little bit about the credit card points and things. If you’re listening to this and don’t really take advantage of those, definitely consider it. There’s resources like The Points Guy or NerdWallet or whatever where you can find what the good sign-up bonuses are for different credit cards.

Especially if you have a business, you can get business cards, and they have typically bigger bonuses. And sometimes you have to spend more to get those bonuses. But doing that, and if you are getting into flipping, putting as much stuff as you can on the cards, because why not?

It just becomes a nice little perk that you can feel free to splurge a little bit on something like this. And we were sitting through this timeshare presentation to get our free meal. We are very Mennonite still.

[Erica]
Yeah, in some ways, it has not left us.

[Mattias]
Yeah, so we were getting that end of the presentation pressure to, you know, why not? You spend money on vacations, why not? I’m like, because we will literally get another $3,000 to travel with through points from the sign-up bonus, and that one is taking three months to do.

And we can just kind of rinse and repeat that process. So, if you have a business, even if you don’t, look into these systems, because why not? I mean, put everything on.

And now, yeah, we came from Dave Ramsey, by the way, too. So, this is, you know, we started off Dave Ramsey. We never got rid of the credit cards completely.

So, we always pay them off every month. But yeah, like take advantage of what the perks are going to give you. And we have excellent credit.

It doesn’t really impact us to open multiple, and then we’ll close a few. And we need to actually close a few. That’s one of the things that we haven’t come full circle on.

We have a couple too many open. But I’m rambling about credit cards now. There was a guy a couple episodes ago that you should definitely check out.

He was all about credit card points. So, check him out. Anyway, let’s get into our guest.

Millie Pandola. Yes, Millie Pandola comes out of Tennessee. And it was interesting, it’s timely.

This podcast will be actually airing a little closer to the record date than normal. And we are all aware of all the devastation that’s happened in the Appalachia Mountains, especially further south than we are in the Shenandoah Valley. And she talks a little bit about that.

[Erica]
She’s from northeast Tennessee.

[Mattias]
Yeah. But anyway, she’s an agent. She’s an investor.

They just bought a business as well. She has some really excellent tips and really good suggestions about just kind of how to have a successful mindset and how to approach any facet of life, really.

[Erica]
Mm-hmm. Yeah. We get into some of her own story as well as the way that she has moved herself into the real estate world and how some of her previous experiences prepared her for that.

And really fun to talk to. And another one that I’m looking forward to meeting in person sometime when we go to a convention together or something.

[Mattias]
Yeah. We missed the BiggerPocketsCon by like a week. She’s going there for that.

We could have lined it up. But you know what? Next time.

We were doing our anniversary. We weren’t doing a conference. That’s right.

We should go right back. Yeah. We should do it two times.

Anyway, without further ado, Millie Pandola. Welcome back to the REI Agent. We are here with Millie Pandola.

Millie, thanks so much for joining us.

[Millie Pendola]
Thank you, guys. I’m excited to be here.

[Mattias]
Millie, it is a timely time for you to be on this show. You are an agent and an investor in Tennessee in the Smoky Mountains area, which we understand or everybody knows in the news that that area has just been devastated with the hurricane. I guess we normally start off with kind of the background information, but would you care to touch on that at all just to get us going here?

[Millie Pendola]
Absolutely. So last weekend, we were hit with a never-before-seen amount of water in our area. And unfortunately, that has really severely impacted our local communities all throughout northeast Tennessee, western North Carolina, and down in Georgia as well.

They’ve had their own issues going on with the chemical plant. So it’s been a really tough week for northeast Tennessee. We have had just an amazing outpouring of our community to help the people who were impacted.

We’ve had so many people lose their homes. Some people lose their lives. And lots of people without power, electricity, like all of the things, I mean, just completely decimated.

So it’s been a really unique situation to be in for us because we are thousands of feet above sea level. So hearing something like a flood devastated our area, I mean, you would think a tornado probably would hit us before a flood would. But we had just so much, so much rain, so much water coming off the mountains.

It has absolutely destroyed interstates. Interstate 26 that connects Rhone Mountain and Elizabethton has been, is destroyed. Banner Elk, Boone, North Carolina, or Spruce Pine, North Carolina, destroyed.

Unicoi, their hospital was underwater. So they were having to evacuate people from the roof of the building. Thankfully, no one in that hospital died or was injured, and they were safely removed.

But so many in our community have been impacted very, very heavily. And I have been so proud to be a part of this community. It is, I’ve grown up here.

This is the only place that I’ve ever known as home. And to see how we come together whenever people are in need, it is absolutely, it makes me so proud to be a Tennessean.

[Erica]
Wow. How has the community come together to help? What resources have they pulled?

[Millie Pendola]
Absolutely. So other than just financially, we have people with teams of pack mules, we have people with teams of goats, literally packing them in lines and trekking them over hillsides to bring insulin, food, water, medication to people who have lost everything. They have pulled resources.

We have so many churches and people who have come together to bring water, food, shelter. I mean, the outpouring, honestly, is overwhelming. The outpouring is more overwhelming than the actual event itself, because we have rallied around the people who need us.

And really, that’s what we’re here for. I mean, just as human beings, that’s what we’re here for. And to see an entire community of people from five-year-olds in the community all the way up to people who are 60, 70 years old are all out helping the people who need it.

And it is an honor to be a part of this community.

[Erica]
Wow, that’s incredible.

[Mattias]
Yeah, it’s really incredible. It’s also kind of sad that it takes such a big disaster to kind of really bring a community together. But I mean, I guess when you have that strong backbone like that, it really shows.

It really gets highlighted in an event like that. So that’s incredible.

[Erica]
Yeah, that is the highlight of crisis, I guess. It’s bonding in some way. It’s something that the community will never forget.

[Millie Pendola]
Absolutely. And it is hard to go through things, situations in life that are really difficult, especially whenever it involves the things that we take for granted, like food and water and shelter. But whenever you have people who are around you who don’t even know you helping you, there is just a level of humility and a level of gratitude that really the Lord brings into people’s lives.

And I think that He uses everything to glorify Him. And if someone is able to, you know, meet Him through that or, you know, come to even just live and have a different life after this. I mean, sometimes it takes a crisis for us to just totally change directions and pivot in our lives.

[Erica]
Yeah, that’s true.

[Millie Pendola]
Someone who is impacted, their life gets to be better because of this. And I know that that sounds horrible to say, but like if they have a turning point because of this, and they’re able to make different choices because life is short. And you get this reality check almost of, what am I doing?

Like this stuff over here that I thought mattered, like doesn’t matter. This doesn’t have an impact on my legacy, on anything that I want to leave behind. And if it just can shift the perspective of anyone for the better, I think that there are huge, huge things to be grateful for and stuff to be, I don’t know, it’s just horrible.

It’s horrible and it’s a blessing all in one.

[Erica]
Yeah. Is that something that you have found yourself reflecting on recently with all of the rain and the hurricane?

[Millie Pendola]
Yes, thankfully. Thankfully, me and my family, we were not impacted as severely as most of the people were who live like in more of the Eastern part of Tennessee. Yeah.

But absolutely. I think that it just gives you this mentality of, I am so grateful for the things that I have. And there’s a framework that someone presented to me whenever I was in like my early twenties that was, that has now top of mind for me.

I’m like, and they said, what if tomorrow you only woke up with the things that you were thankful for today? Like how much more gratitude would I live with if that was all that I had was the things that I chose to be thankful for. And whenever you are living with gratitude, I truly don’t believe that you can also live with a heart of complaining.

And I think that we have so much to be grateful for because we live in the best country in the world. We live in the most beautiful part of the country in Tennessee, in my opinion. And it’s like, there’s just so many things that we have and we have opportunities to do that it’s just life is too short to spend it doing things that don’t have like a purpose for your legacy or for helping other people.

[Erica]
Yeah, absolutely. You kind of offered like a nice segue there too, because I was going to ask you a little bit about some of your background, because I did see that you were pre-law, I believe in college, right? But you had mentioned, sometimes there’s a turning point that happens or a time in your life where you need to pivot.

And I was curious what that was for you or if you had one in your life.

[Millie Pendola]
Yeah, absolutely. That’s a really great question. So I will dive in a little bit to how I got to where I am, I guess.

So my first real pivot moment in my life was whenever I got to college. And my dad is a physician and he has had a fabulous impact on our community. He is someone that I respect and someone that I really, really look up to.

And he also is the type of physician, he’s a neurologist. So he is not the type of doctor you like want people to go see. So we used to work in his office whenever we were, me and my sisters used to work in his office whenever we were kids.

And I just remember like, as like this 12 year old, like seeing his patients bring him gifts and like leave smiling. And they’re like, oh, we have Dr. Pinto. And so I was like, wow, like that’s the kind of impact like I want to have on people.

Like I want people to leave conversations with me and leave like an interaction with me where they are smiling and like want to come back and trust me and trust my expertise and want to be, have a relationship with me, whether that’s professional or friendship or whatever, you know, I want that same impact on people. And growing up in a medical family, the only route that I thought was possible was medicine. So I had a limiting belief sort of in that framework of what success looked like in my life and that that was the only route that I could take to be able to get that same, have the same impact on people.

And whenever I got to college, I realized that chemistry was not for me. And so I would say really, that was like my first like real crisis in my life because I was like, I’m so bad at it. I hate it.

And like, I also don’t care about carbon. So I just had this like crisis of like an identity crisis. I really did.

And I was like, all right, I have no idea what I’m supposed to be doing. So I ended up taking a time off from school and I took like a semester off and I went and worked in retail and I loved it because the ladies would come in having a rough day. You help them like find an outfit, a cute necklace and like their day’s better.

And I’m like, what? And so I really, I ended up loving that. And I ended up getting my degree in business administration with a concentration in legal studies.

So that’s, that was really kind of how I got to like that situation.

[Erica]
But yeah, that’s so interesting. You know, I, so I was also, well, I was pre-med my first semester of college and very similar to you. Like I was terrible, terrible at it.

And I remember my professor, I think it was my chemistry professor. I had like a, like a barely passing grade. And he was like, look, you just like need to barely pass this exam just to squeak you by.

Otherwise you’re like, it’s over for you. And then I became a therapist. I was like, screw this.

I’m done.

[Mattias]
One of the fun things about this podcast is it’s like a marriage thing. And I didn’t know this. I didn’t know that you were in pre-med.

Yeah. Anyway, so after college, what kind of pushed you into real estate? Was that a pretty soon thereafter or what kind of led you there?

[Millie Pendola]
That’s a really good question. So I was, so after college, I got married, had a kid, and then we moved to Knoxville. And during that time, I actually went through a divorce and I was planning on going to law school in Knoxville.

And we just, you know, that we, we made that decision for our family. And so I moved back to the Tri-Cities back to where I grew up. And one of my friend’s moms was like, Hey Millie, have you ever thought about being a real estate agent?

And I was like, no, I was like, you don’t understand the only way that I can be successful. And the only way that I can impact people in a positive way is if I have letters behind my name.

[Mattias]
Right. Tons of education.

[Millie Pendola]
I had, I mean, I literally, I do like regular audits on like my limiting beliefs because that was one of them. And so I, you know, I, as I was walking through that, so I guess I should back up. So I worked in a law firm for three and a half years and we did estate planning, tax law, corporate law, and estate administration.

So my background in the legal field was in wealth management ish, but really well like wealth disbursement post-mortem, right? Because we’re setting up trust for people. We’re setting up wills.

And I drafted hundreds of these documents. I drafted hundreds of LLC operating agreements. I drafted hundreds of quick claim deeds.

And so it’s so funny whenever you look back in your life and you can just see how your steps were orchestrated because the, I had all of the experience like practical, tangible and the trenches experience with wealth distribution, how, how asset distribution looks with trust, with different forms of estate planning, with revocable trust, irrevocable trust, wills, doing probate, estate administration, all of those types of things I had such tactical experience in.

And as an agent, I moved into the asset acquisition side. And so I kind of was this full circle moment where I had all of this knowledge that I was so easy. It was so easy to translate into the real estate space because I had already drafted the deeds.

I knew exactly what signature lines should look like. I needed to know if people had a trust, you know? And so I had this incredible working knowledge of the distribution side that the acquisition side, becoming a real estate agent really was so seamless.

And it is, it has been really neat to see how that has played into it.

[Mattias]
Oh, that’s fascinating. I never thought about that angle and you kind of see the, the end, right? Like why, why you want to go through the trenches of investing in real estate as well.

Cause of the, cause of that wealth. So tell me a little bit about your, and your investments. What are you, I mean, I see Smoky Mountains as mentioned.

So are you into the Airbnb space? What, what does that look like for you?

[Millie Pendola]
Yeah, absolutely. So Airbnb is midterm rentals, long-term rentals. We really just stick to buy and holds now, Braden and I.

He is a mortgage broker. He was one of the top producing mortgage brokers in the country last year. And he is he’s, he’s made me a better agent as well.

Knowing loans, I think is just an incredible thing for agents to know. I think it’s just such a, such a useful tool to have. But having someone who also knows that so you don’t have to know everything is also great.

But so we have seven properties. We also just bought a business, which is his own adventure. And, but yeah, so currently doing Airbnbs in Colorado, long-term rentals in Colorado, medium-term rentals in Tennessee, long-term rentals in Tennessee.

And that’s pretty much what makes the portfolio up right now.

[Mattias]
Okay. What, what brought you or how’d you get into investing in Colorado or out of, out of the area? And then was that a hurdle to, to get past?

[Millie Pendola]
Yeah, that’s a really good question. So Braden actually is from Denver proper. So we are investing in areas that we know.

And so he knows Colorado and I know Tennessee and those are the two markets that we’re, that we’re in.

[Mattias]
Oh, that makes a lot of sense.

[Millie Pendola]
Yeah.

[Mattias]
I mean, I think like it’s, it’s you know, if you read any of the investing literature and, and go down deep dives about investing, you, you hear about things like the 1% rule and, and all that kind of stuff. And it’s just so impossible for many, many areas. So, you know, it, for something that wants to get into investing and wants to really make sure that they’re underwriting properly and have, have a really good return that keeps them, you know, above water considering other markets is definitely a really, really important and being come, becoming comfortable in that it’s not a jump, it’s not a step we’ve taken either.

We just have invested in our area. I mean, you know, we find knowing our area so well, we find opportunities and when they come up, we, we jump on them. And we’re actually in the process of flipping a house right now that we want to hold so bad.

It’s in a great location. It’s super cute. And it just doesn’t pencil out.

And so we’re just kind of coming to terms with like, you know what, we just had to do what’s prudent. Like even yes, we’d be fine. And yes, it would eventually cashflow, but that’s not the right move.

[Erica]
We have talked about other areas. I mean, my, my family moved a lot growing up. And so I’ve, I moved into lots of different areas.

Originally, I’m from Columbus, Ohio. And so we’ve talked about Columbus. I have family in like Wichita area, Kansas, which seems like an interesting place.

And then I have siblings kind of sprinkled around. So we talked about different locations to invest in, but we haven’t, haven’t stepped into that yet.

[Millie Pendola]
What do you think is like the biggest hurdle holding you all back from doing that?

[Mattias]
It’s going to be just the, well, honestly, right now is the time. I think, I think having the ability to focus in on a new market and, you know, the ones that we pick up here kind of just get handed to us in some ways, you know, like either, or, or we go to a auction or, or we have a wholesaler present it to us. And it’s, it’s fairly easy.

We’re not out there doing the direct marketing, that kind of stuff for, for these investments. So yeah, timing.

[Erica]
I would say have people we kind of have our team that works on these investment properties we buy here. Whereas if we would go out of the area, we wouldn’t necessarily know who to call or who to bring in. We don’t have that set up yet.

[Millie Pendola]
I think that’s a huge, I think that’s a huge point to make. And I think that there is a, there’s been a lot of people who have promoted like out of state investing and moving out of your local market and pursuing properties in other states. But I think there’s also a lot to be said for exactly what you guys are doing.

Like if it doesn’t work and you don’t have the bandwidth or the time to be able to do that, like there’s no, no one says that you have to invest out of state. And I think a lot of people hear the hype and it becomes this thing that they have to do because everyone else is doing it. And that’s just not true.

And I think, I, I think to you all’s point and, and the way that you guys are choosing to manage your portfolio right now, I think that that is a fantastic choice for you. Like, and most people, like I’m giving everyone permission right now. Like don’t invest out of your market if you don’t have the bandwidth and the resources because most people, I would say, don’t know how to properly analyze other markets.

They don’t know how to build a team. And if they’re a first time investor, they absolutely should not be doing it out of state for the first time.

[Mattias]
And this brings me to a question I wanted to ask you is, is, do you think that there’s a best, is there a best way for an agent to get started with investing in their first property?

[Millie Pendola]
I think, well, yes, absolutely. There’s a, there is a, there, the best way to do it is to, is to first understand what you’re doing, I think, because there’s so many things, there’s so many moving parts and so many things that, I mean, it took me years to get to the point where I felt like I could understand what a deal meant. And people throw words around.

So just for the audience’s sake and for the sake of the continuity of the conversation, like to underwrite something means that you’re analyzing a risk profile. Everyone does it. So you have insurance, insurance underwriters, whenever people tell you that you’re going through underwriting, they have a, they have a rubric that they are analyzing your risk as a human being against.

And loan underwriters, they have a rubric. They have literally just a set standard of bare minimums that you have to meet or else you will not qualify for a loan. And in the same way, a real estate investor needs to have a rubric and know exactly the risk they’re willing to take, what they’re not willing to take and be able to align, basically line item everything out and say, this is, this is the, this is, I understand the risk that I am taking on by, by pursuing this property.

And so what most people don’t understand is how and why they’re underwriting properties. They’ll just throw it into a bigger pockets calculator. And if it pencils out that it’s going to probably cashflow $200 a month, they’re going to buy it.

And it ends up not being a great deal. And they’re like, well, the bigger pockets calculator told me it was, and that’s not reality. And so there are so many things.

So understanding why you’re underwriting, understanding the numbers that you’re underwriting, understanding the market that you’re in, understanding how rates impact your buying power as you’re acquiring a property. There are so many things that it takes literally years and so much practice to be able to accurately and quickly underwrite a deal that I think that step one is really understanding what, what risk you’re willing to take. Understanding that the risk is not just the mortgage payment every month, that you’re going to have to have reserves.

You’re going to have to have things, things will go wrong. And I think that if you are not properly equipped financially, and if you are not properly analyzing risk, that you are putting yourself in a very dangerous position to invest in real estate.

[Mattias]
That’s very well said. And I, and I agree completely. I think, I think that it’s not always something that people can do.

The house hacking method is not always something that people can do. But that could be, especially if you’re like a younger agent, that’s a little bit not as tied down, buying your first house, for example, and being able to move into it, live there for a little bit, then move on whenever you’ve saved up enough and turn that into your first rental is a good low money way to go. But again, you’re right.

I mean, there’s a lot that can go wrong. And if you don’t have much equity in it, and you don’t have much savings still, you pour all your savings into another property, and then the roof goes bad or whatever. So really understanding those, you know, the CapEx and, and yeah, underwriting like you talked about is very key.

Love that.

[Erica]
Thank you.

[Mattias]
And then, and then what about, do you have any tips for agents that are getting started? What’s your methodology for your business? Do you do you buy leads?

Are you relationship based? How do you go about the sales aspect of your business?

[Millie Pendola]
So, so shifting to like more of like, just like the agent business instead of the investing side, would say that, so we are in the business of people. And so building relationships is not just, it’s not just to drive business, in my opinion, like we are serving the community. We are, we are having expertise in something that we are able to serve other people with.

And so I think that going like, like networking, whenever you go to a networking event, like with an agenda, it’s like very obvious. Like you’re just here to like meet the right people so that you can do the right things to like, I don’t know, you can, you can just tell that it’s something’s off. Um, so when I, I, I, I really like to be organic in my relationship building.

And I really want to work with people who want to work with me. Honestly, um, I, I have never bought a lead. Um, I pay referral fees caveat.

I will pay a referral fee to an agent if they refer a business to me. So that is technically paying for a lead, but I don’t buy Zillow leads or realtor.com or bigger pockets or any of those leads. I’ve never spent money on leads.

Um, because I truly, that really is how I started my business. I only want to work with people who want to work with me. And, and I have worked very hard to be the type of person that people want to work with and trust and know will advocate for them in a way that doesn’t break relationships with the other party, because there are a lot of agents who take a lot of pride in being the bulldog agent fight for you.

And we’re going to do this. And that’s, that’s, that’s just not how business at least in East Tennessee gets done. You know, whenever my name comes across as a cooperating broker, I want people to say, this is Millie.

She brings buyers who perform and we, we are going to accept her offer because we trust her to bring qualified buyers. And we, you know, I, you know, so I would say as, so as a brand new agent, my, my top three things that I did as a brand new agent was a, I focused my first two years on doing as many deals as I could, because after year two, that’s whenever your past client database starts coming around and you start getting referrals from your, like, like last two years, because then you’re, if you, if they had a really good experience with you, they are going to tell people about you, who they’re and their friends are moving or their parents are moving to the area or they’re relocating and need to sell their house. And if you gave them a really positive experience and, you know, and your time and your energy and, you know, let them know that, you know, their interest is your priority, then they’re going to send you, they’re going to send people to you.

And so I said, so I focused all of my effort on just building a past client database for my first two years. And the next thing that I did was I stayed in training. So the brokerage that I was with, they required you to be in like with a productivity coach for like your first five transactions.

And I was like, that’s not going to work for me because I want to be the best. And I know that I don’t know the things I need to know to be a great agent. So I stayed in productivity training for literally my first two years.

I really did. And so every time I needed something, she would, she would answer the phone and shout out to Anna. She was a fabulous trainer.

She is, she taught me a lot of the things that I know tactically and how to manage people’s emotions and how to deescalate, you know, things. And I think that that was probably one of the things that served me the most as a new agent was that I was willing to learn. I was willing to pay someone to train me.

I was willing to just, I was like, I’m not going to be doing it. I’m not going to be paying her the big bucks whenever I’m doing the big deals. But while I’m still the small low man on the totem pole, I am going to get every ounce of training that I can, because I, if I want to be the best, I’m going to put the time in now.

[Mattias]
Absolutely. It’s fantastic.

[Millie Pendola]
Yeah. And then I guess the third thing was really just like focusing on, I’m not a huge systems person. So I, I really, I tried to, I tried, I, what I, one of the best pieces of advice that I got was as a new agent, you need to set a baseline standard so that if you’re in the delivering a child, if something, you have the flu or now COVID, you have a baseline customer service standard that is met no matter what.

And so that is the one thing that I also.

[Mattias]
Okay. Yeah. That’s great.

Yeah. I would say that I tend not to be as much of a systems person as a, as like a relationships and personality kind of person. But I think that I was trying to describe the process of how you treat your database, how you work your, your, their sphere.

And I was like, you know, really, I, the goal for me is to be as systemized as possible to be like the best friend or to have really good relationships with the most people as possible. And I think from that, like, you know, if I’m, if I’m the person that they’re always calling and telling asking for advice on, you know, Hey, my roof is leaking or Hey, my HVAC just went out. Who should I call?

Like, you know, that’s the kind of stuff that if you’re the go-to person for those things for a lot of people then they will also think of you for selling their house or recommending you to sell somebody else’s house.

[Erica]
Yeah. That relationship piece though seems to be a strength for both of you. That like you guys just seem to be very naturally inclined to connect with people easily in a pretty genuine way.

And so that’s a nice way to play to your strengths.

[Millie Pendola]
Yeah, absolutely. And I think that that also goes back to, you know, other people who are like maybe wondering what they need to be doing with their life. Like I thought my life needed to look one way with medicine.

And like, that was just not where my skillset and my natural gifting was. And so I would encourage anyone who is like looking for their purpose, looking for their place and looking for like the like direction that they need to go in, like do a strengths analyzing test on yourself and do, do like put yourself in the highest position to succeed, because it is very easy to get discouraged. Because if I had kept doing medicine, I would have been so discouraged.

And I would have been so hard on myself on why can I not get this? Why can’t I understand this? Am I stupid?

Like what, what is my issue? And it’s just not where my natural gifting was. So I think doing like a strengths finder test or doing something to help you get a really good look at who you are and who you were created to be, I think is a really, a really positive thing to do for yourself.

And just mentally, even because you’re not good at chemistry doesn’t mean you’re not good at other things.

[Erica]
Yeah, totally agree. I had a question. I wanted to go back a little bit.

We started this podcast talking about crisis. And you had mentioned that you had gone through a divorce. And, and I know that often, I want to hear your experience with this, because I know often with divorce, it can, it can shake you up pretty a lot, because all of a sudden, the trajectory of where you thought your life was going is now completely blank.

And you don’t know where it’s going to go. And I wondered what it was or, or how you re-centered after that? What were the things that helped you regroup?

[Millie Pendola]
Yeah, well, I will. That’s a great question. And to your point, it did shake me.

So I would say that, well, there are a couple things. I’m going to get spiritual here. I don’t know if that’s okay on this podcast.

So I have had a very strong relationship with the Lord my whole life. And I would say that that is the one thing that I can absolutely say grounded me through that, through that period of my life. I also have a fabulous, fabulous support system and accountability system in my parents.

I have a very close group of friends, my girlfriends, who are just rocks in my life. They have never labored in their love and support of me. And I would say that your community, I will, I will preach this until the cows come home, like, well, that was Southern.

[Erica]
I caught that twang.

[Millie Pendola]
But, well, all jokes aside, your community is incredibly important. Incredibly, incredibly important. And something that has been invaluable in my life is having people around me, A, who will sit with me in the hard times, because those people are people who are not in it for themselves.

If they are willing to sit with you in the hard times and celebrate with you in the happy times, that’s someone I would, I would, I would hold on to very closely. But your community is so important. Your friends, the friendships that I have, I really, I mean, I don’t even have words to express like the gratitude that I have for my friends and their support.

And they’re, you know, frankly, they’re, they also hold me accountable to things. They’re like, you know what, girl? Some ain’t right here.

We see this, we see that. You need to, you know, what’s going on? Like, we need to have a real hard conversation here.

And I think that good friends and good people and good accountability partners are also willing to hold you to your own standards. Because one of my favorite quotes, I think Ed Milet said it, he said, you meet your standards and not your goals. And if you have people around you who hold you to your own standards and hold you to higher standards for yourself than you even have, then, then those are people who respect you.

Those are people who are willing to have hard conversations with you and make sure that you are staying true to the values that you say you have. And those are the type of friends that I have.

[Erica]
Wow. I’m so lucky to have that kind of community and those types of friendships.

[Millie Pendola]
Absolutely.

[Erica]
I saw too that you run and you’ve done a couple halves.

[Millie Pendola]
I have, yes.

[Erica]
Yeah. Has that been something that you’ve always enjoyed or has that been recent?

[Millie Pendola]
So I actually, I grew up riding horses. So no, that’s not something I’ve always enjoyed. My sisters definitely liked running better than I did growing up, but I decided after my divorce that I wanted to run a half marathon.

It was something that I wanted, like a goal that I had for a long time. Like, well, I’m going to do it. So I did it and I joined a running club that I still run with today.

We run every Tuesday and it’s another, another fabulous community. Wow. We’re just going to have this whole podcast.

[Mattias]
Well, yeah, I think that that’s such a key piece too. I think every time that, I mean, especially in harder times that to, to set goals and to achieve things are so important. Like, cause if you would to just sit back and, and, you know, just feel and just think about what you’re going through as opposed to going out and doing something, the community is huge.

But also that, yeah, like every time you get that, you probably followed a training schedule when you’re doing the half marathon, I would imagine. And so you’d have to do, you know, this is a two mile day. I don’t feel like it at all, but I can get two miles done and just, I’m sure that.

When that, that, you know, holding yourself accountable, getting that accomplishments done is, was huge to get through that time as well.

[Erica]
Yeah. Okay. But I, I also want to hear, with that, when you, when you crossed that finish line, when you finished the half that you did after your divorce, what was that like?

You did it, you know, you finished.

[Millie Pendola]
You know, I had so many things that I learned about myself and about just, I think life, life lessons that I learned as I was training for that race. And I’ll share a couple of those with you guys today. One, the, the people, the, the people you surround yourself will determine your success or your failure.

There were, there were two women who trained me for my half marathon and both of them, one of them is like an Ironman competitor and the other one’s like, wow, wow. It was incredibly unqualified to be running with them. I just want to put that out there.

And they are incredible women. And at the time my daughter was, she had just turned three. And so she, they would push her in the mornings on our morning runs in the stroller so that I could train.

[Erica]
Wow. Oh, wow. That’s awesome.

[Millie Pendola]
And so they literally, they trained me for that race. It was one of the hardest, it was, it was, it was hard mentally. It wasn’t hard physically.

I think that, so your community, they like, I would not have been able to do it without them. Like literally, like from like a very like operational, like tactical standpoint, like I couldn’t put my kid like for eight miles, you know, I just didn’t have the strength or the endurance at the time to do that. So they, they literally helped, helped me be successful.

And so that is the one thing. The second thing is that whenever you do what is required for something to be done, it’s not a surprise when you’re successful. So whenever, so to answer your question about the race day, how I felt crossing the finish line, I literally woke up on the morning of the race and I wasn’t even nervous.

And I was like, it’s just another run. Like I have done everything that I’ve needed to do to be prepared for this. And this is just another run.

And so crossing that finish line, I was so proud of myself, but there was also a part of me that was like, I’m good. I’ve got, I’m going to wake up tomorrow and do the same thing. And so that was one of the things I know you hear people talk about, like when, if they’re like prepping for a show or prepping for, you know, some sort of really intense competition that the morning of it is just like, you get this wash of like, I’ve trained so many months for this.

And for me, it was just like, it’s just another run. Like I did everything that I needed to do for today to be, for me to be able to run 13 miles today. And I was so proud of myself.

And then at some point in my running career, running, I don’t know what you want to call it, running training, I guess, just for context, I was like 40 pounds overweight whenever I started running and I started running and then I kept running and then I just kept doing it. And I read, and then I was like, I started training in February. My race was in November and somewhere like around January, March or July, July, August, I read Atomic Habits by James Clear.

And it was the, it like, he put to words, like what happened in my life. And it was a really cool thing to experience because I started training and then I just kept, I just kept doing it. I was like, I can’t fail if I don’t quit.

So I’m just going to keep going. And so I just kept running and I kept running and I kept going. And, and, and, you know, probably around April I had lost about 20 pounds and, um, I was telling people, I was like, come run with us, come run with us, we have the best community, dah, dah, dah, dah, dah.

And they were like, okay, we’re going to come. And so I had, I had some girlfriends come and join and do whatever. And so at some point, even though I didn’t look like a runner yet, like no one would have confused me for a runner.

I was still probably 10 or 15 pounds overweight, still, you know, whatever. But I was pumped. I was ready for whatever was coming my way.

I was going to go run no matter what. They, at some point I just started calling myself a runner because the habit, I had 90 days of evidence that I was a runner. And it didn’t really matter what anyone said.

You don’t look like a runner. Are you sure you’re a runner? You ever run a race like longer than a 5k?

Like, I don’t know. So, so it didn’t really matter what anyone else’s opinion of me was because I had created evidence for myself that I was who I said I was. And I think I would tell the same thing to anyone wanting to become a different version of themselves.

If you want to be a good agent, what are good agents do? What are the habits that they have that you can literally just start building evidence for yourself that you are who you say you are? And I think that that was a huge lesson in my life.

You know, I want to call myself a good mom. How do I define, how do I define being good mom? How do I define being successful in that role?

This, this, this, and this. Then I’m going to track those habits, right? I’m going to track so that even if someone says you work full time, you’re this, you’re that.

Yes, but these are the things that I do for my daughter. This is how I define success in this role. And whenever you get to, it doesn’t, then it no longer matters what anyone else says because you have the evidence that you have defined as successful and it doesn’t matter what anyone else says because you have built evidence for that in favor of that identity for yourself.

[Erica]
Mm hmm. Yeah. That’s also a really nice way to challenge those limiting beliefs you were talking about when you can look back on your, your evidence and what you want your life to look like and the habits that you’ve tracked to make it happen.

Then those limited beliefs, they really don’t, they don’t play, you know?

[Millie Pendola]
Yeah, absolutely.

[Erica]
Yeah.

[Mattias]
That’s, yeah, that’s amazing. Well, I was, I was going to ask if you had any favorite books. You mentioned Atomic Habits.

Is there anything that’s fundamental or something that you would imagine would be something that anybody looking to get into real estate or just looking to better themselves in general or not that you would recommend for people to read?

[Millie Pendola]
Absolutely. The only book that I’ve ever read that has changed my habits while I was reading it, other than the Bible, was Jocko Willink’s Extreme Ownership.

[Erica]
Mm hmm.

[Millie Pendola]
And I think that it is a book that I will probably read every year for the rest of my life because it’s going to be applicable in different areas of my life. But being able to accept responsibility and being able to own everything in your life is, it gives you an incredible amount of power in, in your life and the way that you respond to things, the way that you communicate with your teams, the way that you communicate with your family in any relationship, I think is so important. And I think that it’s also incredibly important just to remember that your response to things is your responsibility and the way that you handle situations, the way you communicate with your people and your family and your teams and your agents and your clients and whoever is in your lives, you get to set the rules of engagement.

And if they are not willing to abide by those rules, then they are not the right fit for you and that’s okay.

[Mattias]
I’d love it. Honestly, I think that might be the number one fundamental mindset, set shifts that people have to go through to really become successful. And that is just, you know, taking responsibility, taking ownership and not blaming external circumstances.

And it’s easy to make excuses. It seems scary to take on the responsibility, but really, like you said, it’s empowering. It’s yeah, that’s awesome.

I don’t actually know if I’ve read that book though. I need to go back and read it.

[Millie Pendola]
I would absolutely read it. I’ll send it to you.

[Mattias]
Yeah, I’m familiar. I listened to him on podcasts and everything. I’m trying to remember if it’s in my Audible library, but yeah, he’s awesome.

And that’s, that’s a great concept.

[Erica]
Yeah. I have one more question and it’s not related to real estate and this is why he doesn’t let me do podcasts by myself anymore, but looking through your Instagram, you seem to have a lot of fun with fashion and, and I love it. And so I just was curious if that’s something that you’ve always been excited about.

Like, how did you come into that?

[Millie Pendola]
Oh my goodness. That, first of all, that’s very nice of you to say. If you ask any of my friends, I’m actually probably like the least fashionable of all of us.

So I have a really, one of my girlfriends, Aslan, is a, she’s like a fashionista and I usually just go to her store and let her dress me.

[Erica]
So fun.

[Millie Pendola]
But I really appreciate that compliment. I don’t, it’s not something that I, I usually spend a lot of my time worrying about to be honest with you.

[Erica]
Oh my gosh. I was just looking through all of your outfits. I would love to go through her closet and just borrow stuff.

You’re welcome.

[Mattias]
She’ll be there in about seven hours.

[Millie Pendola]
I love that. That was so fun. Thank you.

[Mattias]
Well, if anybody wants more information about you to reach out to you, to follow you, what would be the best platforms for them to look at?

[Millie Pendola]
Absolutely. So Instagram is something that I’m usually pretty active on. I’m, I’ve considered ramping up kind of social media presence.

That’s something I’m not, I’m not super well-versed in social media, so you can message me and I’ll respond to you. I mean, my website is milliecandola.com. My Instagram handle is just my name, milliecandola.

Yeah, you can email me.

[Mattias]
Yeah, no, I mean, I think it’s, you’ve had some awesome insights here. So I really, really appreciate, yeah, I think you laid out some amazing things that people can really get into no matter what they’re going into. So if it is real estate sales, I mean, like just showing up and doing the things and surrounding yourself with people that are, that know what they’re doing, that are way ahead of where they are, where you want to be doing what they do, following the plan, sticking to it, building the bottom of that iceberg until you can kind of peek out and get that ownership of that identity that you’re seeking to build. So this has been a fantastic conversation. Thank you so much, Millie.

[Erica]
Thank you, Millie. It was really fun to talk to you.

[Millie Pendola]
Absolutely. Thank you guys so much.

[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 the show is not investment advice or mental health therapy. It is intended for entertainment purposes only.