Real estate investing is here to stay. The richest people in the world have either made their money through real estate or hold their wealth in it, so as the host of the Women Investing Network Podcast Sharon Lechter wisely says: there’s no time like the present to start figuring out how you can add real estate to your portfolio. Jilliene Helman, an incredible example of real estate success, helps people do exactly that. She’s the founder and CEO of Realty Mogul, a digital platform for real estate investors. Realty Mogul brings you vetted real estate deals, because it’s important to make sure that you are working and investing with trusted individuals and trusted companies.
Jilliene Helman has been invited as a featured expert on many different networks and Realty Mogul is ranked as one of the best one-stop-shops for real estate crowdfunding. She grew up in a family where she had a lot of exposure to residential and commercial real estate early on. While working for a bank during the 2008 recession, she was involved in the acquisition of failed banks. Her team sifted through all of the real estate assets that were on those portfolios. This exposure to real estate continued as Jilliene started looking for passive investment opportunities and led to the inception story of Realty Mogul. While working in the banking environment in wealth management with very high net worth clients, she noticed a similar story every time: many of them either made their wealth in real estate or kept their wealth in real estate. She wanted to bridge the gap between that hard to find country club connection to deals and bring it to a wider swath of investors who desired this kind of real estate exposure. She believed there was a way to provide broader access to this asset class.
One of the most common questions that Jilliene receives is: I don’t have a lot of money, I can’t buy a property on my own, so how can I diversify into real estate? Realty Mogul solves this problem by bringing real estate and crowdfunding together in the same space. The passage of the Jobs Act legislation in 2012 really opened up this concept of crowdfunding and of individual investors being able to pool their capital together and make investments in real estate and opened up the door for the inception of Realty Mogul. Since then, Realty Mogul has invested over $750 million with its members in over $4 billion of real estate nationwide. One of their core values is to empower the investor and part of that empowerment is choice; Realty Mogul empowers investors to build the real estate portfolio that’s right for them.
How do I get started?
Jilliene encourages people to start their education. There are numerous resources available today. Get exposure and learn. Empower yourself as an investor to build a real estate portfolio that’s right for you. Attend a webinar and learn how a property is being underwritten, why the location makes sense, why the business plan makes sense, etc. Even if you don’t have any money to invest at the moment, you can always start with your education. But that’s also where Realty Mogul comes in. Remember, one of the benefits of crowdfunding is that you can get started with a nominal amount of money. Realty Mogul also provides a variety of different investment opportunities on their platform, from multifamily to self storage, to industrial to office and retail as well as education to empower your choices.
The other critical piece of advice Jilliene gives to entrepreneurs is to go meet people – lots of people! Building your network is a great way to get started on your real estate journey. Find a way to create the environment you need, so you can get that crucial exposure and learn, and find other people that provide those opportunities and resources.
Reach out to Jilliene on LinkedIn or at RealtyMogul.com and tell her you heard her on the Women Investing Network Podcast! Listen to this episode here:
