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Roberta Dalla Verde is a lawyer, mother and a Stessa power-user. With her family, she owns property throughout Georgia and Brazil. On today's episode, Roberta tells us about her investor journey, how real estate is a great business for a busy mother and how she manages her international portfolio with Stessa's asset management tools.

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Transcript

Before we jump into the episode, here's a quick disclaimer about our content. The Remote Real Estate Investor podcast is for informational purposes only and is not intended as investment advice. The views, opinions, and strategies of both the hosts and the guests are their own and should not be considered as guidance from Roofstock. Make sure to always run your own numbers, make your own independent decisions and seek investment advice from licensed professionals.

 

Tom:

Greetings, and welcome to The Remote Real Estate Investor. On today's episode, we have Stessa power user, Roberta Dalla Verde, who is going to talk about her portfolio in Brazil as well as in Atlanta. Alright, let's get into it.

 

Roberta, thank you so much for joining me.

 

Roberta:

Oh, thank you so much for having me here.

 

Tom:

To start us out. I have a fun question to ask you. So what has been the best day since becoming a real estate investor? This can be kind of any sort of investor related activities or what has been one of the best days you've had.

 

Roberta:

I think there's so many different in so many days, we had the good days. With a best day, I think let's say for example, our first when we bought our first property that was like, Wow, there was something we were not revealing expect. And then we were able to buy it for like, Oh my gosh, this is it. And but I think as far as the investment, once we started getting really into the business of investing, when we realized actually, one day, we had hired the CPA. And we had a few properties already. And we hired the CPA, and he's like, okay, now let me explain a little bit of all the good things that you may end up with, because you're investing in real estate for like, Oh, no, really, when we so that was the aha moment like for us are like, Oh my gosh, this can be into like, our lives can change. And this actually a business.

 

So for us, that was the most I think me that I think of it, it's the most important day for us any change in our lives from there to now. So definitely, that was the…

 

Tom:

I love it when you, you know, you decide to do something for all these good reasons. And then once you're kind of moving along, you realize there's more good reasons to do it. There's something that that's great.

 

Roberta:

Yeah, I remember he said, like the real estate was like, a multi dimensional asset class, you're like, well, what is that I started looking into it was like, wow, that's Yeah, so what is that?

 

Tom:

So what initially pointed you towards real estate? What was your background? Before getting in? I'd love to hear about that.

 

Roberta:

So I was born and raised in Brazil. We've been here in the US. So my husband and I have been hearing us since 2005. And one day, like we were saving and we bought a house. And then we lived there for a few years. And then we we bought this property. We're where we live now. This was back in 2015 and 2015. Yeah. And we decided to keep the previous house and we turn it into a long term rental. So just we thought as an another stream of cash, you know, we didn't have the big picture of investment. So we were like, okay, let's keep it we were able to keep it and invest in another property like you buy the new one. So let's do it.

 

So there, that's when it started. We we started managing that property. We didn't know anything about it was completely new to us. And coming from a different background. We're like, okay, there's even the buying process was different, like all sorts of different things we had to learn and by ourselves. So I had to study a lot.

 

I'm an attorney. I practice I even have, I went to graduate school here in US, but I don't practice anymore. So since then I've been focused more only real estate and then as our portfolio grew. We just you know, I was more involved with that. So in 2015, we started it took us maybe like two years by our second rental, and then from there. It's just, it started evolving. And I'm a busy mom. So it's like okay, real estate. Really, it's good for my type of routine. It gets into I can fit it in To my schedule. So it helps me with that, like, I can have both worlds, you know, I can be with my kids, but two, I can work for ourselves, which is something very important for us. So. So that's really a very important part of my day I deal with real estate. So it's on a daily basis that.

 

Tom:

That's great. The The, the flexibility it affords, you know, a couple of things I want to pick out in that in that awesome story. So was the intention always when you bought that first house to eventually just to keep it and leave it as a rental?

 

Roberta:

Yes, it was. But it was just as a rental because we at that time, we were like, Oh, we heard somebody say, you know, that's things like it's far away from us. Somebody kept their housing is getting good money, because we live in an area where real estate is hard, and like the rentals are good. So appreciation is good, everything's good. So we didn't have that idea. But we're like, Okay, this is a good cash flow for us an extra thing. And we can keep it in. Really, house was fairly new. So we didn't have a lot of maintenance. So we could, we just decided to keep it but we didn't have in mind growing, we didn't have the growth of a portfolio in mind. At that time. We were we probably would stay with only one at that time. Like we were not looking into buying others.

 

Tom:

Yeah. So that's a great transition into growing so kind of roughly what does your portfolio consist of today?

 

Roberta:

So we have properties that are single family homes, we have townhomes and condos. And we have both here in the US in the state of Georgia, and in Brazil. So we have properties there as well. Most of our properties are long term rentals. And we have a few short term rentals in Brazil here in US only long term. And we decided to stay in Georgia. Because first we know the market very well. And besides that, we don't think that right now it's the time to go broaden our, you know, our places just because we still have a lot of opportunities here, and very good opportunities. So there is no need for us now to go to different states. The places we know very well, Georgia, and it's mainly north of Atlanta, where we invest on but we've been pretty familiar with the area we we know the area pretty well. So we're completely comfortable with this range here. Close by.

 

Tom:

Is that like Alpharetta and like smearing or like further up north?

 

Roberta:

Yeah. Alpharetta as well. A little bit. North of right down like, even Forsyth County. How can you besides Boulton County, we have all like north of Atlanta, all the way. I don't know how many miles 60 miles up seven miles. Do you know the area?

 

Tom:

I do? I like Atlanta a lot. I invested. That's my my most of my portfolio is in Atlanta as well. That areas is wonderful.

 

Roberta:

Yeah. Yeah, the return in there, it's pretty good. Like, people come to us and give us no shows, opportunities like they notice here too. So we've got to be known in the area in. So it's easy for us to invest here. And you know, it doesn't take much to like Express, we know where to go and how to see if it's a good deal or not.

 

Tom:

That's That's fantastic. And I'd love to just you know, not go too deep on it, but investing in Brazil as well. So did you use first invest in United States before you built out some short term rentals in Brazil?

 

Roberta:

Yes, we started here in us and then in Brazil, it was actually because we had an uncle that passed away left me some money there. And I was like, Okay, so what are we going to do? And to bring it here because of the exchange rate was kind of not a wise decision. So we started looking into opportunities there. And at the time, the market was very low for the receipt was very cheap. And since we started, so it's been a few years and we start growing the portfolio because Then the the market was slow, and then it started picking up. And now the return is very good. So we are happy with the properties that we have there. We have management companies that help us there as well. So it's it's easy to, even though you're miles and miles away, it's very easy to manage, we got to a point where Stessa helps us

 

Tom:

Great transition!

 

Roberta:

with our even with our portfolio being abroad, we're still able to plug in the information we get from them into Stessa, which is a great benefit.

 

Tom:

Yeah, excellent transition. So you for throughout the properties you own in the world. stessa is able to aggregate you use that to aggregate all of them.

 

Roberta:

Yeah, it's definitely helping us with that as well.

 

Tom:

How did you first discover Stessa and like what are the you know, the main problems that it solves for you?

 

Roberta:

So here it is. First, let me give you a background a little bit. In the beginning, we had this booklet that our the accountant that we're filing taxes with gave us to track the expenses for our initial for our first rental. So it was this booklet where we would write down all the expenses. And then we moved into like, okay, let's get this Excel spreadsheet, and that but all of the expenses. Well, after a while, it was a little bit hectic, to keep up expenses, and to track it there was very hard. And then we started looking into options online, we're like, okay, let's see, there must be something to help us here. And then we found a few, then you will have to pay for many others that we there were not adjusted for real estate, you know, like they were not built for real estate. The apps are like, okay, you can kinda use it. But not it was not designed for real estate.

 

So, you know, there were like, no, this is not ideal, either. And then there's some that were made for real estate, but they would charge us and we're like, No, we don't want to go with, you know, we don't want to pay for that service. And we found Stessa We're like, Okay, well, this is great. It has been like we've been able to use it since we first started with being great plugging all the information and give us such good information. Like we can see everything. They're right there. Like we can keep track of expenses and our income, all the different documents, were able to put it there like to upload, we have since appraisals, deeds, lease agreements, and inspection reports, like all sorts of different things. They're really all these make my my life much easier, because I can go to one specific place, and, and have all there.

 

We use other apps as well, we use apartments.com, and that helped us and also poa.rentals helps us with the job as best as always can be quite grueling. sure to keep track of all the fines you have to pay or things like that. And also we use a Z Inspector with inspections because we we perform like inspections on our tenants. And for those that are not with management companies, you know, we go inspect their properties must know. Yeah, so all these apps, they make my life  much easier.

 

But this Stessa, for sure is the one that I use the most because it's like on a daily basis. In the morning, I sit on my desk and I write on stats are looking at all the transaction and the dashboard, all the colors and everything.

 

Tom:

So it's it's probably helps, you know, hard to use some of the other apps in for the properties that you have in in Brazil. I'm curious about kind of your operations, you guys use third party property management or you do the management on your own, or I'd love to learn about that.

 

Roberta:

So there are some properties. We have two management companies here in US that offers and a few properties are managed by ourselves so we may I manage them. dependents come directly to us on a few of the properties because we like to have that taste as well. We want to keep track of what the management companies we kind of we like to compare And keep track of what you're doing the best or not and ways to improve. So we like to manage some ourselves, just to make sure we, you know, we, we know the business from all points, like from the beginning to so and that also we have management companies in Brazil that help us with the color the properties there.

 

So, there's quite a few management things, you know, to keep track of all the reconciliation status helped me a lot, because I do financial reconciliation with all the property management inputs, like, every time I get there, denote the income from there every month, and I do a reconciliation. Stessa is my source for doing that. Otherwise, I would go crazy, just looking at my bank account. So this helps me a lot.

 

Tom:

I'm curious. Let's say I had the the person in charge of building out new things and Stessa. What would you request as a new feature or new functionality? If you have if you had to have one?

 

Roberta:

It really, nowadays, it's helping me the way it is now. Because without the documents, I have all that spread out.

 

Tom:

I love the document storage.

 

Roberta:

Yeah, yeah. So that that is easy. on a day to day, I keep track of my expenses and my income. And I keep track of my mortgage, all the mortgages that I have, and the balances the insurance. So it's really helping me a whole lot. I don't know, I would say sometimes, I don't even know if there is something like somebody could think of but for example, the banks, duplicate entries. And then for the reconciliation part, sometimes the banks duplicate and then Stessa. But it's so hard. I don't even know, I can't think of a way for Stessa to get this in a better way. Because it reads directly from the banks thing. I don't know. Maybe I will. I will add to that. I have to think about it.

 

Tom:

Yeah, we Yeah, we Yeah, very much care. I care a lot about what the what our what our customers want. And so yeah, love, love that continuing to kind of think through ways to kind of get to the next level. So my last question for you. So looking back, what's one thing you wish that you had known before getting started?

 

Reberta:

I wish I wouldn't have started much earlier back in when I first came, I would say the first game here. Because we had no clue. We had no guidance. So I wish I had a mentor that would have shown me where to go, which apps to look at what to track what to look for, even as far as investment. We don't we didn't know what would be a good investment to know we had to learn having our own today nowadays, we have our own range, I would say you know, of return. We have a good robust calculator for our return. But before back in the day, I wish I had somebody that would have got a you know, guided me and to make me an investor like much earlier in the my life to have to have started this much earlier. But yeah, it is what it is.

 

Tom:

Yeah, exactly.

 

Roberta:

If I can help somebody now. I would definitely, you know, as we do, like we try to help as many people as we know, because it's all in the end. It's all lack of information, lack con, people don't know. And if they didn't know they would be doing wiser decisions and investment is

 

Tom:

Yeah raise everybody up. I love it. Well, Roberta, thank you so much for joining us.

 

Roberta:

Thank you so much, Tom. I appreciate it.

 

Tom:

Thank you so much to Roberta for joining today. It's super interesting learning about her portfolio in Brazil and how she uses Stessa. And as always, happy investing