Unlocking Financial Freedom with Terre Holmes

Jennifer Norman:
Hello beautiful humans. Welcome to The Human Beauty Movement Podcast, your source for hope, healing, happiness and humanity. My name is Jennifer Norman. I'm the founder of The Human Beauty Movement and your host. This podcast is here to guide you on your journey of self love and empowerment, soul alignment and joy. With each episode, I invite beautiful humans from all corners of the globe to join me for open conversations about their life lessons and the important work that they are doing to help heal humankind. Take a moment now to subscribe to this podcast so you don't miss an episode. I'm so glad you're here, joining me for today's show now.

Jennifer Norman:
I'm thrilled to have you joining today because we're going to be delving into the inspiration inspiring journey of a remarkable individual who has overcome adversity to achieve extraordinary success. Our guest today is none other than Dr. Terre Holmes, affectionately known as Dr. Terre, The Money Maximizer, Dr. Terre's story is one of resilience, determination and unwavering commitment to helping others achieve financial freedom through real estate investing. From her humble beginnings as a dedicated teacher in Chicago to navigating the complexities of various industries, Dr. Terre's journey has been nothing short of notable. Despite facing significant setbacks, including the loss of everything she owned in 2017, Dr. Terre refused to be defined by her circumstances. Instead, she used these challenges as fuel to propel herself forward and make a positive impact on the lives of others. Through her experiences in real estate investing, community engagement, and mentorship, Dr. Terre has not only transformed her own life, but has also uplifted countless others along the way. Her passion for teaching and sharing her knowledge shines through in everything she does, making her a beacon of inspiration for aspiring entrepreneurs and investors alike. So join us as we deep dive into Dr. Terre's journey, exploring the lessons she's learned, the challenges that she's overcome, and the wisdom that she's gained along the way.

Jennifer Norman:
After listening to this episode, you will gain valuable insights on how to navigate challenges, bounce back from setbacks, and turn hardships into opportunities for growth and success. Youll hear inside knowledge, practical strategies, and action for achieving financial freedom through creative real estate investments. And youll learn the importance of investing in yourself, seeking out opportunities for growth, and paying it forward by uplifting those around you. So without further ado, let's welcome Dr. TerreHolmes to the podcast. Welcome, Dr. Terre.

Terre Holmes:
I want to clap for myself.

Jennifer Norman:
Yes, let us clap for yourself.

Terre Holmes:
I was like, who is she? Who is she talking about?

Jennifer Norman:
It's Dr. Terre. I am so glad you're here. Well, I know that everybody's in for a treat because you have such a compelling story about pretty much losing it all and then coming back and essentially not only finding it all, but finding yourself along the way. Can you tell us about your journey?

Terre Holmes:
Oh, my God. Jennifer, first, thank you so much for having me. It's such an honor to be a part of such an amazing conversation. I just love the work that you're doing, and I'm just really excited to even share my story as part of this movement that you have. I don't even know where to start on the journey because there have been so many chapters to it, but I'll start at the beginning. I think one of the hallmark of sort of like, how all of this began and what sort of set my journey was definitely being I was the oldest child of two drug addicted parents. That was really the beginning of the beginning for me. And I say that because that right there sort of started to define me.

Terre Holmes:
Even though there's nature and there's nurture. My nature was one thing, but being nurtured in that environment sort of shifted who I ultimately became. And I don't take any of it. I wouldn't take any of it back, right. Because it did. It made me who I am. And I think that the work that I do today really speaks to how life began for me. And so I grew up in Cleveland, Ohio.

Terre Holmes:
I was the oldest child of two drug addicted parents. My dad became addicted to heroin before I was born, and then my mother developed an addiction by the time I was eleven years old. I was a pretty good student, I guess you could say I was a really good student. You know, I was honor roll merit role student, very active. I was the class president in 6th grade and played the violin because that was my nature, right? My nature was just to be outgoing and do all of these things. But over time, the challenges that my parents faced rubbed off on me over those years. And I struggled a lot, struggled a lot with anxiety, self esteem and poverty. My mom, before she became addicted, she was a teenage mom.

Terre Holmes:
She had me at 17 years old, and she dropped out of high school, so she didn't have a high school diploma. Most of our time on welfare. And so this was before the addiction even started. And so I talk about money, and I call myself the money maximizer because money has always been sort of an ongoing conversation throughout my life, whether it was we don't have enough money, or whether it has been how do I create more money? Or more abundance. Right. Because I left the thought of, we don't have enough to how do I create? And I think that a lot of times people are stuck in the we don't have enough phase. And as life started to occur and I started to learn and be mentored and guided by other people, I started going into that, how do I create faze? And so those were the beginnings of life for me.

Jennifer Norman:
Wow. And the idea of you being able to rise out of a family that was unfortunately fraught with addiction, I mean, that unto itself is to be congratulated. And it is something that is not easy because a lot of people would believe that it runs in the family. It might be in the DNA as far as those proclivities, and it may or may not raise itself in the same form of addiction, but the addictions to other things or having an addictive personality can certainly be there. And so coming from a place of just recognizing that you were able to excel even despite it, even despite those hardships, you were able to find a way. So I just wanted to recognize and honor you. And I see you for your strength and your courage and your conviction. From that perspective, I appreciate that.

Terre Holmes:
I have spent a lifetime in therapy, not with one therapist, but ongoing, because I believe in therapy. And this very last therapist that I've had in my life, because I consider therapy now as maintenance. Just like you would maintain your car, your roof or your whatever, like, therapy now is just maintenance for me. And so my therapist quite recently said, she was like, ta Rae, you do understand you're an anomaly. And I was like, no, I never, ever thought about that. Right. And she said that to me because once you start to go through therapy, they start to dig up things that you have sort of planted. They've been sort of planted and you thought that they were buried.

Terre Holmes:
Right. And so these memories and such. And so she was asking me about schools, and I said, I went to over 20 schools by the time I was 18 years old. We moved a lot of. Yeah. And she said to me, she said, tahray, that's one of the questions that we ask when we're taking children into the social service system. I said, really? She said, yeah, because that's a really important question. Like, those are sort of some indicators.

Terre Holmes:
And I never thought anything about it. So I never saw myself. I was just doing what I had to do at that time to survive. And when I talk about nature and nurture my nature was that I was a smart kid, right? So even though I went to 20 schools I still graduated on time.

Jennifer Norman:
Phenomenal.

Terre Holmes:
And it was no big deal to me. It was nothing I ever thought.

Jennifer Norman:
Yeah, I mean, because you were just living it. That's all you knew.

Terre Holmes:
That was all I knew was just to live. It was just to get by and. But you don't realize how much trauma sets in. You don't realize just how much you're truly working through. And I didn't. I didn't start to realize until I was really in my forties is when I started to realize how much of a toll all of that had had on me over the years. And though I made it through, I didn't make it through without bruises.

Jennifer Norman:
Right. Because I know that when something like that happens, even though you might be surviving, you might be getting through the day, it can really have an impact on your self worth getting into adulthood and then come up in strange, funky ways in relationships and whatnot. What was that? What was that like for you?

Terre Holmes:
I'm so big on this work, identifying and recognizing trauma. Like, I'm really big on this trauma work in these past few years of my life. And I would say that those experiences had a really, really, really profound effect on my relationships, my ability to trust, because the first people that we trust are our parents. And when that bond is broken, when that trust is that trust bond is broken, it's very challenging to trust other people. And what I have learned is that even through trauma, it's hard to trust yourself. To trust if you're making the right decision. Right.

Jennifer Norman:
Doubting yourself.

Terre Holmes:
Doubting yourself. Because when you're growing up in trauma and you're growing up, particularly drug addiction and all of that, nothing is ever. No two days are the same, and not that any day is really the same, right? But the complexities and the nuances of days like they differ greatly, right. Because you don't know what's going to happen from 1 minute to the next, from one day to the next. And so I know for a fact that it took me a long time to learn to trust others, but learn to trust myself, to learn to trust myself that I was making the best decisions and not doubt myself. And it took a long time. It took a really long time. And so in relationship, I would say that that was one of the greatest challenges, is learning to trust myself and learn to trust other people and learning to sometimes see things for what they were, but sometimes see things for what they were not as well.

Terre Holmes:
And some of the things that come very naturally and normal to other people don't always come naturally. And normal to folks who've grown up, like myself. And so it took many, many years of a lot of work, a lot of inner work, a lot of healing, a lot of therapy to get to the point where I am now.

Jennifer Norman:
Wow. It's funny because I think when trauma happens, there's, like, no semblance of what normal really means. It's like you don't even have any bearings anymore. Not that you even maybe had them beforehand, especially if your trauma happened as a child and was chronic, frankly, it wasn't like you had a car accident and that was a traumatic experience. This was like lifelong issues that just completely defined and started to create your reality for you. And so undoing that is a long journey. And a lot of people will say, well, I don't even know where to begin. I don't even know if therapy could help, sure.

Jennifer Norman:
But maybe I don't feel like I have the time or the patience or what have you. But, like, what was some of the work that you think that you did that helped you to start trusting yourself again and to building up your self esteem and self worth again?

Terre Holmes:
Great questions. I think one of the things that helps you to start trusting yourself is to take more chances. You have to know in order to trust yourself. You have to take a chance on yourself. Right. You have to trust your own inner voice, that inner voice that tells you, hey, this is a good idea. Hey, you should try this. Because when you've been traumatized, that feeling of being frozen in action, you don't want to do anything.

Terre Holmes:
You don't want to love again. You don't want to move to a new city. And I've never really had that issue because I've moved quite a bit in my life. But one of the things is taking more risk, and even if it's a small risk, because what's considered a risk for me may not be the same risk for you, Jennifer. Right. But learning to trust yourself involves taking some chances. Right. That's number one.

Terre Holmes:
Number two, one of the things that really helped me get through is I've been writing all my life. So being able to write and journal, because then you're able to go back, and you're able to go back, sort of like in a time capsule and to see where your growth has taken place. Like, who were you ten years ago based on what you wrote? Who were you a year ago based on what you wrote? And so I have been able to see my own growth in my own words. Right? So journaling, to me, so important to be able to track your own growth in real time. And in addition to that, I definitely have leaned on my spirituality, having that foundation. So whatever your foundation is, whomever you believe in, believing in something outside of yourself has truly been just pivotal and pivotal in me sort of being able to just see past today. Right. If I can't see past today, then I don't see everything seems hopeless.

Terre Holmes:
But having that faith, that inner faith, has really, truly helped me see past. Listen, this is just for today. It won't always be like this. This is just for this. Maybe it's a week, maybe it's a year, but knowing that hard times really don't. They don't last always. So that has helped me to really sort of shift my mindset to know that this is a right now moment, this is not a forever moment. And then also surrounding yourself with people, for me, people who I know want to see me win.

Terre Holmes:
And sometimes that means getting rid of some old people who were so used to you losing, they only know you lose...

Jennifer Norman:
Just in relationship.

Terre Holmes:
Absolutely. Yeah. Some people have only been used to you losing, and they only see you like that, and they can't see you as a winner. And it's not their fault, because that's all they've seen. Right. If you've had. Because I've had years, particularly after my divorce, I had a long stretch of time where I was just. I felt like I was just taking one hit after another.

Terre Holmes:
Shortly after my divorce in 2017, I got a divorce in March of 2017, in fact, which makes seven years this year. Last month was seven years. And I'm going to get back to why that's important. But later on that year, in September, I was hospitalized with blood clots all over my lungs, and my right lung was literally dying. It was turning black. And I knew something was wrong with me for months, but I had gone to the doctor, and they couldn't find anything. And so finally, I checked myself in. I was traveling, checked myself into Johns Hopkins, and they found that I had these blood clots on my lungs.

Terre Holmes:
And it just felt like every year something was happening that I just couldn't get back on track. I just couldn't get back to the old Terre. Well, the truth of the matter is, I didn't need to get back to the old Terre. I needed to get back to a better version of Terre.

Terre Holmes:
But it took seven years to do that, literally. And last year was much better than the year before, and this year is much better than last year. But I bring up the number seven because I was talking to someone recently, and they were like, seven years. Seven is a year. That's the, the number of completion, right? And I was like, wow, that is the number of completion. So this is over I pray...

Jennifer Norman:
I'll have to look back to when I had seven years of progressive disasters.

Terre Holmes:
I'm telling you. And then you think, like, oh, I'm the only one? It's like, no. So when I started to, after my divorce, I started to do a lot of research. We brought me to the whole money thing. I started to do a lot of research about money and divorce. And I started to learn that the average person takes them five years to get back on track financially after a divorce. Average person, both for men and women. But I started to do work and research around women and started to realize that it takes women even longer because a lot of women within marriage, they've given up so much.

Terre Holmes:
They've given up careers, being a mother, so they're sort of little rusty on the career side. They've given up time to go care for people, whether it was their children or whether it was their in laws or their own parents. So they've lost some time in the workforce and their ability to earn money. And when you lose that, you also lose a little bit of you, a little bit of what defines you, like, who you are. And so as I started to do that work, I just started to just get more curious about money. And the more I got more curious I got about money, the more I started to realize just, just how serious this thing is when it comes to how much people cover up, how much they make or how much they're not making or how much they're struggling. Like, people cover this up so much and they don't want to talk about it. And I started to see that my friends, who I thought were doing extraordinarily well, they really weren't doing as well as I thought they were or they were portraying to be.

Terre Holmes:
And then I started to talk to a lot of women because I got into real estate in 2017, and I started to talk to a lot of women who were like, yeah, I want to invest. I've been on my job, or I've been working for 2030 years, but I don't have any money to invest. And these women barely have money to even retire. And I was in a similar boat. Like, I've been in the same boat. And so I just got really serious about understanding money and understanding that we have this misconception that money is earned, money is created, and money is created through words. When you interview, you're using your words to get money, to get the job, right? When you see that billboard that says Pepsi, it's words that you read that makes you buy a Pepsi. That's how money is exchanged.

Terre Holmes:
It's exchanged through words. And so if you start to look at money like my value is based on how much money I make, no value is created by what value do I bring to someone else. And how can I convey my value to, if I have a business, how do I convey my value to the general public about my business? How do I to my customer, my client? But also understanding that we are so much more than the money that we make and that money, when we start to look at money and say, you know what, money comes to me easily, then that's what will start to happen. And I know I'm sort of veering off into this money conversation, but that's what started to happen for me. I started to stop looking at myself as a paycheck, or how much money am I earning to determine my worth? And I started to say, like, what value can I bring to people? And I'm not limited by how many hours I work in terms of how much money I can.

Jennifer Norman:
That is such an important mindset shift for everyone to recognize because so many of us place our self worth, or look at our self worth by how much is in our bank accounts, how much we're earning, all of those things, and yet so many of us feel beholden to the dollar. A lot of us feel that, oh, gosh, I just don't have enough. I'll never make enough. And then gets to that downward spiral, that negative talk about, I just don't have the wherewithal or even know what to do in order to make more. And so it's wonderful that you talk about taking care of your money as a radical form of self care, and it is, in fact, one of the eight dimensions of wellness. Now, a lot of people would never think about financial well being, but think about how stressed we get if we feel like we don't have enough money. Think about how much better we feel if we don't have to worry about money. It really does matter.

Jennifer Norman:
And so I would love for you to share, now that you've been able to crack that nut on your relationship and your mindset about money and you delved into real estate, tell us how that process was, tell us how you got into it and what's come of it. Since you're now obviously teaching a lot of people all of the skills that they need to in order to become great real estate investors. I'd love to hear more about that.

Terre Holmes:
Yeah. I want to mention something before I go into that. When you talk about we worry about, a lot of people worry about money. That's the first problem is that anything we worry about, we bring about. Whatever we think about, we bring about. And that was the first thing that I started to do, was to start to retrain my mind, to worry less. I'm not saying I don't worry. I just worry less than what I used to worry.

Terre Holmes:
And so when studying the works of other thought leaders on worry and such and thinking and thought, I meditate. I meditate every morning. And meditation has allowed me to control my brain, my brain activity. And I think that, that I know for a fact that's what started me on this journey of healing, because the healing was happening internally, but for the healing to happen here, I had to start to retrain the brain, and that's what meditation did for me.

Jennifer Norman:
Yeah. And I'm building upon that with some words from Michael Bernard Beckwith, who I adore. And he was talking about, like, having the right vibration to attract and to keep and to grow money. Because if you think about lottery winners, they didn't have a great relationship potentially with money beforehand. So what happens when they get it? Hooray. There's a windfall, but they lose it now within a matter of years. Sometimes it just goes as fast as it has come back because they were not a vibrational match for that energy of money. And so it is.

Jennifer Norman:
It's very much a mindset. It's very much knowing that you deserve it, that it is you, and that it's just a part of you. It doesn't really have to define you, certainly, but you don't have to be scared of it. You don't have to worry about it. And so I think that that goes along with what you're saying it does.

Terre Holmes:
And so what has began to occur is I look at my money differently. Used to look at it like no more is coming back to me. So I spend it without thinking about how it can work for me to create more money. Right? So now, because of the business I'm in, I get large checks. And sometimes we don't. Sometimes our closings don't happen. So I have some feast of famine months where it's like, you got to hold on to what you have. But where I have started to shift is when I get the money before I get the money.

Terre Holmes:
And this came from, this shift came from hanging around the right people, I get the money. Let's plan for the money. Those lottery winners that you're talking about, they don't plan for the money before they get it. So it's gone so quickly. And that was the other shift that occurred in me was that, wait a minute, Terre, before you get this money, you need to plan for it. And I'm not talking about plan to pay off bills. I'm talking about plan to make it work for you. And oftentimes we plan to pay off bills.

Terre Holmes:
We're like, oh, I'm going to pay this bill. I'm going to pay that bill. I'm going to pay this bill. But think about it. And I took that same money. And if it was 10,000, I took 5000 and just invested it. And then that 5000 created more money for me. Then I don't have 10,000.

Terre Holmes:
I have even more. But we're so afraid and we've been living in lack so long that even going out and spending it quickly is just another form of lack. Right? Yeah, it truly is. Right? And so I had to shift that as well. Like, Terre, if you put something to the side and you invest it, it's coming back. It's not like you threw the money in the trash. You just put it to the side. You just can't use it right now because it's working.

Terre Holmes:
It's doing something for you. 2019. I started learning something called wholesaling real estate. It just sort of comes across my YouTube or something, and a friend of mine had been talking about it, and I was like, well, let me check this out and see what this is about. So 2019, I started teaching myself how to wholesale real estate. And as a result of doing that, I started working with investors. It literally like there was a quantum leap in terms of what I started to learn as a result of learning to wholesale and work with investors, because they started pouring into me. They were pouring into me.

Terre Holmes:
I started joining all these Facebook groups and just being poured into and started to invest in myself and my knowledge. And it came just in time. So my first deal was at the end of 2019, right before COVID and that very first deal, I made $6,500 working a couple hours. And I was like, like, whoa, what? I was like, 6500. And so then my second deal, I think I made like 14,000. And I was like, and this was just working a couple hours per month. And then where it really got juicy and really got good, Jennifer, was that I realized that I could automate my business. So I was putting my business on automation.

Terre Holmes:
So I would do, like, ringless voice calls. If you ever got a call and you're like, my phone didn't ring. How did I get a voicemail without was person like me? So I started to automate my business. I started to hire Vas from overseas in 2020. Once Covid hit, I was good because I had this skill set now where I could make big chunks of money, and I was able to start paying off debts. Paying off debts. And my grandmother and my uncle got sick in 2020 around the same time, and we put them both in hospice that year. But, and this was in Cleveland, so I'm in Maryland there in Cleveland.

Terre Holmes:
I was able to, because my business was now virtual, I was able to travel back and forth between the two places and still close deals as I'm sort of tending to them and taking care of them. And I remember the one day I closed two of my deals, just so happened to close on the same day. And when those two deals closed, I made $25,500, and I was like, this is it. And I've never looked back. And I was just like, this is it. And so that's what I started doing. And that's been all I've done for. Since 2019.

Terre Holmes:
I really haven't done anything else. And I will say this. It's taught me. Learning about real estate from this perspective has taught me about money, and it's taught me about how wealthy people think about money. Because a lot of the people that I'm working with now are very wealthy. They have a lot of money. They own a lot of real estate. I mean, I'm working with people who own two, three, 400 doors, who own hotel keys and own commercial apartment buildings.

Terre Holmes:
And just all of this, and it has just opened up my mind. And, you know, once the mind is expanded, it can never go back. So the more I learn, the bigger my deals get. I had decided to start this club up for women, specifically and specifically black and brown women, to teach them how to invest in real estate creatively, because I was learning this, and I started to do more research and realize that black women in particular own less real estate than any single demographic in the entire United States. I mean, every single demographic, black women own less real estate. Then I started to realize that black women have more student loan debt than every single demographic in the United States, that black women were the heads of households over every single demographic in the United States, and that black women earned less money than every single demographic in the United States. So what does that mean? That means that you have this black woman. She's taking care of some children who may or may not be hers.

Terre Holmes:
So she's the head of household. She's earning less money than everybody else in the United States. And on top of that, she doesn't own any real estate, or she doesn't have as many assets. So it was just on my heart to start to teach black women, and then brown women as well, how to invest in real estate, right? So I wanted to start this club, club maximize. And I started going out and trying to get women involved who were in my immediate sphere. And remember when I said earlier that when people have seen you failing so much, that's all they see. So they can't see you winning because they've seen you in this other light, right? So I started to have these women like, well Terre, how many properties do you own? And Terre, how many? And I'm like, I don't.

Terre Holmes:
I haven't been holding my properties. I wholesale my properties for cash so I can pay debts off and do other things so that can. They can wrap that around their minds. So as time went on, I got really frustrated with the idea of starting up this membership. So I started to pray to God in the beginning of last year, and I said, God, like, I really want to teach. I really want to lead in this space. Like, I need you to, like, help me out. Like, what do I do? What's next? And so January of 2023, I decided to go to this real estate meetup.

Terre Holmes:
And I had told myself, I said, I'm going to go to a real estate meetup every single week. I'm going to go and network and meet a people. I go to my very first one. This is the second weekend of January, and it was about an hour and 20 minutes from my house. That's how committed I was through rush hour traffic. Almost an hour, 30 minutes, and I get to this meetup. It was the best freaking meetup I've ever been to in my life. It was called the Cash Flow Breakfast Club.

Terre Holmes:
And a guy named Omni Casey, he's the one who put it together. And there were probably about 100 investors in this room. Everybody was so happy. It was just amazing energy. It was just so amazing. And at the end of it, Omni said, I'm looking for leaders. I'm looking for someone to start their own club and their county. And I was like, what? And so I was like, okay, God, I see you working.

Terre Holmes:
And so I raised my hand, and I volunteered to start up the first club in Maryland. So I started, I co founded the very first Cash Flow Breakfast Club in Montgomery County, Maryland. And we've been gone a year strong. And as a result of that, now I'm doing what I was trying to do with women, right? But I think that at that time, God was like, listen, I don't need you in a box. I need you to just go do the work, and I need you to also learn. And I started to learn, and I started to pour into other people, and they started to pour into me. And we have both men and women who show up in that room, and many of the people don't look like me, but we're learning together and growing together. And it's mostly men who show up in that room to be taught by myself and my co host.

Terre Holmes:
And it's just such an amazing experience. And so that's what the journey has been for me. So for anyone who's like, I want to shift my mindset around money, start getting around people who are having conversations about money, start talking to people who have more than you. Like, we can't stay around the same people with the same mindset and expect a mindset shift. It's not going to happen. And that's what I had to do. I had to get out of my own way. I had to broaden what I thought.

Terre Holmes:
I was only supposed to be working with black and brown women, in which I still do, still a passion, but I believe that God just wanted something so much more than I could have ever imagined. I love what I do. I love teaching and sharing this knowledge with other people. And that's what I did.

Jennifer Norman:
What an amazing story. It touches my heart. There is an interesting phenomenon where, between people, energy is always where you last left it. So if you haven't seen somebody since high school, and then all of a sudden they show up on your Facebook or you happen to see them on the street, all of a sudden you're thinking, oh, my gosh, that was the guy, that was the introvert that used to never say hi to anybody or you always remember, and that energy is always where you last left it. And sometimes that energy between people, they're going to think things about you from a previous you. They don't realize that you've outgrown a shell and that you're actually a different person now than you were before, which is okay. And it's understandable. It's understandable in the nature of it.

Jennifer Norman:
And so it is sometimes a little bit of work in order to bring that energy up to speed. Some people don't wish to have that energy brought up to speed, and that is okay. And that's when you know, you know what? I think I've probably moved on. And that's okay. I bid you. Well, sometimes it requires, if the energy is bad blood between family members, if you've had an addictive father or mother like doctor ture has, sometimes it requires forgiveness to clear out that energy. Sometimes it just is. I'm not going to spend as much time around you because I feel like it's a little bit toxic.

Jennifer Norman:
And that's okay, too. It's protecting your own energy. Growing yourself and becoming the person who you were meant to become. That is really it. And not to worry about what other people think, not to let other people's opinions of you get into your own opinion of you, becomes a really important life lesson. And so this is something that doctor ture has been able to do. She's been able to elevate herself out of a lot of the energy of lack and of just not having enough in so many areas of her life to recognizing. Actually, there is.

Jennifer Norman:
There's a lot to go around. There's a lot here for me. There's a lot that I can bring to the table to help to share that abundance with other people, which is just. Just amazing.

Terre Holmes:
Yeah, you just really hit me with that one. Energy is where you last left it. We meet people where they are. Right. And if where I meet you, you're a person who's stuck in old energy, we'll never elevate the energy. But if you are a person who is always looking to move energy and elevate, then you'll elevate with me. That's what I sort of heard when you said that a lot of people are stuck in old energy and they're not willing to elevate where you now are. And that's okay.

Terre Holmes:
So thank you for that. That's what I just got out of that.

Jennifer Norman:
I want to talk a moment about real estate, because the market is a little bit weird right now. And I think that a lot of people would be like, who? It might have been a really good time to invest in real estate. I myself, I feel like I timed it incredibly well. I tripled my money on the house that I sold during COVID and so I was like, yay, that worked out really well. But it's like, I can't buy another house because it's just too darn expensive. So when you talk about creative real estate and wholesaling I think that a lot of people would be curious. It's like, all right, you've piqued my interest. I want to know a little bit more about this.

Jennifer Norman:
And of course, I will share Dr Terre's information in the show notes. And then at the end of this episode. So bear with us, you will receive it. But I would love to talk a minute about what the heck is wholesale real estate like this? Creative real estate investing of what you speak.

Terre Holmes:
Great question, Jennifer, and congratulations for tripling your money. Thank you. So here's what I would say. I want to go back to what you just said about I sold the property and I can't buy another one, which is, I get what you're saying, but it's partially not true. So you sell the property, but a lot of my investors, who particularly live on the west coast, they buy in other cities. So you may not be able to buy where you live, but that doesn't stop you from being an investor. You go and buy where you can afford. Okay? So you take that money and you go and buy where you can afford.

Terre Holmes:
And that's for anyone. So let's just say you live in any expensive city, DC, Boston, California, New York, whatever, if you truly want to invest where it makes sense for your money to go. So that's number one.

Jennifer Norman:
True.

Terre Holmes:
Okay. And so let's just say you sold a million dollar house in California where you can go buy five houses in Cleveland. You still have some money left. You can go and buy an apartment building in Cleveland and still have money left with a million dollars. So you want to start to research your market. And Cleveland is an amazing market for real estate investing, particularly real estate investors who don't have a whole lot of money to invest and who want to sort of get into this space. So Cleveland's a great market. So just sort of research your markets.

Terre Holmes:
North Carolina is a great market. Cleveland's a great market. Everybody's buying in Florida right now. So that's number one. All right. So the second thing is, yeah, it's a challenging market, but there are ways to buy in this market and some of the ways that I have bought in this market. And I teach wholesaling. So people utilize wholesaling.

Terre Holmes:
Wholesaling is a strategy for buying real estate. It's a strategy for exiting a deal, I should say. So say, for instance, I get a property under contract for a wholesale amount, right? So undervalued. So I get under contract for $20,000. When I sell my contract for $30,000, I make the money in the middle, which is $10,000. A lot of investors use wholesaling as a way to go and invest. So wholesaling is just a strategy to enter and exit a deal. So some people use wholesaling as their business model.

Terre Holmes:
That's all they do. But a lot of investors use wholesaling as a strategy for entering and exiting a deal. I get it under contract. This isn't a great deal for me. I sell the contract, I make some money, I take that money, I go and invest it in the property. Does that make sense? So that's how wholesaling basically works. But then when we talk about creative real estate investing, as a result of starting up that real estate meetup, I started to meet some people who had skill sets I didn't have, and I've been able to partner with different people to expand my knowledge, but to also grow my business. Two of those people, the husband and wife team out of Virginia who found out about me from someone that I know in Cleveland, and they were like, you got to talk to Turay.

Terre Holmes:
These two people are excellent at making offers. So what we're doing now is we are working collaboratively, and I'm only looking for properties where the owners own them free and clear. How does that play into creative financing? When an owner owns a property free and clear, you can get creative with that owner, the owner, basically, you can convince them to become the bank for you. So now you don't have to go get a bank loan, you don't have to qualify for a bank loan. You don't have to go get a bank loan, and they're going to ask for maybe a certain amount down. You're going to negotiate a certain term on that, a certain interest rate. So that's one creative way to buy real estate. But another creative way to buy real estate is to buy real estate subject to an existing loan.

Terre Holmes:
So sub two deals, someone owns a house, they have a good interest rate on it. They may have a 3% interest rate and they need to be out of it. Maybe they had to move, or maybe they're having to downsize, whatever, and maybe they don't have a lot of equity in it, or maybe they're in bankruptcy. Whatever circumstances are, you would basically buy that property from them subject to their existing mortgage. This is not the same as an assumption with an assumption, I have to go get qualified to assume their loan. This is a subject to. I'm buying it subject to that loan. It stays in their name.

Terre Holmes:
The interest rate stays in place. The terms stay in place and I basically take over their notes and I give them money to walk away. So that's another creative way to buy a house. In fact, in the seventies and eighties, I think particularly in the eighties and such, this was mainly the only way people bought houses because interest rates, you think 7% is high. Interest rates were in double digits in the eighties, okay, they were in the double digits and people could not afford to buy homes.

Jennifer Norman:
We just got spoiled during COVID.

Terre Holmes:
So they would basically go to a loved one, mom, grandma, auntie, would sell me their house, I would just take over their current mortgage. And it was very, very common. Well, the banks got wind of it and the banks were like, wait a minute, we're not making any money on new loans because people are just going and taking over someone else's mortgage subject to. So the bank started to real strict and put some laws and some different rules in place so that people didn't do it as much and that many people don't even know about it. So those are just some of the different ways that you can structure deals. But you can also, if you don't have the best credit, you can always buy a property with a credit part partner, okay? And then if you don't have the money, you can always have an equity partner. You find the deal, they have the money, you find the deal, they have the credit. But when you start to get into commercial deals, they're not even looking for your money.

Terre Holmes:
They're not even really looking at your credit. They just want to see that you're sort of credit worthy. But you don't even have to have an extraordinarily high credit score when you start to get into commercial deals because they're going off the asset itself, right? So a lot of folks just think like, oh my God, I can't buy real estate. Yes, you can. There are all sorts of ways to buy real estate that don't require your credit, your money, and you don't even have to have experience.

Jennifer Norman:
So that was my next question. I think a lot of people would ask, do I need to have a real estate license to do any of this? And so the answer is...

Terre Holmes:
No, not at all. I actually got rid of my real estate license last year because it was in my, it was literally in my way, and it was in my way because as a realtor, I had too many laws and different things that I had to abide by that realtors can't do this, can't do that.

Jennifer Norman:
Dr. Terre, I want everybody to know how they can get in touch with you because I think that you've probably wet a lot of people's whistles right now that are probably very interested in hearing more because certainly you're a wealth of knowledge. Certainly you've been able to learn it all yourself. And I know that you would probably say, if you can learn it, then a lot of other people can learn it too. And it can be so beneficial. People can find this kind of financial freedom if they were to really just invest in themselves, frankly. So how can people get in touch with you?

Terre Holmes:
Perfect. So you can reach me at terrehomes.com. and I'm on all social platforms. Terre Holmes, LinkedIn, Terre Holmes, Facebook, The Terre Holmes. Because there is another Terre Holmes.

Jennifer Norman:
Get out.

Terre Holmes:
I had to message her on Facebook messenger.

Jennifer Norman:
Like, that only happens with the name Jennifer for Norman. My goodness. Terre Homes.

Terre Holmes:
I thought I had a name like Oprah Winfrey. Like just one, right? No. And so anyway, so I call myself The Terre Holmes. And so, yeah, you can find me on all social platforms at Terre Holmes. I do have a waitlist for Club Maximize because I will be launching it. And so it is for black and brown women and their allies. So if anyone is interested, Club Maximize basically teaches you how to maximize your money through real estate investing and learn money management in addition to that. So join my newsletter, reach out to me and would love to stay in contact and answer any questions that you might have about real estate investing.

Terre Holmes:
Or if you're looking for somebody to come and talk your head off about money and starting over, I'm your girl.

Jennifer Norman:
All right, everybody, do it. Run. Do not walk. Run over to find Terre Holmes. Learn more about her. As you can tell, she's got, got so much value to offer you. So I want to just at this moment, thank you so much, Terre Holmes, for being my guest today. You are a beautiful human.

Jennifer Norman:
I just loved our conversation so much. Thank you very much for being my guest today on The Human Beauty Movement Podcast.

Terre Holmes:
Thank you. I appreciate it. Thanks, jennifer.

Jennifer Norman:
Thank you for listening to The Human Beauty Movement Podcast. Be sure to follow, rate and review us wherever you stream podcasts. The Human Beauty Movement is a community based platform that cultivates the beauty of humankind. Check out our workshops, find us on social media and share our inspiration with all the beautiful humans in your life. Learn more at thehumanbeautymovement.com. Thank you so much for being a beautiful human.