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Be the Solution with Maria Quattrone
Maria Quattrone, a leader in real estate with over 21 years of experience, is the driving force behind Maria Quattrone & Associates in Philadelphia. Her passion goes beyond selling homes; she’s dedicated to helping others succeed. Through her 'Rise in Real Estate' training program and the "Be the Solution" podcast, Maria shares her expertise, inspiring professionals and entrepreneurs to excel. With over 3,400 properties sold, Maria's success is evident, but her true mission is to empower others, build strong brands, and foster meaningful connections.
Be the Solution with Maria Quattrone
Women Who Invest Together Win: How Collaboration, Details & Truth Build Real Wealth
Use Left/Right to seek, Home/End to jump to start or end. Hold shift to jump forward or backward.
What happens when women stop competing… and start collaborating?
In this episode of the Be The Solution Podcast, Maria Quattrone sits down with real estate investor Kim McFaline to talk about something the industry doesn’t focus on enough:
👉 Women building wealth together
From launching a weekly investor mastermind with 30–50 women, to flipping properties out of state, to mastering the details that actually sell homes—this conversation is real, practical, and powerful.
This is not surface-level motivation.
👉 This is about how collaboration, truth, and execution actually create success in real estate.
🔑 Key Takeaways
👩💼 Women Are Stronger Together
🏡 There Is NO Passive Income
🧠 Buyers Don’t Know Why They Walk Away—But They Do
🛠️ Do It Right the First Time
🌎 You Can Invest Anywhere (If You Build the Right Team)
💰 Everyone Should Win in the Deal
🧾 You Don’t Own Your House (Hard Truth)
❤️ Mindset Shift for Women
🔥 Best Quotes
Maria Quattrone:
“There is no such thing as passive income—only recurring revenue.”
Kim McFaline:
“50% of something is better than 0% of nothing.”
👤 Guest Contact
Kim McFaline
Real Estate Investor | Community Builder
Founder of Women Investor Weekly Mastermind
This episode comes down to three things:
👉 Collaboration
👉 Details
👉 Truth
If you master those…
You don’t just survive in real estate.
👉 You build real wealth.
Connect with Maria Quattrone:
Facebook: Maria Quattrone
LinkedIn: Maria Quattrone
YouTube: Maria Quattrone
Instagram: @maria_quattrone
TikTok: mariaquattronerealestate
Website: MQrealesate.com
Office number: 215- 607-3535
Welcome And The Big Theme
Maria QuattroneWelcome, my friends. Welcome back to the Be the Solution podcast. And I'm your host, Maria Quattrone. And I'm so excited this morning to be here with Kim McFaline. Restoring is our calling. And today we're going to dive deep in women collaborating and thriving together. Welcome, Kim.
Kim McFalineThank you so much. I'm so excited to be here. It's an honor. Um, I'm just, it's a beautiful Saturday morning, and I'm I'm getting to share it with you for a little bit.
Why Women Need Each Other
Maria QuattroneIt is. And we just had a great 40-minute conversation behind the scenes to get to know each other. And I really feel like I already know you. We have synergy and great energy together. So I'm excited this morning to talk about women in business, women in real estate. And and sometimes we can be our own worst enemy. And when we put that aside and really work to collaborate with other women, I really think it's important because I still believe that we are not equal. I'll say we're not, we're not just we're not equal to men. And you know, I I see it in, for example, um in a Union League club of Philadelphia. You walk into the real estate event, it's still tons more men than women. Still. And so I think it's really important that we band together. And I know you know you have really stepped out and did things with you have your weekly Zoom on Thursdays that you bring women investing together. So tell us more about that.
Kim McFalineSo um I have three oldest sisters, so there's four of us, uh, no brothers, and um obviously growing up with with all sisters, you know, you have some competition, you have some collaboration, right? So I learned early on that um being around women can be beneficial or it cannot be, right? Depending on your outlook on it. So for me, I've always been the type of woman that uh has always wanted to collaborate with other women. I feel like the more collaboration we can do together, the more we can get done, right? Instead of picking each other apart and judging each other, why not collaborate and work together and uh build success together? And so um I was home one day with my boys. Uh, they had a day off for whatever reason. And I texted a few of my female investor friends, and I was like, hey, you want to hop on a Zoom? And they were like, Yeah. So we hopped on a Zoom. It was actually last February, February 6th of last year, we hopped on a Zoom. Sharon was one of them. There was about seven or eight of us, and uh, we hopped on for an hour and we just talked about everything and anything. And it was so impressive to see these women come on and just be vulnerable, right? And just be open and no one was judgmental. And I said to them, Do you want to do this again next week? And they were like, Yeah. And then the next week we had nine women on, and then the following week we had 12 women on, and here we are uh 13 months later, and we have anywhere between 30 to 50 women that come on every Thursday at z at noon. And um, we have a different speaker every week, uh female speaker on a specific topic that that uh investor is knowledgeable about. And uh we speak for about 40 minutes and then we open it up to the women in the Zoom to ask questions or you know, give their comments. And uh, and yeah, I'm all about collaborating. Maria, there is nothing better than working with a with a group of women that really vibe with you, that align with you, that you can grow with. And I know off the camera, uh, we were talking, and I said to you that a good friend of mine, Marta, who's also an investor, had said one day we were at um a mindset retreat that we host once a year. And she said 50% is better than 50% of something is better than 0% of nothing. And uh it just solidified to me that you can have you can partner up with women and men too, but we're talking about women, right? You can partner up with women and collaborate and do joint ventures together and do deals together. Uh, I think this industry, like you said, is mainly, we know it's not even thinking, right? We know it's mainly male dominated. And when I got into it just a few years ago, I, you know, would walk into a room and the few women that I seen there, I didn't feel like I was able to approach them. And some of it could have been them, and some of it could have been my own insecurity, right? So we have to take a look at ourselves too. And I remember saying to myself, gosh, I wish more women, including myself, can get together and really collaborate and uh and build big, build something, you know, whether it's a networking event, whether it's just a support system, whatever it is, sharing ideas, sharing teams, sharing, you know, um support leads that we have. And then it morphed into what I do every Thursday. So it's been fun. It's been a lot of fun.
The Thursday Zoom Origin Story
Maria QuattroneIt's exciting. It's uh it's refreshing. It's totally refreshing and exciting. And I would love to jump on one at some time. So hear all about and it's women in real estate, women in investing, women.
Kim McFalineDoes it whether you're new, whether you're just thinking about it and you want to get some ideas, whether you're you know you're advanced and you own, you know, a ton of portfolios or whatever it is that you do. Uh, I'm also about um having women come on. So I do due diligence. Let me just back up. So when I look for speakers, I interview them. Uh, if I don't know them, a lot of them I know, you know, from networking and and um events that I've gone to. But when they're new, I interview them, I dig deep into their profiles, usually on Facebook. I make sure that they're aligned with what the group is about, right? So are they selling a product? Do they only want to become a speaker because they're selling something? Uh, and it's okay if you want to sell something, uh, but it's all about giving and then you know what you get in return. So for me, it's the collaboration, it's bringing speakers on that uh align with us. But I'll say this if you do have a product or a service that you're selling, and I really believe it's something that my group can benefit from, I am more about promoting you. And so we do that a lot as well. You know, if if it aligns and it's um and the group feels it's something that they want, uh, and we vote on it, we do a lot of voting, we do a lot of surveys in the group, um, then you know, we put it out there. We have sponsors, we have female sponsors that sponsor the group. Uh, from 1031 exchange, we have to uh uh a tax accountant to a landing page gal. We're just it's all about building a community, right? And working together.
Choosing Speakers And Building Community
Maria QuattroneTax accountant. I need a I need a good tax accountant.
Kim McFalineOh, I have somebody for you. Yes, we actually did a series, we did a tax series together, a three-day course that we did together, and it was awesome. So um, I've been using her for now. Yeah, we also do a round table. I know that I had spoken to you off camera about this too. We do what's called RTC, it's the round table conversation. Uh, we try to get it out once a month. Uh, the zoom is free. The round table, it's a it's a um, it's a one-day uh two-hour course. It's a conversation. We have uh a panelist, a panel of three to five women that come on that speak on a specific topic. We share the good, the bad, and the ugly. We share nuggets, we share tips, and it's basically, you know, people say, what exactly is that? And I always say, just envision being at a at a dinner table or a coffee table, and you're with your girlfriends, right? And a subject comes up and you're all kind of a little familiar with it, or some aren't, and you have this conversation about it, and you talk about everything about this specific topic. That's what the round table is about. So uh the panelists come in, we speak for an hour, and then the second hour we open it up to all of the members that are on the StreamYard, uh, because we use StreamYard too, and they ask all the questions they want, and we answer. And it's a cool yeah, it's a cool little um, it's a cool way of kind of getting a little bit deeper into a topic as opposed to just doing it for an hour on the Zoom. Uh, we delve a lot deeper at the round table. So it's fun. Yeah. What were some of the last ones that you had about? So uh we had one on lease, uh, all about your lease, what's in your lease. So we spoke about um things that are in your lease, things that should be in your lease, lessons that we learned uh that you know, things that weren't in our lease, and we had an experience that we realized, uh, you know, we should be putting in a lease. We spoke, we spoke about the good stuff, we spoke about uh, you know, uh state laws and how you have to make sure that you're going by your state laws. Every state, every uh municipality, every city is different. Uh Sharon spoke about lease options. We did a lot about that. So we really delve deep into what leases look like. You know, uh we had a lady on, a good friend of mine named Vicky, and in her lease, she doesn't allow air fryers. I would have known about that, right? She doesn't allow air fryers because they burn her backsplash that sits on top of the counter, right? It could also cause a fire. And uh that was interesting. Uh, another friend of mine named Renee, she's in Orlando and she's a uh landlord, and she uh put in her lease that utilities are optional. And in in uh Florida, utilities, well, I shouldn't say utilities, Wi-Fi uh is optional. And so is uh she did say so is electric. And she said that she can shut it off anytime she wants, and I never would have thought about doing that, right? Because in New Jersey, you can't do that. You have to leave the water on, you have to leave the electric on. So we just spoke about different options with leases and um things to put in, things to take out, things uh you should, you know, kind of reword. And it gave the viewers a chance to look at their own leases, it gave uh the new potential landlords what to look at when they were building their leases. So it's things like that that we do.
Round Table Talks That Go Deep
Maria QuattroneThat's cool. I wouldn't have thought about the air fryer thing. I know, right? I know, yeah, but those are the things I those are the little, it's always about the little details, you know. It's always anyway. I what I've seen in real estate, it's always the devil's in the detail. It's in things that people don't even think about. It's the name, yeah. And my side of the business, on the listing side of the business, there's a lot of little details that you just wouldn't know that are important in selling a house, like that people miss all the time. You know, you just don't know what you don't know. And when you're in a field and you're so entrenched in it, and you know, it's all about, and that's why there's experts, right? That's why we hire experts. That's why I need the expert tax account, right? I'm not doing my own taxes. I need this person like ASAP because the last one is out, okay. Too much money, too much money, too much torture, not uh not nimble enough, not creative enough, and you have to be creative, sure. Yeah, you have to don't you agree? Like, you have to be able to like a little bit, you know, push the envelope, right?
Kim McFalineYou stay within the guidelines, right? You yeah, we're not getting fraud here, but you have to know those loopholes and how you can use them. Exactly, exactly.
Maria QuattroneI know there's tons of uh there's a lot of little things again. The little things out there that not taking advantage of. Who wants you? Nobody wants to pay more taxes. No, nobody wants to pay any taxes. How about that?
Kim McFalineUncle Sam wants us to pay taxes, but we don't want to.
Maria QuattroneWell, we can go down this rabbit hole, but it'd be a really bad rabbit hole because I believe the whole thing's illegal.
Kim McFalineOh, we we do a whole another podcast on that, right? Yes, listen. I always tell people, you know, I I have friends that say, you know, I I made my house off. I you know, I own it now. No, you don't. If you stop paying your taxes and you stop paying your utility your utilities, you don't own it anymore. They can come and take it from you. So, do you really own it? Yeah, we can we can go down that rabbit hole.
Maria QuattroneAnd that's like that that in itself is shouldn't even be allowed. I agree.
unknownTotally.
Maria QuattroneYou shouldn't have to once you pay your house off, you shouldn't have to pay taxes on the house. You should be able to keep people lose their houses because they can't pay taxes.
Kim McFalineOr utilities, yeah, utility, right? I mean, uh that I it's happened, it's happened to uh a few friends of mine. I'm gonna tell you a quick story. I have a short-term rental in Seaside and uh I'm on automatic bill pay, right? Utilities, so electric and water is paid through the town. So you the taxes are paid through my mortgage company, the utilities I pay, and it's on auto pay. And it's like, you know, $50, $60. So shame on me for not paying attention, right? I'm like, oh, you know, I have a few properties, so I'm like, all right, it's on auto pay. All of a sudden I go on, I get an email saying I owe $400. And I'm like, what is weird? Something's going on. Maybe I have a waterbane break. I go on to go pay, and it says tax lien, and I freak out. I'm like, what is going on? I of course this is a Friday night, right? I can't get in touch with them. I'm freaking out all weekend, right? I'm calling all my investment friends, and the investor friends are like, Don't worry about it, don't worry. I call Monday. Somehow it kicked me off of autobill for three months. So I hadn't paid for three months, and I was going on a tax lien sale for $400. So these things happen, right? These things, you know, you overlook things, but my point is you can lose a house over $400, $20, $30 in a tax lien sale.
Maria QuattroneExactly. It's insanity. Exactly. It's all should not be allowed. It all should not be allowed. Testing is, you know, people think it's a get-rich quick scheme. There is no get rich quick scheme. There are no shortcuts. It's it's such a thing as passive. I want to tell people this all the time: no such thing as passive. There is such a thing as recurring revenue, right? So that's good, but it's not passive. I love how people go on these shows like bigger pockets, for example, and they'll talk about passive income. I'm like, nothing passive about owning property, you got to be on it.
Kim McFalineYep.
Maria QuattroneAs soon as I'm ironclad contracts, yes, yes.
Kim McFalineSo we spoke about that too. With lease with the leases, they have to do you know, dot your I's and cross your T's because you know, people can find loopholes in anything. You really got to make sure that you're you got tightly knit. Um, and that's what anything, that's what any type of contract. We know that, right? But um, back to what you were saying. What were you just saying about um the detail? The details. Oh, the devil is the details, right? The devil's in the details, yeah. The devil's in in detail. So let me ask
The Details Buyers Notice First
Kim McFalineyou this. What you had said that when you you go to properties, you look at things that other people can't see. I know that you're supposed to be interviewing me, but I I wanted to I wanted to kind of touch base and um and and on this subject. When you go into properties and you look at things that other people can't see, what are you looking at? What are some of the things that you find? I look at every single nook and cranny of a house.
Maria QuattroneLike things I people don't even it's stupid, but they don't even think about okay. You have a trash can. The trash can is in the alcove. And then you remember we're in Philadelphia, so all these houses are all mainly attached. That's right. The trash can is in the alcove. Everybody keeps a trash can in the alcove. You're selling the house. Why is a trash can there? Why right? Why is a trash can there? Like that front should look like you could eat off the ground. I'm talking about houses that are in good condition, by the way. If it's a shovel, it's a shithole. We sell those all day long, no problem. Yeah, but but devil in the detail is in everything. Like, is the house shiny? Is it sparkle? I went to a house the other day, $800,000. You're not even gonna believe this. Now, when you're you gotta imagine, when you're walking through a house, it's during the day, you don't necessarily put all the lights on, right? If you're looking at property, you're not necessarily putting all the lights on. Even the owners aren't putting all the lights on, right? I put every single light on in the entire house and checked every single light. Eight were out. Now it's a four story, four-story house, 3,500 square feet, but eight lights were out. Also, the color of the light is critical. Oh my goodness. Wait, yeah. The color, not of the fixture of the bulb. Because if it's that sterile light that looks like you're on an operating table, which tons of houses have, I make them take all the bulbs out and replace them all. I don't make anybody do anything. This is my suggestion if you want to get more money for the house and you want, or how about this?
Kim McFalineIf you just want it to sell, right, right, it's a simple fix. It's funny that you say that because our next round table is about design, staging design from a rehabbing perspective, right? How to get the most bang for your buck. And uh, bulbs are on that list. Like, I am a firm believer, I am not putting fluorescent bulbs anywhere in any of my restorations, in any of my rehabs, you know, not happening. My husband loves them, and I'm like, you want it in our main house, we're not selling it, do what you want, but you know, I'm that would be for me. But I I with you, it's it's still things like that. So that makes you stand out, you know.
Maria QuattroneSo if I go in a backyard and there's on the ground and they didn't fill in kind of like cobblestone-ish, but not cobblestone, and they didn't fill in all this in between spaces. So now there's like grass, you know, weeds, little growing out of them. Little um, I said I said, Why I don't understand. This should have been filled in. We gotta fill it in.
Kim McFalineGotta fill it in.
Maria QuattronePeople don't I I look in another spot. I look I'm not the toilet paper holder. Yeah. I'm like, why isn't it all the way why is it hanging off? Why is I don't say why is, but the windows, those need to be cleaned.
Kim McFalineRight.
Maria QuattroneThe window sills, the windows, there's so many the inside of the windows. The inside of the windows. So here's what happens. Here's what happens when there's little details that are missed, the buyer says, Oh, what's wrong with the house? Like they only could be little details, but they they think, What else am I not seeing? Yep. And then they just walk by, they just discard the property.
Kim McFalineYou you hit the nail on the head. So when we restore homes, um, we restore homes down south, uh, historical homes, cottages. I have a project manager and I have a few general contractors, depending on what what level of rehab is. Um, but we always tell them we don't skimp, we don't skimp on our work because once a buyer sees one thing, it could be a scuff on the wall, it could be a chip on the windowsill, that opens them up to look for everything else that may be wrong. Correct. So you want to make it pristine. We are not putting lipstick on a pig, we are not cutting corners, you know. If we go over budget, that's why we have a cushion in our budget. We're gonna do things right because our name is stamped on it. And we want to give a product, we want to sell a product to someone who is gonna walk into there, move in, and in a year from now still say to themselves, this was the best purchase we ever had, we ever made, right? We don't want them calling us, you know, uh within a year or two years or whatever and saying something's wrong, you know, you did a crappy job, or, you know, uh three, you know, three months in the HVAC is leaking or whatever. So we make sure we do it right the first time, and that's it. You know, usually when we do rehabs and we have to do inspections, we have a very, very small list of what's on that inspection report. It's very, very small, it's minimal. Uh sometimes it's not even anything, to be honest with you. It's like you'll be an inspector that nitpicks, right? Because you're paying an inspector to find something. But at the end of the day, like you said, you know, they see something that that you know may be small in comparison, but that small thing, you know, it's one small thing here, it's one small thing here, it's one small thing there. And all of a sudden, now in their minds, they're thinking, like you said, what more is being hidden, right? What's behind the walls that we can't see? Exactly. So I'm with you on that.
Selling Smarter With Better Marketing
Maria QuattroneTotally with you. That's exactly right. And then the other things are things that you wouldn't know unless you're a listing broker. Little details that are important that always we want to have. You know, why why do the house have floor plans? Why doesn't the house have a three day video tour? How about the one year home warranty, which costs nothing to advertise it? Right? Are like this list of things I go on and on. And Zillow Showcase is a tremendous tool, but only the top 10% of agents are allowed to have access to it. So if you're not working with a top agent, you're really missing the boot. Don't stop hiring your friends, stop hiring people that do 10 deals a year. Not enough. It's not enough to get good. Right. And you need to do a lot of deals to get good because that's where the experience lies. It lies in the volume of transactions because then all these different things come up. And then you can well, I always tell people listen, this is a real estate transaction. It's not going to be perfect. There's going to be stuff that goes sideways. I'm telling you up front. However, I got your back. I know how to get it done. Period. So I let people know that it's not gonna, this isn't all warm and fuzzy. And if you want to be warm and fuzzy about it, you're gonna lose money. Yeah, that's another thing. Psychologically, I tell them these are homeowners. Remove yourself from the sale. You've already moved to wherever you're going. You own this house anymore. When you can remove yourself and you pretend you don't own it, we are getting it ready for the next buyer. And this is how you make the most money. Remove emotions. Yep, from it. Exactly. Exactly. It's critical. But a lot of people, you know, I mean, I tell you people yelling and screaming because they don't like this, they don't like that. I go, who cares? I don't like vanilla ice cream. I like mint chocolate chip. You're serving me vanilla. I don't want it. Next move on. That's it. Yeah. You know, and and these are conversations that a lot of people don't have with their clients. They don't tell them the truth. They're not transparent. You know, they just want a listing. I don't want to sell a listing. I don't want just the listing.
Kim McFalineYou don't want just the listing. Right. Right. You don't want to just get the listing for it to sit on the market for you know six months and then it goes, and then you know it expires, and then you know, you're they're not winning you. Everybody's wasted their time. Everybody's wasted their time and money. Yeah. Being transparent, being honest and ethical, I think are three things, three key components to being successful. And and sometimes means giving tough love. And sometimes that means you lose deals, and that's okay. And you lose clients. That's okay too. You know, at the end of the day, no one wants to waste their time. Right? I mean, we we're here to we're here to we're here to you know be the solution.
Maria QuattroneYou're possible, and we're we're here to we're here to to money, right? Well, at the end of the day, it's business, right? The money it's I'm not a charity, right? I'm not running a charity here. I even I have a lot of charities out, but I can't help them out without the money. So that's true, you know, and it's it's always about what's best for what's always best for the client, and that's usually a hard conversation in today's environment that we're in. But you gotta find your wins, and I love like uh collaborating with other people, talking about you know, how can we we're stronger together?
Dealmaker Meetups And Local Chapters
Maria QuattroneSo I know we were talking earlier about the deal maker, and I'd love to know more about that, Kim.
Kim McFalineSo, deal maker is a this is uh Jim Ingersoll, he's located in Richmond, Virginia. He's been doing this for quite some time, and uh he has a conference once a year, uh usually in March in Richmond, Virginia, it's a three-day conference. And uh this last one we we had gone to, we had over 300 people that came from all over the country. So it's it's huge real estate investing investors conference. And two years ago, uh this gentleman Yvonne and this woman Pam had gone up to Jim and said, you know, you should really consider doing chapters, right? Doing local local meetups and having leaders in local areas, and um it morphed. And now I I guess about 33. We're at 33 um meetups across the country. I just started one here in central New Jersey. Um, I have two partners, Joel Kraut and Joanne Maraby. Uh, she's a Keller Williams agent, and Joel Kraut owns Burr Investments uh here in Freehold. And we are pre-looking our uh meetup on May 16th. It's a Wednesday from eight to nine. Uh I'm sorry, from six to eight in English town in the Keller Williams office. And uh we're gonna rock and roll. It's about bringing investors together, whether you're new, whether you're advanced, no matter what you are in the industry, real estate, you know, broker, real estate agent, you're a lender, everyone is welcome. And it's about our core values are about integrity and transparency. And we're here to collaborate. Uh, we're not here to push anything on you, we're here to bring deals together, to work together, and to succeed. So it's gonna be a great meeting.
Maria QuattroneAwesome. That sounds like something that I should be doing in Philadelphia.
Kim McFalineYou should be, and I'm gonna I'm gonna be in touch with Jim. We can do a Zoom meeting one day if you want and give it what it's about. So I will I will yeah, it's it's definitely a little different than what's out there, not saying that you know, any any other meetings are bad because they're not. Uh, we just decided that you know, we're gonna we're branches of Jim. I call Jim Mr. Oak Tree. He's Mr. Oak Tree, and we're just branches of him. And um, he's created something that that's pretty profound in the investment world. And uh, I'm just honored to be able to be a leader and to move that forward, you know, into our market. So I think it's something we should consider, and yeah, we can hop on a call about
Flipping Out Of State With Teams
Kim McFalinethat.
Maria QuattroneSo tell me, you you buy and flip down south. How does that work? Um you're in New Jersey, you're in New York Jersey. Like, how does that how do you well?
Kim McFalineIt's funny that you you say that because uh I am considering putting a a program together for out of state investors and how it works, um, and how you can do it and you can be successful. Uh, for me, we we lived down south a little bit, uh, when my husband retired from the army, and I built a I built in there and then we moved back up uh north. My my dad was dying of lung cancer, and so we took care of him. Yeah, in in 2018, we took care of him, he passed away. We were gonna move back down south. Uh, but my mom, she was a Brooklynite, born and raised in Brooklyn, she did not want to move, and so we negotiated with her and we moved to New Jersey, and she moved in with us. We took care of her until she passed away in 2020. And um in that time frame, um, I just started to continue to build my network uh in Georgia. And I have boots on the ground, I have a project manager, I have you know, uh various contractors that I work with, and the market down there is quite different than it is here up north. Uh, you know, your your your purchase price is is down south, your rehab costs can can be lowered, you know, than where you are. And of course, your selling, your selling point is as well. And so for me, um the holding costs were were was a big thing, right? Holding costs here in New Jersey and up north is a lot different than holding costs down south. You know, when your taxes are $1,000 a year down south and your utilities are you know $50 a month, $60 a month, it's a little bit easier to hold it a little bit longer if you have to down south than it is, you know, if you're here up north uh in Jersey. And so um I started I started dabbling in real Georgia and and Alabama in 2017, and then I went full force in 2020 and I haven't looked back. And so uh it works for me. You know, when you build a team, when you're integrity-filled and you're transparent and you build boundaries and you you you learn what your boundaries are, you can build solid teams anywhere across the states, anywhere, anywhere you want. It doesn't even have to be in the states, it can be in another country if you want. So for me, it's about building teams that um align with my vision um and align what what we wanted to accomplish together. So it's made, you know, it's it's made, it's made team money. For me, it's all about everyone should win, whether it's the you know, no matter what side you're on, you're the seller, you're the buyer, you're the contractor, you're the project manager, you are the wholesaler. Everyone should win in a deal. And so when I keep that yeah, when I keep that forefront and center, um, I feel like that's what works for us.
Mindset Shifts And Accepting Praise
Maria QuattroneThat's beautiful, a beautiful thing. Yes, you're it's like so great, amazing. You have the smiles, great energy. I accepted it. Oh, good, good. I'm glad that you accept because a lot of people you know, they I noticed they I don't know, like not like, but have a hard compliment accepting flowers. It's true. And I think as women, especially because we're I don't know how it happened, but we're trained, not trained, what's the word, like accustomed to always being not the center. That's right.
Kim McFalineWe're the caretakers, we're the wives, we're the moms, right? We're the daughters, we're everything, we're we are everything to everyone else, and really nothing to ourselves often, right? We put ourselves on the back burner. Uh, and I I am I'm guilty of that. I accept this is something that's new to me because we um we did a mindset matters for women. It was our first one in January in Orlando, and we had 16 women that signed up. Uh, 13 showed up because it was in the middle of a storm that we had here in January. And we had a friend of mine that is a mindset coach, and she came to our she came to our meeting and she did a two-hour course with us. And one aspect of it was we each had to get on what we call the hot seat, and we had all these women sharing all these things about us, right? I was telling us about our strengths, and we had to accept it. And she said, All you have to do, you're not gonna answer, you're not gonna have a rebuttal, you're gonna sit up there and say, I accept it, and uh I accept it, I accept it, and sit up there and not not come up with a rebuttal, not come up with excuses to just sit back and say, I accept it. And so January, I've been doing this. I've been doing you know, if someone gives me a compliment, you know, I listen, I'm 51, so for 50 years, or you know, for how however long I was able to speak uh and and and feel insecure about myself, would come back with a rebuttal. If someone said, Oh, you have beautiful hair, I would say, Oh, thank you, you know, but it it's gray, it's you know, it's straggly. And now when someone's my hair, I say thank you. I accept it, and it feels liberating because we deserve to be, we deserve for right, we deserve to be able to acknowledge it and accept it and internalize that.
Maria Quattrone100%. Yeah, 100%. Oh, it was so good collaborating with you today, Kim. I'm excited, we're gonna be on a panel together next week. So I'm excited to meet you in person and keep on being the solution and being being, just being, right? Being being to be for ourselves. Absolutely, absolutely. Truly for ourselves. Yeah, so it was great that it was awesome having you on today.
Kim McFalineI can't wait to see you on Tuesday at Sharon's meetup. Um, looking forward to giving you a big hug. That's something new that I do now too. I never liked hugs. You know, anyone in my family will tell you don't hug him. She never doesn't like them now. There's something about hugging someone, right? And just giving them energy and taking some of the energy and just loving on them for I love hugging. All right. Well, we're gonna do a big hug.
Maria QuattroneYes, we are. Yes, we are.
Kim McFalineAll right, you have a wonderful thing. Thank you so much. It's been an honor and a privilege to be on your podcast. I'm looking forward to connecting with you on a deeper level, uh, on a business level. Because Maria, you are just, I have to say, you you inspire me. You are just you're just killing it. And um, I need to pick your brain too, because I I really have been considering becoming agents. So uh you gave me, you lit a fire underneath me. So I'm gonna need to talk a little bit more about this.
Maria QuattroneSo absolutely, lots to talk about.
Kim McFalineYes, you have a blessed, a blessed Saturday.