We recently connected with Sarah Rojas and have shared our conversation below.
Alright, Sarah thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. Risk taking is something we’re really interested in and we’d love to hear the story of a risk you’ve taken.
At 23 years old my husband and I decided to get into the so called real estate world. My husband Carlos has been a construction professional for over 12 years now and at the time he was 6 years into the business. He was working with real estate investors and I was working in the corporate world in business administration. I have always wanted to own my own business especially as a mom, I have always wanted something that gives me the opportunity to do both things be a mom/wife and business professional. So at 23 years old I took the biggest risk I had taken before and started working on real estate. The main idea was for me to become a real estate agent (which I went to school for) and for my husband to be the contractor and we would team tag the real estate investors that he was working with at the time. While in real estate school I learned the real concept of real estate investing through some classmates and brought the idea to my husband, him being the most supporting partner I could ever ask for said “let’s go for it” but he did say that he did not know how to find the houses so I started drilling into the whole concept, found an amazing program and made the biggest investment we had made to date! We of course did not have the money front it so we asked to borrow money from family members and that is how we were able to invest in our education. After buying into the program and sticking to it, six months later we found our first home for our first fix and flip and made our first profit and we fell in love with the process. From taking this huge risk that seemed so unreal I have learned so much, I continually work on my personal development become a better business owner, spouse and mom. I would not be where I am at and would not love what I do if I had just stayed in my zone of comfort 6 years ago. To this date we have flipped many homes, acquired some rental properties and have learned so many lessons which is honestly the best part about this. I always say entrepreneurship is not for the weak.
Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.
We manly focus on fix and flips it has been our main bread and butter, I love flipping houses because get to use that creative side as of me as I design all of my homes from changing up the floor plan and knocking downs walls to adding square footage to make it more modern and useful to all the tiles that go on. People always ask me. ” how do you come up with the design?” My response is I just walk into the house and as I’m walking it I can imagine what it could be, I love bringing these old homes with so much character back to life. My ultimate goal is when these house are done and beautiful again I want the buyers to love then as much as I do, to walk in and have a whole experience as most of our buyers are first time homeowners.
We’d love to hear a story of resilience from your journey.
I can honestly say that being an entrepreneur is all about resilience, you constantly get tested to see how much more you can handle, how you are going to adapt to things in a flash, making things work no mater what. I think that when I truly proved to be resilient is when I got pregnant with my daughter our second child which was at the same time that we started real state. I knew that I wanted to make it work no matter what and I already had my son who was two working with me. My family would always ask why wasn’t he in day care, that he didn’t have to be running around with me from dusk to dawn but honestly I wanted to spend time with him after all that was the reason why I wanted to own by business, for the freedom of flexibility with my family. So when I got pregnant with my daughter my family thought I was going to step back on my grind. Rather than stopping or stepping back I grinned even harder I would go drop off door hangers and I would count that as my daily walks, I invested more into my education, my husband and I traveled a lot for seminars and I kept acquiring while working with my son by my side.
Have any books or other resources had a big impact on you?
As I mentioned before I am constantly working on my personal development and it’s something I try to improve day by day. My all time favorite book is Atomic Habits by James Clear. If you are struggling with daily habits or getting out of a stagnant position in life I highly recommend this book. It teaches you how to make those small changes that lead to big improvements, this book specifically made me realize how much power we have within if we really just start making small changes. My personal favorite female author is Rachel Hollis, her style of writing and how she delivers the message across to you is incredible. Every time I read her stuff it lights a fire within me and just makes me want to go get more! And of course I have to say one female role model that I absolutely look up to is Elena Cardone her elegance, determination, dedication, and devotion are something I aspire to be.
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Image Credits
Dream catcher photography Ocie Elliott