Open House Education: Connect, Learn, and Invest in Real Estate with Women Like You

Co-Founder of Open House Austin, Kristina Modares, introduces her new venture, Open House Education, aimed at empowering women in real estate through creative and collaborative home ownership. She shares her journey, the importance of community, and the diverse interests of the women involved. This episode highlights the potential for innovative real estate strategies and the value of partnerships among women.

"Home ownership can be flexible, empowering and fun". Listen in to learn more!

Chapters

00:00 Introduction to Open House Podcast
02:59 Launching Open House Education
05:58 Building a Community for Women in Real Estate
09:03 Exploring Collaborative Home Ownership
11:55 Diverse Interests and Backgrounds in the Community
15:06 Future Plans and Courses
17:58 Closing Thoughts and Community Invitation


Get in Touch

Comments, suggestions or feedback? Email Kristina at kristina@openhouseeducation.com

Here is our new Instagram account! It needs some love, please follow :) 

Check out our new website!

If you know of any ladies I should connect with about this new venture for potential partnerships, please send them my way.   Email us! 

Transcript

0:03

Welcome to the Open House podcast where women talk real estate. I'm your host, Christina Modaris, and I've spent my career helping women redefine home buying, whether it's through creative partnerships or innovative real estate strategies. Each week, I'll share tips and tricks for my own journey and bring in incredible women who are breaking the mold, whether they're buying homes with friends or investing in unique ways. If you've ever dreamed of creative home ownership and don't want to go the traditional route, you're in the right place. Hey everyone, I'm so excited to have you back for another episode of the Open House Podcast. So this is my first official episode on my own. If you were an avid listener before the season, I recorded something short and sweet for you, all about the changes with me and Steph. So go to the last episode to hear more on that. So throughout this season, we have some incredible episodes lined up. So featuring inspiring stories from members of my new community for women. which this episode will introduce you to. So we'll explore how buying a home with friends can be a powerful way to build wealth together. And you'll also hear about someone who bought a house with six different friends and how they made it work. Another episode will cover my own experience with a recent commercial property sale and what I learned throughout that process. I'll also be sharing insights into my sneaky duplex, which has been an awesome creative real estate project for me. We've also got so many exciting topics coming your way, including transforming a historical home into a thriving business and the challenges and rewards of buying a home with a friend. The stories and strategies you'll hear are meant to inspire you and show you that real estate can be flexible, creative, and collaborative. I can't wait to share these incredible journeys with you and to help you start imagining your own path in real estate. Make sure to subscribe to this podcast to get all the updates and share this with a friend or your sister who you'd be interested in buying a house with. Okay, let's do this. Wow. Okay, I'm on my own. Very new to me. So today's episode, it's really special to me because I'm finally introducing you to something I've been working on nonstop for months, which is my new company, Open House Education. So you've probably heard me mention it before, but now it's like official. and I'm beyond thrilled to invite you all to be part of it. So what exactly is open house education? It's a real estate community specifically for women who are interested in creative, collaborative ways to buy a home. So whether that's with friends, family, or even other women in this very community. It's about breaking away from traditional models and showing that home ownership can be flexible, empowering, and fun. So I created a Slack community with channels like Buying with Friends, House Hacking, Current Projects, and more. And with two to three events a month. I'm building something that I've wanted since my 22 year old self first became super excited about all the possibilities homeownership can bring. I remember when I first moved to a new city and was living with four roommates and I was like, wait, why don't I buy a house and have four friends live with me? So I tried to buy my first house, but the realtor I randomly was connected with on Zillow just assumed my dad was going to buy me the house or something and didn't properly educate me. When I finally found a house I wanted, I didn't have a pre-approval letter and I was so embarrassed that it stopped me from trying to buy for two whole years. And during that time, I, you know, tried to meet anyone else who was interested in real estate and ended up meeting up with a lot of creepy dudes who were not taking me seriously. It was really frustrating. And I tried to find other women who were interested in collaboration, real estate business. It took a lot of work and a lot of effort to do. So after 10 years of putting in the work, I'm starting a company that connects women from all over the country. So in early August, I opened my doors to a small founding member group. It's like 100 women. And honestly, they've been so inspiring. The women that I'm attracting, like they care about collaboration, community, and being empathetic and kind first, we have very similar values. You know, they are all wanting to make money, but not in this like aggressive step on anyone to get there kind of way. And I provide a space for them to connect, share their experiences, and partner in their real estate journeys as well. So it's been like really exciting to learn from each other. And we've already had a few events each month led by me or other women in the group. Members Courtney and Christine led a conversation about the app Burnished Finders. So it's kind of like Airbnb, but for travel nurses, I hosted a meetup for newish women in the group. like ladies who had never bought a property or maybe they bought like one, but still. feel very new. One member named Erpie, she works in land development and talked to us about investing in land. I have never done this before, so it was amazing to learn from her and kind of start to understand what that could look like for me one day as well. In October, a member is chatting with us about her experience buying a house with her friend. And you know, I'm really excited to start hosting regular events like speed dating sessions for women to meet other women interested in partnering to buy together. This is exactly what I have been seeking and you know could not find anywhere online or in my local city, so I'm so excited about all the possibilities. For example, I even spoke with one member Jen about hosting in-person retreats at her tennis facility that she bought in her hometown and she may or may not be making an appearance on the podcast this season. Anyway, so this is exactly what we're about here at the open house podcast, reimagining what's possible in real estate, especially for women. So if you're interested in joining our online community, head over to open house education.com. And you can sign up for the community waitlist. I plan to launch this at the end of October. So you'll get updates on when the official launch date will be and more insights into this community for women. So whether you're just dreaming of like your first home or you're thinking about turning your property into a community hub, you'll find, you know, resources, support and inspiration. And I want to show women like the softer side of real estate and that it can be a super like collaborative venture. Like that's how it's been for me and that you can make money that feels good and scratches that like creative itch. So I had all the ladies in this founder group introduce themselves and we all learned a lot from each other. So like I said, this group of women is really inspiring and unique. So I'm gonna share a little bit about who joined this group so you can decide if it's the right place for you as well. Okay, so for many of us, sustainability was a common interest. So a lot of women have a passion for gardening and creating environmentally conscious living spaces. Also community building is a key focus. So many women in the group are passionate about fostering collaboration and like shared living spaces and empowering others through real estate. And then creative real estate visions are like pretty prevalent in the group. Like lot of us had dreams of developing mixed use properties like farms and retreat centers that kind of blend housing with agriculture or wellness spaces. One member, Allison, actually posted about a really cool property that she's looking for partners on. It's a historic home that is not only it's like a bed and breakfast, it's a Montessori school, it's like, you know, a lot going on really cool. She posted the numbers and everything, pictures of like, and showing us like what she would do as well. So partnership is highly valued in this group. Many of us are bringing flexibility, creativity, and experience in project management, design, and community organizing to this like potential real estate collaboration. I recently saw a member post that she was looking for an affordable design solution and three women in there chimed in. So really cool stuff going on already. Also balancing real estate with a full-time job. is very common in this group already. So many members are juggling careers in nonprofit work, entrepreneurship, or project management. And they're doing this alongside their real estate stuff. Short term rentals are a popular investment option in here. So some women already are managing Airbnb or considering turning their homes into rental properties in the future. Many ladies also want to buy a vacation home with others. like very exciting. And several members also have experience with property management, especially like vacation, short term rentals. So that's like very valuable skill sets to share within the group. And a lot of us are also self managing myself included. And we can speak on this as well. The women in here have pretty diverse backgrounds, like many of them have lived in various states or even internationally before kind of settling where they are now. One lady is actually like even buying in another country, which is really cool to kind of follow along on her journey. Financial concerns are shared with this group. I would say like 35 % of us kind of mentioned that kind of affordability in the housing market. That's kind of a frequent challenge as well as like uncertainty around how best to like invest or grow their real estate portfolios. So that's why I think it's really important for us to have like a community to collaborate with. know, life can be really expensive right now. Okay, so also, let's see, design and DIY projects were common interests. Many women were like enjoying hands-on work from home renovations and van buildouts. Also landscaping and sustainable design. A lot of us in the group were like talking about travel. That's like a big hobby for many women in the group, you know, kind of a love for exploring the world and incorporating like their travels into their vision for real estate. I can use myself as an example for this one. So my sister and I bought a beach house together and we are able to like each spend at least a few weeks here a year together and rent it out when we aren't there. Okay, finally, I'll wrap this up, but I just kind of want to show y'all who's in this group already so you can kind of make decision for yourself like is this something that you want to join or are you like nah I'm good. So a lot of the women are entrepreneurial minded like several of them they own their own business so that's kind of a cool example of like women who are entrepreneurs and they want to buy real estate or they already are buying real estate. So if this sounds like your kind of community or you know women that you want to learn from and grow with join us this October. So that's when I'm officially launching the community nationwide. And my goal is to actually welcome 500 more women into this group. So I think this expansion will open up so many opportunities for, you know, learning, growing, connecting, like women from all over the country. You know, you might live in Austin, but you're like, it's kind of expensive here. But then someone else in, you know, Florida or something is like, I'm looking to buy. as well and you can connect with them. You don't even have to buy in either of those states. It can be, you know, wherever. So it's just like all these opportunities are so exciting to me. you know, building a supportive community like this has really been a dream of mine. Like I said, since I started my real estate journey and, you know, I truly believe it has the power to impact women everywhere. And I'm just excited to connect with others who feel the same way. So besides this wonderful community, I'm also working on a Buying a House with Friends course. So I was originally, I don't know how, but somehow was going to try to launch it also in October, but I kind of slowed down and started learning a lot from everyone in this group. these questions that I was getting about Buying a House with Friends were really cool. And so I was like, let me slow down and actually make this course really, really thoughtful, intentional, and I want to help as many women get into homes with friends. And this is probably the best way for me to do it is to slow down and learn from what they actually want. So it's definitely gonna be a one of a kind course. I'm trying to take my time in developing it. But if you have any questions around, you know, this new Slack community I'm starting or the company in general, shoot me a message on Instagram, Open House Education, and yeah, make sure to join the community wait list. So thank you so much for listening and seriously all your support over the years. I don't think I realized how many amazing people I had following my journey until I started this new venture and it has been so motivating to me. So yeah, thank you guys. Thank you, thank you, thank you. And if you have a moment, please share this episode with a friend who you think would want to join this community for women who are interested in creative real estate. Thank you so much. See you next week. Yeah, because next week we are talking to Alex Reyna. She is a member in the community and she also just recently bought a house with a friend and I'm so excited to talk to her about it. She also manages my Sneaky Duplex when I'm out of town, so she's amazing. She has her own company called Your Co-Host and she does, you know, short-term rental management and cleanings and, you know, I'll let her kind of talk you through her business and stuff next week. But yeah. So excited to talk to Alex and I'll see you guys next week.