Striking the Right Chord in Real Estate Investing with Alexandra Dotcheva

Summary:

Alexandra Dotcheva, a former concert violinist turned nurse and real estate investor, shares her journey and insights on investing in rental properties. Alexandra shares her experiences and insights, discussing her transition into real estate investing and her holistic approach to coaching. She emphasizes the importance of building a strong team and managing properties directly. Alexandra also talks about her book, ""A Really Simple Holistic Approach to Self Confidence: A Practical Guide," which covers various aspects of self-confidence, including investing, health, spirituality, and relationships. 

From a concert violinist in Bulgaria to a real estate investor in the US, Alexandra’s journey has been a unique symphony of experiences. A career pivot led her from the stage to nursing, and finally to investing in the real estate sector. Each note of her journey is important for who she is today, financially secure, an author and coach. 

Her first property was a fourplex, purchased in Phoniex, Ariziona. With some renovation and diligence, she worked  to provide affordable housing and step into the world of real estate. The industry offered her  a path to financial freedom, with the cash flow from properties covering all living expenses and she and her partner were able to pay off the mortgage on their home in five years, 

Contrary to the popular approach, her strategy in real estate is less about flipping properties and more about maintaining assets for consistent cash flow. That’s how she achieved financial independence. "

She wrote her book "It's Really Simple: A Holistic Approach to Self-Confidence - A Practical Guide" to help those who, battled lack of confidence for years. Her journey led her to realize it's possible to take full control of your life, and she wanted to share this transformative message. 

"As a coach, I firmly believe that anyone can succeed in investing. It's all about understanding your individual needs, setting goals, and working diligently to become holistically successful. You can be an investor, irrespective of your background.”- Alexandra Dotcheva.

links to Alexandra's website, book, and coaching business for interested listeners: 

https://www.holisticselfconfidence.com/about

https://www.holisticselfconfidence.com/shop/p/it-really-is-simple-a-holistic-approach-to-self-confidence-ebook

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/HolisticSelfConfidenceMethod

Twitter: https://twitter.com/HolisticSelfCo1

Website: https://www.holisticselfconfidence.com 

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/HolisticSelfConfidenceMethod 

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@alexandradotcheva 

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/alexandra-dotcheva/

About The Guest(s): 

Alexandra Dotcheva is a former concert violinist and doctor of arts in violin performance. After realizing the challenges of pursuing a career in music, she decided to transition into nursing and real estate investing. Alexandra now manages multiple rental properties and has achieved financial freedom. 

Key Takeaways:

1. Alexandra emphasizes the importance of building a strong team when investing in real estate.
2. She believes in providing affordable hou

Learn how to make investing simple for anyone and get on a path toward wealth.

Transcript

0:00:11

Floyd

Welcome to the really Simple Investing Podcast, where you can learn from others how to be a successful investor. We bring you investors, authors and experts in investing to help you learn more about how you can invest in some really simple ways. If you want to be a successful investor, join us every week for the interview.

0:00:33

Floyd

Welcome to the really simple Investing podcast. I'm your host Floyd Saunders, and today we have as our guest Alexandra Dotcheva. She is from Bulgaria, worked in music for a number of years as a concert violinist for orchestra in the Syracuse area, a doctorate in arts and violin performance from the Louisiana State University in 2007. Tell us a little bit about your music career before we start talking about investing.

0:01:00

Alexandra

Hi everyone. My name is Alexandra Dotcheva. 

Yes, I was a musician for 26 years. I was born in a musician's family in Bulgaria. So back in the days of socialism, communism, when your parents had a profession, you were expected to follow in their footsteps. And I was a musical child. They discovered this very early on, so they put the violin in my hands when I was six years old. So, then I went on to go to specialized music school for twelve years, meaning I learned very few sound classes and a lot of music subjects for twelve years, which kind of limited the perspective. It was great if I were to continue with music, which I really intended to, and obviously I earned my bachelor's degree after that in Bulgaria in the Conservatory of Music.

0:01:41

Alexandra

And then I came to the States and earned my master's and doctoral in music. And that was in 2007. I finished a doctoral, I defended my monograph and then I realized I needed to embark on a different career because of the market conditions and me not being as competitive as I wanted to be as an imminent. So, in 2007 I became a doctor in physical arts. And then I figured, well, I could teach in a university, but how do I tell my students that it might take ten to 15 years before they score a job with an orchestra when you're competing against 40 to 500 people?

0:02:14

Alexandra

And in 2008 it was clear the financial crisis hit and things were not going well. I always loved science and I knew that nursing would not require another eleven years in college. I could do it between two and three years on associate degree and immediately get a job anywhere in the world because there was such a dire need for nurses. Nobody wants to do the dirty job. That's how I decided to do it and just dedicate time to studying, just that. I had dedicated many hours a day for many years to practicing violin.

0:02:42

Alexandra

I figured I can replace this with reading the big textbooks and become a nurse. And that's exactly what I did. Yes. So I graduated from St. Joseph's College of Nursing. In 2011, I became a nurse. I understood that job security was a myth. I saw the high turnover, the burnout, and I said, okay, I volunteered being a nurse, but I also had to learn how to invest. And then it was my boyfriend's dream to come live in Arizona.

0:03:05

Alexandra

And I said, well, apparently Arizona is a great market for real estate investing. Why don't we gather my real estate investing team? Because I already knew that what I needed to do. I had to gather a team, find a lender, find a real estate agent, find coast investor so they can teach me a little bit PA lawyer structure my first LLC and purchased the first property in October of 2014. We had never purchased property before, but we purchased a fourplex..

0:03:34

Floyd

Develop a team that you work with, not fully possible to have all the competencies that one might need to set up a real estate business or any kind of investing practice you may not understand taxes, for example, so a CPA might, things like that. So that's a really wise point. Your standpoint is team together. After you got your team together and you first property, what happened next?

0:04:00

Alexandra

We moved into one of the four apartments. We renovated the remaining three we lived in the fourth one broken and old and declared as it was because the first priority was to provide a good place for the tenants. We found the tenants, many of the tenants leases expired and they wanted to go houses. I mean, I ended up as a completely inexperienced investor with three empty apartments. So we figured, okay, let's invest money and renovate these apartments nicely, start from scratch with a new lease. I did my best to bring these three apartments to a very nice livable condition. And then we filed a tenant. And the other thing I did, which is important, I started with my rent in the middle of the market, and I always drift towards the low end of the market so that people find it attractive and stay.

0:04:44

Alexandra

And plus, if I structure the deal right, I don't need to bank on my tenants and take the skins off their back to live well, right? So that's another point. I can definitely tell you that I have the most affordable housing in the Phoenix area right now with all of my properties because all of my purchases were bought in a way that I could afford not to exponentially raise the rents like pretty much everybody did, and double their leases in a matter of one year. And then I went ahead and purchased a couple more single -family properties, and now we're completely financially free. We can choose to work or not work.

I managed the properties.

0:05:19

Floyd

Did you find the investing in the single-family properties to be better from a cash flow standpoint or was it four-unit apartment?

0:05:27

Alexandra

It really depends how you look at it. Floyd the apartment building was at the deepest learning curve because of the turnover. But now I have had tenants for five or six years in all these apartments. The single-family halls immediately found tenants. Like the day I put the advertisement, I had tenants the next day. And in all of these single-family properties, the tenants have stayed to the present day. So we're talking five, six year tenants now.

0:05:55

Alexandra

From that perspective, yeah, cash flow. You would have a four-unit building. Even if a tenant leaves, you still have cash flow. So there are trade-offs. But again, with a single family. you do get a family.

0:06:09

Floyd

You manage these properties directly. You don't have investment property management company.?

0:06:14

Alexandra

No work with you? Because it's very hard for me to trust people. I don't want anybody to touch my properties unless I absolutely have to hire somebody. I did plenty of research on that. I understand they charge a very nice percentage from their gross income. I'm not convinced that they manage them any better than I manage my own property. And I love the learning. I like to be able to go there frequently enough to see what's going on and to be in charge of my business, because that's my responsibility ultimately.

0:06:40

Floyd

At this point, you have a four-unit apartment built in and two rental properties, or do you have more at this point?

0:06:46

Alexandra

A couple more, several single-family homes.

0:06:50

Floyd

So at what point decide that you want to invest in more rental properties? Is it based upon having positive cash flows from the existing properties and you're building up the income from that so you have more money to purchase another property, or do you stay highly leveraged?

0:07:06

Alexandra

My goal was to have income enough to cover all of my monthly expenses, mine and my boyfriend. We made our house debt disappear in five and a half years, the 30 year house loan. So we're completely debt free with our house. And at this point, like I said, we can stop working because the income from the properties is plenty to cover both of our monthly expenses and here's even more money on top of that. So that's the criterion. Can you or can you not work because you want to work or you must work?

0:07:36

Alexandra

And to me, that's great. I may purchase more properties if I find a crazy, awesome deal now with this inflation, but I'm honestly not in need for that because it just has worked so well. And I even managed to invest money in my book project, and now I started the Holistic coaching business. I mean, things are growing from there. You have to be very careful when you're buying investment properties because you have to manage them really well to make people stay and things break. And we may purchase one or two more properties in the next five years, depending on the market.

0:08:11

Floyd

What does that mean for you, depending on the market? What are the market conditions that would dictate to you that it's appropriate to buy more properties at this time or not?

0:08:21

Alexandra

I want a property that will grow in value realistically and not drop in value in two years because the bubble burst. Feel very good time right now. I wouldn't buy unless, like I said, I find an excellent seller signing this deal.

0:08:35

Floyd

There's been lots of markets across the United States where real estate properties have gone up 20 or 25% a year. So now that's a 40% appreciation. That's really not sustainable. The average middle income person can no longer afford to buy a home. So that leaves rental, doesn't it?

0:08:54

Alexandra

Yeah, absolutely. I mean, that's how I learned what a bubble is when I read Economics book by four very renowned economists. They were saying, if issues heap prices of commodities grow exponentially faster than people's wages, then that's a bubble. And the real estate market absolutely proves it. And it has gone up exponentially. I've been approached by thousands of investors to buy my properties. I'm not going to sell my properties. That's my retirement plan. This is my business and I really love doing it because I'm not in investing for capital gains. I'm really a cash flow investor.

0:09:26

Floyd

And that's an important point, I think, when it comes to real estate investing, deciding whether you're a cash flow investor or whether you're looking to achieve capital gains by flipping the properties. And of course, with capital gains you have taxes. And some of the guests that I've had on some previous episodes of the podcast to talk about how you can structure the ownership of properties so that you can avoid some of those taxes. But eventually uncle Sam wants his money, doesn't he?

0:09:53

Alexandra

Absolutely, yeah. I mean, I don't mind if I can roll it over nicely, but it's just not the type of hassle I want in my life right now. Because, like I said, the properties are performing very well. And I appreciate the effort I put in the first five years to learn how to manage these properties so that I can rely on the cash flow. And it is a learning curve. If you keep flipping properties, you master another skill. You master the skill of finding a property that can be renovated when you have to know the right things to be wrong with it.

As Robert Allen puts it in his wonderful book, Creating Wealth, which I have read three times, it's one of my favorite. But it was not something that attracted me. I'm not saying it's a bad thing. I just like keeping the assets and having the consistent cash flow. For me, that's important. So, I can quit my job if I have to.

0:10:43

Floyd

Yeah. At this point, I want to take the quick break. We're going to come back and then we're going to talk about Alexander's book. It's really simple. A holistic approach to self-confidence. A practical guide. And in that practical guide, you'll also talk a little bit about investing, but some of the other aspects of self-confidence.

0:11:00

Floyd

We'll be right back with more great ideas for investing and building your financial security. If you're seriously interested in building your wealth, join us every week on the really Simple Investing podcast and check out our website@reallysimpleinvesting.com. You'll find more great podcasts, our blog on investing, and some great books from Floyd Saunders. Books like Investing for Beginners and Five Paths to wealth.

Sign up for our newsletter so you don't miss listening to our guests and learn even more about the simple things you can do to become a successful investor.

0:11:35

Floyd

You're still listening to the really simple investing podcast. I'm your host. We're here with Alexander D, the author of A Really Simple Holistic Approach to Self Confidence a Practical Guide. I take it you wrote this book after you started investing, after you started building up your, I guess, self-confidence around investing. Talk to me a little bit more about the reason why you wrote this book.

0:12:01

Alexandra

So the self-confidence issue has 20 year history. I struggled with real lack of confidence and self-esteem for over 20 years, and it was mostly self-inflicted. So when I established myself financially, I realized, you know, I can help lots of people because, well, it was Brenda suggested this in Bulgaria after she heard everything I went through, She said, _you know, you really need to write about this because there are so many people who are afraid to start new things.

They are stuck in professions that they hate. So I started writing the book in the beginning of 2020, ironically, some month after my father passed away. And somehow I got this idea of the structure of the book that I can tell people about how I optimize my health to 100% because I am a nurse and I have to serve as 100% example to my patients and loved ones if I want them to follow any of my advice as a nurse.

I described this in five chapters. Obviously, I'm biased about health because I'm a healthcare professional, but then I also talked about the spiritual aspect of life, then the financial and career aspect. I separated the two aspects because career and finances are different, right? People think they can get to richly their careers. That's really not always the case because you're making rich the person you're working for.

But the purpose of the career is to learn how to fully master good skills and marketing skills and be really useful to those around you with your skills and services. And then the financial aspect is what do you do with the money that you don't spend? How do you structure your spending plan so you can have enough money to invest and grow financially on your own and have the chose to work or not? To work five or ten years from now, right? And then, of course, the relationship aspect very important.

Who you associate with will determine your health choices, your financial choices, your spiritual choices, everything in your life. You can make huge mistakes or excellent decisions based on who you associate with. So this whole structure came to me like in an hour, and I got very inspired and I started writing the book. It's autobiographical in many ways, but also teaches you many practical things about health. Because I am a whole foods, organic vegan five and a half years already.

0:14:08

Alexandra

No compromises, no excuses, no exceptions. I've seen great health benefits with me and my boyfriend especially. So I described all this to many people know it's not hard to have excellent health if you take the responsibility and commit to uncompromising discipline. And the same exact principle transfers to your financial life in your relationship choices. And you apply the same principle that I have described in the book.

You won't fail in any of your life aspect. And it's word great. It's transformed quite a few people's lives already.

0:14:41

Floyd

Do you talk at all in your book about having a vision about yourself and where you want to go and what you want to achieve in your life? Do you think it's important to have this idea about how you want to achieve something, whether it's investing in real estate or becoming a nurse or whatever? We all make these decisions, don't we? About what we want to do with our life and how we want to define our life, either consciously or maybe subconsciously to a certain extent. Does your book talk a little bit more about those conscious decisions that you're making around all these aspects goals, goal.

0:15:15

Alexandra

Setting, planning and implementation without compromise? I talk a lot about that. This whole book is promulgated with this whole concept of how you are responsible with your goal choices and then their implementation.

0:15:29

Floyd

And when you talk about money and investing, you invested in real estate. Of course, there's plenty of opportunities to invest in other things. I've read that most self-made millionaires invest only in two things real estate and passive index funds. I take it you also do some option trading, is that correct?

0:15:47

Alexandra

Option trading? That was a very big help with the paying of the house tech. Yes, options training. I took some speculative trades. I admit that I've made some mistakes, but the earnings far outweighs the losses and that's really helped us, along with the income from the real estate, to pay off our house debt in five and a half years. 

0:16:06

Floyd

When do you do option trading? Do you have a particular strategy? Is this very short term options like trading, or is it more along the line of swing trading where you hold an option for a period of time or you wait for it to reach its strike price, its maturity? How do you do it.

0:16:23

Alexandra

I do wait till the strike price. I haven't purchased a single option in my life, Floyd. I only sell option. I only sell puts. And then if I end up assigned, I sell calls all day long. But, yes, I wait till maturity. A couple of times I had to manage the risk and discontinue the trade before it matured. However, it really is selling insurance. I found this to be the most efficient strategy for me. And I do trades between three months and six months.

0:16:53

Floyd

Do you look at particular aspects of the market? I mean, you trade large caps, small caps, stocks. How do you do that?

0:17:00

Alexandra

Penny stocks. I trade penny stocks.

0:17:03

Floyd

Penny stocks. Well, yeah, that's a high risk area, isn't it?

0:17:07

Alexandra

Yes, it is. But if you don't take risks, you don't go anywhere. And I was the lead risk taker you could imagine for over 20 years. So this has reversed. And I had taken the responsibility for certain mistakes. I had corrected the mistakes, and I cash flawed for the longest time and considering my complete ignorance with this five, six, seven years ago. But I was careful look up as far as the options.

0:17:31

Alexandra

I also purchased a course on options trading. I didn't just jump into it because I was clueless. So I took a month worth of a class very carefully. I took all the notes you can imagine. And then I started extremely small with paper trading. It wasn't even real trading. I paper traded for a year and a half before I went into risking my own life.

0:17:50

Floyd

Excellent strategy. Prudent.

0:17:52

Alexandra

I'm very methodical, very disciplined, very prudent.

0:17:55

Floyd

I think that's an important aspect of any kind of trading activity is to be prudent and cautious and have a plan about where you approach it. Manage your risk, as they say. You only do puts? Is that what you said? You're covered call.

0:18:09

Alexandra

I do a covered call. If I end up assigning the stock after put, trade expires. If I end up buying it by obligation from Via under the market price, that's when I solve a put. And then I sell calls. And eventually, if the calls get assigned, then I lose the stock. But I don't like to keep stock. I don't like that it's a very volatile market.

0:18:35

Floyd

So that's how you manage rolling similarly, it's to keep a close eye on it.

0:18:38

Alexandra

Yeah, absolutely.

0:18:40

Floyd

We've been talking to Alexander Dostovich, and she's an author of the really It's Really Simple a Holistic Approach to Self Confidence a Practical Guide you Think can really benefit from reading your book.

0:18:52

Alexandra

Honestly, Floyd, this is the book I wish I could have read 15 or 16 years ago, because I really covered everything that I felt was lacking in all the other books that I read about various things. And it's a very simple, very simple approach. But people who can benefit. So people going through midlife crisis, people at a crossroads in line and then since the COVID pandemic I say to say that because I thought people in their early thirty s to mid 50s could benefit from the book. But actually, much younger people can take advantage of it now as well, because these younger people saw a lot of stress in their young years, and they have learned that they must adapt much faster than we had to adapt when we were their age. Our generation different way of adaptation.

0:19:39

Alexandra

But I think there is more stress on the younger people right now than there was even my time. So they could benefit also quite a bit from this book. I think.

0:19:49

Floyd

Your book is available on sites like. Amazon.

0:19:52

Alexandra

So the book is available in many places. It's called: It really Is simple. A Holistic Approach to Self Confidence. A Practical Guide. My name is Alexandra Dotcheva and my website is Holisticselfconfidence.com. That's where it's available in paperback and ebook format. 

The paperback is only available to the US. Because of the shipping prices, but ebook is the same price on my website on Amazon, Kindle, Barnes and Noble, Apple books and Smashwords.

0:20:23

Floyd

Well, it sounds like a great book for people to pick up. I appreciate you taking the time to talk with us today about your career and investing in real estate and your nursing career and your background in music. That's all very interesting background information for people. It demonstrates that you can probably get started in investing regardless of what your background is.

0:20:45

Alexandra

That's right. That's why I started the coaching business a year ago, because like you said, you're a coach, right? And the mentor said, well, yeah, I am a coach. And then I started the business page with the coaching and all that. And I have been mentoring people since and coaching them depending on their need and goals. I urge them to work on every aspect of their life, to be around well -ounded people and holistically successful, because that's what being holistic is all about.

0:21:09

Floyd

I will Include all those links to your website, your book, your coaching business, all that sort of thing in the show notes and in the descriptions so that people can reach out to you if they feel that they can benefit from what you're talking about. Thank you for taking the time to talk with us today.

0:21:24

Alexandra

Thank you so much for having me, Floyd. I really appreciate it and hope you have been helpful to your audience.

0:21:30

Floyd 

Thank you for joining us for the really Simple Investing podcast. Every week we bring you fresh ideas for investing and really simple ways to invest and build for your financial security. We sure and hit the like button subscribe. Follow us on our social media channels and tell your friends. And if you'd like to be a guest on really Simple Investing, just go to the contact page on our website and send us an inquiry. 

We appreciate our audience so much.