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For Lydia Monroy, raising money was the stepping stone to learning how to invest it.
Lydia Monroy is a successful real estate investor and entrepreneur with a knack for growing investment portfolios and helping new investors discover the benefits of multifamily investing.
Her background in fundraising for nonprofits led her to earn an MBA from UCLA, where she pursued real estate investing at the encouragement of her colleagues. She now is an industry leader in her own firm, which she launched within the past year.
As a principal of the firm Pearl Equity Partners, which invests in multifamily projects,
Monroy worked several years for Benedict Canyon Equities, where she played a crucial role in growing the team’s portfolio from $300 million in assets to nearly $2 billion. Monroy heeded the call to entrepreneurship by opting to launch a new firm with her father-in-law.
“We’re typically looking for value-add multifamily assets that are in the $5 million to $50 million purchase price range,” Monroy explains. “I’m what people call a sponsor or an operator or a general partner, where my team and I find an asset to buy and put together an opportunity for others to invest alongside us and be our equity partners to purchase the asset.”
Since she began investing, Lydia has built a respectable resume that includes thousands of purchases across the United States with no signs of slowing down.
“We just purchased a 62-unit property near Richmond, VA, and we have legacy properties of over 300 units that we own and manage. I have extensive experience in purchasing approximately 8,000 units with my previous firm.”
Monroy’s background in marketing, sales, and public relations prepared her for a successful career as a real estate investor. While working in nonprofit fundraising, Monroy realized that the financially successful professionals she was encountering were involved with real estate.
“Many of the people I talked to encouraged me to go back to school, so that’s what I did. I went to UCLA Anderson Business School and made a career switch into real estate. I graduated in 2009, which was the worst time to get into real estate because of the recession and the crash that occurred, but it was also a blessing in disguise.”
One of Monroy’s friends introduced her to a broker that was interested in buying apartment buildings. She partnered with him and began her experience in purchasing and syndicating three multifamily assets in Los Angeles.
“That was my real world intro into real estate,” she says. “That set me up for the job at Benedict Canyon Equities. I entered as an acquisitions associate, and over the six years, I wore almost every hat in the firm. When I left, I was the managing director—I was responsible for the entire operations of the firm.”
Monroy’s journey to entrepreneurship and her passion for helping people to invest formed later—when she pursued real estate purchases on her own. Motherhood drove her to take action on a business idea she was already well equipped to handle.
“I became a mother, and I decided that this was the time, now or never, to jump out and start my own firm and really have the flexibility to decide how I worked and who I worked with. At the end of the day, I wanted to be a principal and create a firm built on integrity, transparency, and technology. And I just had a vision that I wanted to be able to put in place.”
“Being a new mother inspired me to take the leap. It was a huge catalyst for starting my own firm, to be able to make my own hours and be there for my son and to not miss out on all these great moments over the last year.”
As an investor, syndicator and entrepreneur, Monroy hopes to continue to inspire CEOs and professionals to participate in real estate investing and become acclimated to the process.
Her newest project, where she shares the benefits of investing in multi-family projects, is an upcoming book Wealth For Women: Conversations with the Team That Creates the Dream, which is scheduled for release in November 2018. To learn more about Monroy’s portfolio and her multifamily investment opportunities, visit www.pearlequitypartners.com.
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