Detroit Real Estate Investing: Tamela Porter on Finding Properties 30–70% Off & Building Wealth

Tamela Porter (00:00)

There is so much wealth sitting right in our pockets, right in Detroit. It’s one of those areas where the state government is pouring so much funding into investors that are looking to be a part of that comeback story. For us, it made sense to invest in Detroit because, like I said, we are here. My husband is born and bred and breathes Detroit, so he wanted to be a part of that story.

But then also, there’s like so much opportunity. So for example, there are homes and properties that you can get 30, 40, 50, 60, some even 70% off if you’re doing like auctions or going to tax sales, and then you’re able to get much funding.

Issa Hanna (02:09)

Welcome back to another episode of the Real Estate Pros Podcast. I’m your host, Issa Hanna, and today we have Tammy Monay here to share her knowledge with us. Tammy, welcome to the show.

Tamela Porter (02:16)

Thank you. Very glad to be here.

Issa Hanna (02:18)

I’m super excited to have you. You have a great background, you came in from the wealth coaching, right? But recently, your main focus has been real estate, so I’m gonna let you take the floor. I want you to give my viewers what you’re focused on nowadays, what you’re building, and then what a day-to-day in Tammy’s life looks like.

Tamela Porter (02:35)

Absolutely. Yeah. So as a wealth coach, I teach five pillars of wealth building. One is business—so how to build business and set up your structures properly. Think of the word BUILD: So B, it stands for business. U stands for umbrella insurance, so that’s all of the protections you need. I is investing—I’m a savvy investor as well in the stock market streets.

L is for legacying, so those are your trusts and all the ways you’re gonna pass down that wonderful wealth you’re building while you’re alive. And then D is doors, so that’s real estate. And those are the pillars you’re gonna use and need to build out any wealth systems that you have. So from the coaching side, I am not a person that just talks what I talk, I live what I talk about, so this is why we gotten also into building out our real estate portfolio.

And in our real estate portfolio, we have a very focused plan. Our goal is to buy two to five pieces of real estate property in our portfolio that meets our niche for up to five years, so that after the fifth year, we can start to refinance those portfolios and move those funds back into a more passive income process. So we have some plans around how to do that in multifamily.

Options… Like I said, I told you I’m a trader and investor, so we have a really clear plan on how we plan to do our portfolio. But we also are coaching others through this process as well. We teach passive and active real estate—how to get involved passively and actively. We’re a private money lender as well, so that’s more passive, and we teach people how to get involved actively. So if whether you’re wholesaling,

whether you are flipping, or whether you are doing the BRRRR strategy, we’re able to here to be a concierge service to you as well as you are building your own portfolio. So in the big scheme, that is what we work on day to day. I spend maybe 80% of my day doing something in real estate. Like today, we have a property we’re gonna close on after this session, actually, that’s gonna stay in our portfolio, that we are partnering with other operators that’s going to run their business

in this property out of, and then they’ll just pay us every single month. So like I said, day to day I’m doing maybe 80% on the real estate side and 20% coaching our clients that sign up for our group programs or our private clients that need a little bit more one-on-one help.

Issa Hanna (04:52)

I love that. You’re taking your knowledge that you learned all these years, which you’ve got it in such a broad spectrum—it’s not just real estate knowledge, like you said. It really is wealth coaching, the pillars that you talked about. Everybody has real estate in their portfolio, everybody’s into the stocks. These are—this is how you build wealth, this is how you build legacy. And you’re bringing it to the public, which I love. Another thing I want to touch on: Detroit, right? Your market is Detroit. I love Detroit. I grew up

two and a half hours away in Cleveland, Ohio. I’ve been there many times, got family in Detroit. So can you tell us a little bit more about how Detroit and how what you guys are doing to bring it back?

Tamela Porter (06:15)

Yes, absolutely.

There is so much wealth sitting right in our pockets, right in Detroit. It’s one of those areas where the state government is pouring so much funding into investors that are looking to be a part of that comeback story. For us, it made sense to invest in Detroit because, like I said, we are here. My husband is born and bred and breathes Detroit, so he wanted to be a part of that story.

But then also, there’s like so much opportunity. So for example, there are homes and properties that you can get 30, 40, 50, 60, some even 70% off if you’re doing like auctions or going to tax sales, and then you’re able to get much funding.

So for an investor financially, there’s so much spread if you know what you’re doing, investing by investing into certain pockets of Detroit. Not only that,

we wanted to figure out a way to provide housing for those who needed—who needed housing, the underserved. So we wanted to partner with other business owners that were doing that. And then we also wanted to be a part of the comeback story here. So we do Detroit and some of the surrounding metro Detroit areas, like Southfield, like Farmington, like some of the metro areas, too. We have a different strategy for that.

But this market here is booming. Detroit is definitely on its way back. It’s so much funding, so many of the institutions are pouring money into this area, and we wanted to be a part of that.

Issa Hanna (07:38)

Love that. People like yours, what is bringing it back. And I recently read, because I did have to break the demographics of Detroit down for one of my business dealings on the side, and I did recently read—I believe it was ’23, maybe ’22—Detroit recorded its first population growth since the ’50s. So that should tell you that trend is going upward. Great rental market in Detroit. And then like you said, great city, great people, great food.

Tamela Porter (08:06)

So many.

Issa Hanna (08:08)

I wanna rewind the clock a little bit, right? Not too far, but how did Tammy get into real estate? How did Tammy get into this wealth advising? What made you want to get into this business world?

Tamela Porter (08:19)

So I spent 20 years in corporate America. I was considered organizational leader. I did all of the functions or I worked with them. So think sales, marketing, finance—like I was the person strategizing and pulling all the teams together so that they can execute on a high level. So that’s what I would do for each of the businesses or companies that I worked for. But behind the scenes,

I was also doing some strategizing and building for our own family. So my husband and I, we kind of have our wealth blueprint literally written on our wall in one of our offices, and it’s been there for a while. It included, like I said, business, it included insurance, it included investing—really it included all of the BUILD framework that I just explained. But real estate was one of the ones we couldn’t really focus on, it needed more focus time. So last year,

around May, I had my last baby girl. I have three children, so my last kid is with a baby girl. And it was an opportunity for me to either decide to go back to work or not. Well, what happened was we ended up—my role ended up getting eliminated, so it was like, here’s an opportunity to lean in on the plan that we’ve already always had, known that we wanted to build out. And you know what? We just took it. So it was my role with in

my—our big scheme, because my husband also runs a business, to have us build up a real estate investing company. So I just took off running. I made sure I got educated. I really got bit by the bug when I—the first house I ever bought, I built from the ground up. And you—new construction done right, there is crazy appreciation on new construction. So once I saw

that play, I was sold. I also had an experience, too, where a family house that I grew up in was actually bought by a tax lien sale. It was like $5,582, and they owned the home. So with those two images in my mind, I knew real estate was the way to go. I just wanted to do it smart, I wanted to be savvy, and I wanted to just

to build intentionally inside of the wealth blueprint that we’re trying to do. So like I said, I’ve been already doing this for myself. Once I start talking to others about it, I saw that there was a need in other people’s families. They didn’t—they had a matriarch that were in their 70s, several properties under them, no structure for business, no trust, no plan. And so I just have a passion around educating us,

helping give people the resources so they can execute the plan that we create. The education platform is called The Wealth We Build, so it’s all around educating community and us executing together what these wealth blueprints are going to look like. So like I said, I’m somebody that walks what I talk, which is why I got into the real estate game and why—how I was bit by the bug very early.

Issa Hanna (11:01)

Definitely. The bug when you get bit, it usually is that big fat paycheck. You’re like, “Man, I can make all this money.” Then you start diving deep, and there’s so many avenues you can go with real estate. But what I really want to pull out is how you’re giving people the knowledge to empower themselves, right? People that otherwise wouldn’t have the type of knowledge. As a son of immigrants—my parents came in from a different country—they didn’t grow up with the type of knowledge afforded to them that

maybe somebody else would. So the fact that you’re giving back to people that may not know this stuff and they have the money to—the—to invest, they have the money to empower themselves with their own wealth, is—is amazing. While simultaneously bringing back your husband’s hometown, I mean, it’s truly good work, and these are the fruits of our labor as real estate professionals—the good ones, the good ones, right? We talked about the past, let’s talk about the future, right?

Five years down the line, where am I gonna see you at, Tammy?

Tamela Porter (11:55)

You can see our real estate portfolio creating the revenue—our revenue goals. Every single year we are looking to do a million in real estate this year in assets, next year we’re looking to do two million, so every single year we want to add another to our real estate portfolio. So in five years, that’s five million, right? We probably—we can do it faster, but that’s our goal in five years in real estate.

But then I also see a community of individuals that are doing the same, that we’re able to help. Every single month we hold a Wealth Activation Lab live. It’s a free webinar where I’m teaching these principles and people can jump on, learn the principles. They can choose to go and use our services where maybe they’re buying an opportunity to actually work with them to build out their blueprint together.

And then the other opportunity is where we execute on them together. So if there’s accounts that need to be set up, we set them up together. If there are trusts that need to be established, we connect them to the resources to get all of those things set up. And then the next level is executing the strategies inside of the blueprint, because I tell people all the time, like, wealth—income does not equal wealth. I do not care how fat your paycheck is,

it matters how you hold the assets that you hold. It’s just as important as the asset itself: where you hold it, how it’s structured, is it tax-advantaged, is it tax-free, are there conversion opportunities? Like, that’s what I’m most impressed with is the structure underneath, because if it’s a big hole at the bottom of the bucket, I don’t care how much is coming in at the top, right? We want to make our wealth last. We want to keep it,

which means you have some tax understanding on how to keep what you make. You want to accelerate it, which is the next—accumulate. You want to make what—put it into an engine that makes your money make money. And then you want to have a plan for preservation. How can we make sure we’re not taking high-risk investment opportunities and we’re preserving our wealth? And then the next is dispensation: What is that legacy plan? How are you gonna dispense it? What is it—what is it gonna look like

two, three generations after you, right? So that is—those are the strategies that I talk about, I live every day, and we want to make sure we have plans and structures underneath each one of those that I just mentioned: accumulation, acceleration, preservation, and then dispensation.

Issa Hanna (14:14)

I love that. And guys at home, there’s a difference between high income earners, rich, and then wealthy, and what Tammy’s explaining to us is wealthy. I mean, unbelievable. You’re bringing this to the masses, you’re bringing your knowledge: 20 years in the corporate world, wealth advising, walking the talk, and investing in real estate. I mean, unbelievable. And then sticking on

a little education, let’s talk to our young viewers now, right? We’ve both been in the professional world for a while, we both know growing your network, establishing business relationships, that’s key to success, right? You’ve been able to grow such a network with the investment company that you founded. So if you had to give somebody one piece of advice who’s just starting out on establishing their first business relationships, what would you tell them?

Tamela Porter (14:58)

Yeah, I—your network definitely determines your net worth, that’s the first thing I did when I talked about getting educated. I got in rooms where people were way smarter than me, that were investing, that what—that had real estate. I got a coach. I became a part of different communities that

weren’t talking the same way my peers were talking or the regular community that I’m actually in, right? They were talking about business deals. I just went to a networking opportunity where I was able to get the deal I’m in right now 100% funded by private money lenders. So this was a networking, net worth opportunity where I presented a deal because I knew my numbers, because I got educated on what I was doing, I was able to get people to partner with me that were

interested, of course, making money, but interested also in what we’re trying to build. So I think you can go to college and get all the degrees, have letters in front of your name and after your name, but what we’re teaching is not taught in our regular school systems. So it’s so important to choose your coaches, to choose your teachers, to choose your community well, so

that you can get that unseen curriculum, right? The wealthy, they are moving different, they think different. We have a different mind shift from consumer to owner, right? You got to have a different way of—you move through the world, you move your finances. It’s just not about having a very simple budget, which is important, but how you move your wealth through the system that you create and where you place them is very important. And if you want to

get wealthy yourself, if you want generational wealth, these are the things that we must be educated on so that we’re just not losing our wealth in the generation that you live in. I feel so deeply about this, especially for those just getting started, it’s because you can spin your wheels pouring all of your time and energy getting other companies and businesses rich without doing the same for yourself.

So if there’s—I think the biggest thing is we got to change like not thinking about how much something is gonna cost you. We need to think about, “What—if I invest in myself, how is that investment gonna make me money?”, right? It’s such a mind shift that we have to have, and if you’re young and getting started, this should not be hard for you. Those that are 20, 30, whatever years in their corporate jobs, they have a harder time making the shift. But if you understand this right off the gate,

man, the world is gonna be completely your oyster, it’s gonna open up for you.

Issa Hanna (17:21)

Definitely. I mean, you’re taking years of knowledge that you had to go through the fire, you had to make all these mistakes to learn everything that—and you’re now gonna give it back and just give it to people so they don’t have to make those same mistakes growing up. They know how to look at money, they know how to look at assets and wealth. I mean, unbelievable. You touched on getting a good mentor, you seem like the perfect mentor to get. So now if people are at home and they wanted to

have you as their mentor, they wanted to use your wealth advisory services, they wanted to invest in your company, where could they reach you at?

Tamela Porter (18:34)

You can find me on thewealthwebuild.com if you want coaching. If you’re looking to get in real estate, you can find me at phrealtygroup.org, and then Tammy Monay on all of the platforms, especially social media, Instagram. I’m on there a lot.

Issa Hanna (18:47)

Love that. Guys at home, make sure you check her out. She can be a great advisor for you—a wealth of knowledge in not just the real estate space, like I said, but wealth in general: financial, money, how to position yourself for the long term. This is somebody you want on your team. Tamela, it was an honor to have you on the show. Thank you so much.

Tamela Porter (19:06)

Thank you for having me. So glad to be here.

Issa Hanna (19:08)

I enjoyed our conversation, and to our viewers at home, if you enjoyed my conversation with Tammy and want to see more like it, make sure to hit like and subscribe. I talk to people every day that can bring us different knowledge on every aspect of the real estate industry. Until next time, the Real Estate Pros are out.