E37: Lisa Phillips: Your 9–5 Can Be Fuel: Using Your Job to Fund Real Estate

In this episode of Fortunes of the Brave, host Mary Kathryn Johnson sits down with Lisa Phillips, founder of Affordable Real Estate Investments, to unpack how she went from foreclosure to financial independence using affordable rental properties. Lisa is known for helping overlooked investors, especially Black professionals, build profitable real estate portfolios in working class and minority neighborhoods using low cost, high cash flow strategies.

Lisa shares how she realized corporate America was not her long term path and reframed her engineering job as a paycheck to fund her real business: affordable real estate investing. She walks through buying an overpriced Las Vegas property at the top of the 2006 market, losing it to foreclosure, and then rebuilding by targeting sub 30k and 30k to 60k homes in lower income but stable areas. Instead of chasing luxury flips, she focused on out of state real estate investing, long distance rentals, and using time as her ally to renovate and stabilize properties on a modest budget.

From her first 13k Baltimore house to assembling a portfolio across multiple cities, Lisa explains how investors without generational wealth can start small, live on less, and use each corporate paycheck to buy freedom. She breaks down the mindset shifts required to let go of ego, status, and the belief that your first deal has to be 50k or bigger. One house every 18 to 24 months, in the right market, can change a family’s financial trajectory.

Lisa also opens the door to global real estate investing, sharing how she now lives part time in France, uses her home as a primary residence and short term rental, and why getting a local property manager is essential when investing across cultures and continents. If you have ever felt “overlooked” by traditional wealth advice, this conversation will show you a practical path into rental properties, no matter your starting point. Listen to this episode of Fortunes of the Brave to learn how to use small, strategic moves to build big, long term freedom.

Key Takeaways:
• Reframe your day job as a paycheck to fund your real business or investments
• Start with low cost rentals in the 30k to 60k range instead of waiting for a perfect big deal
• Use time as your advantage by renovating slowly and avoiding rushed, high risk projects
• Drop ego and status so you can use “layaway” style strategies and modest steps to build wealth
• Apply long distance investing systems to both out of state and international real estate

Chapters:
• 00:00 - Welcome to Fortunes of the Brave with Lisa Phillips
• 00:41 - From corporate burnout to a 40 by 28 retirement goal
• 02:51 - Corporate America as a paycheck to your real business
• 03:43 - Growing up low income and doing “whatever it took”
• 06:29 - The first 13k house and rebuilding after foreclosure
• 08:31 - Being forced to invest outside your city on a modest budget
• 11:17 - Overlooked investors and why traditional advice misses them
• 14:20 - Layaway, Klarna, and dropping ego to start small
• 17:23 - Designing a plan for one house every 18 to 24 months
• 20:40 - Taking the strategy global and investing while living in France
• 23:43 - Short term rentals, property managers, and European market realities
• 28:42 - Systems for long distance and out of country investing

Resources Mentioned:
• Book - The Millionaire Next Door
• Book - Millionaire By 30
• Affordable Real Estate Investments (Lisa’s company)
• Concepts - Layaway, Klarna and modest step investing
• Lisa’s upcoming book on long distance investing (states and global)

Connect with Lisa:
• LinkedIn:   / affordablerei  
• Other: Instagram, Twitter and YouTube under “Affordable Real Estate Investments” or “Affordablerei”

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