Adam Torres and Gaby Gonzalez discuss LAtinatude.
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Show Notes:
LAtinatude is an annual empowerment event designed to inspire real estate professionals. Every year NAHREP Los Angeles showcases a panel of women who are successful in their respective fields. In this episode, Adam Torres and Gaby Gonzalez, Vice President of National Association of Hispanic Real Estate Professionals (Los Angeles), explore NAHREP and LAtinatude. To buy tickets for LAtinatude visite: https://nahreplosangeles.org/events/
About National Association of Hispanic Real Estate Professionals (Los Angeles)
“Hispanic Wealth: A NAHREP Original” is a captivating 1:57-minute commentary powered by AI that sheds light on the multifaceted issues surrounding the Hispanic wealth gap in America. This thought-provoking film presents a unique perspective, exploring the underlying causes, historical context, and systemic challenges that contribute to this often-overlooked disparity. Through advanced artificial intelligence technology, it offers a compelling commentary on the path towards bridging the divide in Hispanic wealth.
Full Unedited Transcript
Hey, I’d like to welcome you to another episode of Mission Matters. My name is Adam Torres, and if you’d like to apply to be a guest in the show, just head on over to missionmatters. com and click on be our guest to apply. All right, so today I have Gabby Gonzalez on the line, and she’s vice president over at National Association of Hispanic Real Estate Professionals, the Los Angeles chapter, also known as NAREP, and she’s also a realtor.
Hey, Gabby, welcome to the show. Thank you, Adam. I really appreciate you having me on today. All right. So I know you were introduced by Jose Tejada, who’s also a podcast host over at mission matters, and he’s also a lender. So I’m glad he connected us because we got some stuff to talk about today.
We got the Latina Tude event coming up. We got Nahrep. I want to get into that as well, but maybe just to get us kicked off, like, like, how did you get into real estate? Like, did that all begin for you? I was having dinner with a friend, and we were having a conversation. I had been doing the same job, you know, in a family business for about 15 years.
So I was just a little tired of that. It was a lot of it required a lot of time. You got a real estate to get away from your parent or your family. Is that what I’m hearing?
I was kind of driving, which. You know, oddly it took me into real estate, which I do a lot more driving now. Yeah, that’s how I got started. So, I mean, I’m a big fan of real estate. I’m a big fan of, and I mean, there’s a lot of different ways to do it. So you are, you’re, you’re a realtor and a lot of, you know, business owners, entrepreneurs, executives that listen to this.
We’ll get into Nahrep and we’ll get into, of course, the organization and the Latina Tude event, but maybe just talk a little bit more about what you’re doing in real estate. State and like, maybe geographies or how you help your clients. I feel like I’m a matchmaker, you know, I help people I mean, I match home buyers with home sellers and, my first journey giving somebody the keys, it was just incredible. It was you were hooked, huh? You were hooked. I could hear it in your voice. You were hooked. I knew this, this client from the gym. And she reached out to me came into the office with her then fiancé and I asked them when they were getting married and he said, as soon as you find us a house, we’re getting married.
So, when I delivered those keys, she walked into the house, she was taking it all in and turned around after a couple of minutes, looked at her fiancé, she got really teary eyed, I got emotional and actually captured that on video. Oh, my God. Is that, hold on, is that some video? Is that an Instagram? Is it on, like, that’s amazing.
I don’t know. Where is it at? How can people see it? Or can we? haven’t posted it yet, but I will soon. I just have to get their permission, which I’m sure they’ll be okay with. Okay, okay. I’ll just be a nosy. It’s okay. They had their wedding right there at their house. Wow. Because they have a big backyard.
They invited me, and now they have a baby. Grow and really enjoy and their dream of becoming homeowners because I still still follow each other. It’s really rewarding, even like, not just from that moment of giving the keys, like, throughout the years, a few years now. So how long have you been in real estate?
How long? 12 years. Wow. Time flies. That’s amazing. And how long have you been working with and associated with Nahrep? I’ve been associated with Nahrep for about six, seven years. As a member, that’s how I started. Somebody from our office said, Hey, we got to go to this event. We went and it was really empowering and incredible to see these leaders and people are on the top of their industry talking about what they do.
So it’s inspiring to see that. And. How many, how many stories could start with, Hey, we have to go to this event. Some end up really good, like now rep. And in my life, at least some did not end up, but I love this. I, this concept of NARA, what kept you coming back? Cause I’m, always interested in that because there’s, you know, a lot of organizations, a lot of ways we can spend our time, but what kept you coming back?
The mastermind, the possibility to see and learn from people at the top of their game. And so you can grow and that’s our mission to, to educate the real estate community so that we can be better for our client and for us to educate ourselves. And that’s what we try to put together our events.
To inspire, celebrate, connect. I’m curious on the, like the mission of it. So I, obviously it’s in the name Hispanic real estate professionals. Like why is that so important for an organization to support that segment of the population?
When I started in this industry, there was a lot of people that had been let down by by Latinos and I thought a lot through with friends, people that don’t have enough information. They were ripped off and they were on trusting and it’s a really bad thing to see that in our community.
We can trust each other and uplift each other. So it’s so important for us to be educated and stand united because we can go a lot further together. you see other communities that they work with each other and they empower one another. So, that’s our mission to help families attain that dream of home ownership and not just attain it, but sustain it.
And be able to build a generational wealth. and the organization, I mean, it’s pretty big, right? Like, I know that, I think if my memory serves me right, I remember seeing something, I don’t know exactly when it was, but even, even like Obama spoke and was was interviewed by, I think, some of the leadership there, like, so it’s a pretty big organization, right?
Yes, it’s over a hundred chapters. I think we’re working on a hundred and one. Wow. In D. C. we just got back from one of our national conferences. So it’s about a hundred chapters with 40,000 plus members across the country. It’s really big. And our, our leader or leader and founder Gary Costa, has interviewed three presidents.
He interviewed Clintonian George W. Bush, and a couple of years ago, Obama. It was incredible. That was actually my first, that was my 2nd national conference and every time I go to one, I’ve gone to one as a member as an aspiring board member and then as a board member, I just get so much value from it and because the narrow model is where business needs, so you see a lot of that, not just, you know, in real estate, but in business you know, Venture capital boards, entertainment, and to see 5, 000, 6, 000 Latinos in one city.
It’s a, it’s pretty cool. I mean, you’ve given us a lot already, but I want to play a little game here, Gabby. So pretend I’m not in real estate, but pretend I am. I’m a real estate professional. We’re just, we’re just meeting. I am Hispanic. So, I mean, my, dad’s from Puerto Rico, born and raised in Puerto Rico, but also raised in New York.
Like most Puerto Ricans, my mom’s of Mexican descent. So my great grandparents were from Mexico. So I’m definitely all kinds of Latino blood over here. We’re meeting for the first time. a real estate agent or in some parts of real estate. And I’m like, Oh, now rep, this is an interesting thing. should I join?
What are you guys about? What would you tell me? the Nationalization of Hispanic Real Estate Professionals, the Latin chapter, and I think you should join. And it’s not just limited to Latinos, by the way. I think you should join. Good point. Good point, actually. Good point. No, I’m glad you make that point.
Thank you. So any ethnicity. Sorry, everybody else. My listeners are like, why is Adam all talking about only Latinos can join? I’m sorry. Go ahead. What? Why should anybody join? There you go. Same, same scenario. Fine. Go. we’re welcoming culture and we, you know, we welcome everyone and not just in real estate as well.
But I think when you come to our event. You see and get inspired by the people that we feature You know, when you see other Latinos doing incredible things and shattering glass ceilings and breaking barriers, it’s really inspiring. we put those together, you know, to, inspire our community.
And to help them and get tips and guide and how, how to become better at their profession. I love it. And I think that’s a great transition here. Let’s just jump around a little bit. So the LatinaTUDE event, it’s coming up this Thursday. For everyone, it’s going to be in downtown.
I think I mentioned this and before, I don’t know if I did in this interview, but first time I went to this event was in downtown and I, I went there and I’m like, man, where’d all these people come from? It was this beautiful ballroom. It was full. There was music outside.
There was food. There was obviously beverages of all types. I was like, oh man, this is, this is something else. And the energy was insane. There was all kinds of like, I think they’re taking photos. Photos, like, I was a photo booth or what, but there’s all kinds of things going on, having been my first time there, I was like, Whoa, this is, this is happening right down the street from me.
I was pretty cool. And that obviously is where, you know, I I’m coming back to the next one, obviously on, on this Thursday coming up and I think we’re going to have a booth and be shooting some content and doing some, maybe might even do some onsite interviews that I haven’t quite decided with the team yet.
But,.
Marker
, what’s it about? And why should people be attending? People should come to get inspired by these incredible women. Latinitude is our most popular event of the year, and it’s actually my personal favorite. We have four incredible women that are going to be featured, and I can’t wait for you to meet them.
And I know you’re maybe planning to interview them. Oh yeah. That would be amazing. No, I’m on. Give me, give me a little bit. Don’t, don’t be teasing me in the audience. Like who’s going to be on the panel? Come on. We’re waiting. Okay. Our first is Rachel Garcia. She is a commercial lender. There’s not a lot of women in commercial real estate, commercial lending, and especially Latina.
So she’s going to tell you about her story and her journey. Of getting into that, to that platform. Then we have Darlene Crystal, who is also known as the Girl Flipper. Really incredible story. She went from realtor to becoming a flipper. Struggled a lot through that journey as a woman. And now she is about to be featured on HGTV.
She has a show. Yeah. Just had a book published. Then we have Zena Maldonado, who is the founder of the Latina Golf Association. This woman has done such amazing things. She’s about to celebrate her 16th year for LGA he created this organization just from, you know, falling in love with golf.
She was playing golf and loved the game. one point, somebody asked, hey, why don’t you bring your friends? And she said, well, you know what? None of my friends play golf. So she said, why don’t we get together? And she wants to empower women to, and that’s her, her goal. She empowers women through golf, through the game.
And our fourth panelist is Vanessa Orozco. She also works in a, in a male dominated industry, an affairs industry. where she grew up, she, you know, she was surrounded by people in the tequila industry, her uncle’s own and other fields. So when she was really young, she started her first tequila company, sold it.
And been doing that ever since. Right now she’s the director for El Cristiano Tequila. And she also co owns a ready to make, ready to drink can drink called Ivana, and those are delicious by the way, and organic, so it sounds delicious. I’m like, what I got, I’m bringing hair on this, so, so I can get some product.
I’m gonna be like, so here goes my mailing mattress. I, I accept, products to the mail. Go ahead. It sounds delicious. we’ll be serving that thanks to her and Latina too. So it’s amazing. So I get to try it then. Okay. It’s all happening at circa and it’s going to be on a rooftop.
Right across the street from crypto. com arena. So you get to see all that beauty that our city has and do you remember that? Is Circa the one? I live right by there. Is Circa the one that has the like you can see from the outside that merry go round thing? I don’t remember. It had like the kind of like a merry go round bar or something.
Where’s Circa? I can’t remember what building. It’s on a figure and twelve. Yeah. Yeah. I know. I know where that’s at. Yeah. Cause . I’m off a figure. I spend most of my life off a figure. Oh, so that’s awesome. Yeah, I’m definitely going. So go ahead. And you remember that that building that was infamous for having graffiti all over.
Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. The ocean wide debacle that was that went viral and like. For Oh, my gosh. Yeah. The whole anybody listening that doesn’t know what we’re talking about. Just I don’t know. Google it like graffiti building in L. A. And it’s probably gonna come up. Like, it was just crazy. Went pretty viral. Go ahead.
So you look to once that you see Crypto. com arena and then you look to the other side, then we have that building right behind us. So. Definitely a lot of Instagram worthy moments right there, but it’s a beautiful. We do it for the gram still. It’s okay. So there’s a lot of networking inspirational story.
especially for women, you know, right now that we’re celebrating women’s history month and we’re going to celebrate it, you know, a little bit more in April it’s just inspiring to see these women. Yeah, yeah, I, I get it and I, I think it’s amazing to support and to go and be inspired as well.
So I think that’s awesome. Well, Gabby, first off, you’re going to be coming back in the show, you and some of the other board members. I know you got more programming later in the year. We’re definitely going to keep on covering the, the story and, and providing a, a voice and a platform.
form for now rep to get their message out there, which we definitely believe and empowering individuals in the real estate market. That being said, if somebody is listening to this or watching this, and if they want to learn more about Latina to, or if they even want to contact you, I mean, I know you’re a realtor and, and accepting new clients.
I mean, what’s the best way for people to do that? For people to come to Latina too, they can go to our website, narab los angeles.org or they can follow us on Instagram and reach out to, to our messages. And that is Narab Los Angeles. Mm-Hmm. . They can also reach out to me directly if they can find the.
And my number is 562 533 1427, or email me at gabby, G A B B Y, at gabbyglass. com. Fantastic. And we’ll put that information the links at least in the show notes so that our audience can just click on the links and head right on over. And speaking of the audience, if this is your first time with Mission Matters or listening to an episode, we’re all about bringing on business owners, entrepreneurs, and executives and having them share their mission.
The reason behind their mission, you know, why do they do what they do? What gets them fired up to get out there and, and to go really make a difference. If that’s the type of content that sounds fun or interesting or exciting to you, we welcome you. Hey, if you need it, this is it. Your personal invitation hit that subscribe button.
This is a daily show each and every day. We’re releasing new content and new, amazing individuals. Just. like Gabby’s to inspire you and to, so we can all learn from them as well. Again, hit that subscribe button. If you’re a long term listener and you haven’t left me a review yet, come on, man, get that review in there.
Click the button, write a review on Apple podcast and Gabby, thank you so much for making time for us. And I’m looking forward to meeting you at Latina too. Likewise, likewise. And thank you so much for everything you know, for today, for everything you’re doing We’re really, really grateful for you and mission honored.
Really appreciate it.