RE Agent and RE Investor Newbie from Los Angeles

[Vanessa Ganaden]

Hey everyone!

Vanessa here from sunny California, more specifically, I hail from the very expensive market of Los Angeles (gasp). Quick story about me, born and raised in the Philippines where my father was a real estate developer. Moved here for college, where I started out as a pre-med student but graduated with a business and marketing degree (yep, that happened). I've been involved with startups for as long as I can remember - eventually landing myself in a fast growing recently IPO'ed startup in LA, working as a Product Manager for their software engineering team. 

I've always known that I would never gain financial independence working for someone else, something I learned from my father. He started out as a fire extinguisher salesman (didn't even know those existed!), who quit his job and started in real estate, eventually becoming a well respected developer. I'm hoping to make the same leap of faith in a few months. I've been in a lot of different industries but I guess it does come full circle, as I find myself in the same career path. My father passed away a year ago, my mother a few years before that. I often think about why I wanted to get into real estate. It goes beyond financial independence. In a way, it is to honor their memory. And use the money that I achieve from real estate as an instrument to give back to the world and make it a better place than I found it. The same way they have. 

Bleh, it wasn't as quick of a story as I had hoped. But there's my two cents. :) 

Anyway, I'm really looking forward to learn from BP and its community. And if you are in LA, let's grab coffee. As a self-confessed coffee addict, I know all the good spots around ;)