Meet Crystal Novak of Novak Real Estate

Today we’d like to introduce you to Crystal Novak .

Hi Crystal, we’re thrilled to have a chance to learn your story today. So, before we get into specifics, maybe you can briefly walk us through how you got to where you are today?
Masters Degree Nurse turned Entrepreneur, a 15 Year Journey. Whew I’ll try to summarize. 🙂

I graduated from ASU college of Nursing with my Bachelors in 2011 and Grand Canyon University with my Masters in Nursing a few years later. I jumped into the career full force working overtime to pay off my student loans as quickly as possible. After growing up in a household where money was a constant struggle, I wanted that debt gone. My academic scholarships only went so far so 5 years of university and living expenses added up. I always had a hustle mentality so when my best friend came to me with an opportunity to earn additional income with network marketing I was very skeptical, but after a few years of working so much overtime, I was already feeling the physical and mental exhaustion that came with so many hours at the hospital. I finally gave in and began working hard to start building a network using social media to maximize my efforts and get my feet wet in the sales realm. It was a new world for me being introduced to a form of entrepreneurship. I had never thought about being a business owner, and definitely never considered a career in sales. No one close to me had taught me about doing anything other than working for someone else. After a couple of years I found out network marketing wasn’t exactly my vibe; however, I had enough success to finish paying off my student loans and absolutely loved realizing that I could create income based on my work and efforts and not only by trading my time. That became the start of my journey into becoming my own boss for good.

At this time I was working as a nurse in the adult ICU on night shift, was planning a wedding, and teaching nursing students for clinical and lab hours for 2 different local colleges (it was very common that I always had 3+ jobs or sources of income). A new business was born that I co-owned with my best friend. It was an online boutique selling mostly women’s clothes/accessories that we started out of an office space in each of our homes. With our newest networking and sales skills we absolutely thrived and year over year doubled our sales volume and profits. I began to cut back on my hours at the hospital and focus more on our business until I had my first baby in 2019 and made the deicison/was able to walk away from the hospital completely. My husband is a Phoenix fireman and as much as I thought nursing and hospital hours would be great for a family, once I was there I knew trading off our baby with my husband as we worked opposite shifts was no where near what we wanted for our family. I continued teaching part time and growing the business and was able to have the best of all worlds with my baby at home while I fit my work into my life instead of fitting my life into work. I won’t lie and say it was all sunshine and rainbows, I am quite the workaholic, so as a business owner I had a very hard time turning work off and it became a constant battle of trying to navigate creating work hours for myself so that it didn’t consume every waking minute. I can’t say I ever really got that down, but I did constantly work on setting boundaries so that I could be more present for my family.

Fast forward a couple years- in 2021 I had my second baby, a little girl. We were still deep into COVID and my teaching job moved all online using zoom. I was taking some time off with my new baby, but my managers were desperate for help to fill in for some sessions so I agreed to jump in for some online lab hours to help out. A couple of weeks in came the COVID vaccine mandates. I had a newborn baby I was breastfeeding, I was not stepping foot in a hospital or on campus for work and had no plans to for at least a few months and I was faced with the decision to be vaccinated or be terminated. I asked for an extension for my circumstances (unofficial maternity leave) and was denied. I had been teaching at this college for over 7 years, my students loved me, and I loved my job so this was a tough one. My husband and I chose to go all in on the business and walk away from the last piece of my nursing career.

For the first time in my adult life, I only had 1 job and I was the boss. How freeing this was, but I also had some struggles with imposter syndrome. Here I was with a Masters degree that I was no longer using. The time, money, blood, sweat and tears I put into that career kept me hanging on for dear life thinking I would be a fool to leave the industry completely, but I did it anyway. There I was 2 toddlers at home and a successful business to run with no one to answer to but my business partner (my bestie who was also a Mom of 2 toddlers), perfect right? Not exactly. We were both burning the candle at both ends trying to keep up and also trying to keep a passion for fashion alive while we went through 4 pregnancies between the 2 of us in 5 years. After about 4 years in and 2 kiddos later I couldn’t force it anymore. My passion just lost its lust. I wore gym clothes on the daily and I felt a major disconnect from my work. I kept pushing through, this was now my only source of income, but I knew I needed to start thinking about my next move as an entrepreneur.

I had dabbled with the idea of real estate and investing in real estate all the way back in college, I even went to a Robert Kiyosaki Rich Dad, Poor Dad seminar when I was 23. My husband and I re-visited the idea at various points in life, but outside of purchasing our primary home we always got too scared/skeptical and never could make any moves. I personally knew no one in the real estate industry and the only homes anyone I knew owned were the ones they lived in. But finally, I had my taste of being a business owner and dove in head first studying real estate investing. I became obsessed (as I do with anything new I put my heart into) listening to podcasts every second I could and reading every book on real estate investing. I hit the ground running and managed to purchase 2 inexpensive properties out of state within a matter of a few months. This is when I decided getting my real estate license would be my next step. I planned on just working on my own transactions and maybe some friends and family as I worked on building a real estate portfolio. Once I got licensed though, I could not stop talking about and sharing my new knowledge about real estate. I wanted to shout from the rooftops this golden nugget of information I had and there was no stopping me. I knew I was going to build my next business as a realtor and teach the world around me how to build wealth using real estate as a tool. I quickly realized that I already had many of the skills needed to build a successful real estate business and with the network I had built over the past 10 years I had a huge advantage getting started in a business where many fail in.

I definitely didn’t have the capacity to run 2 businesses with 2 toddlers at home, so after many months of struggling to give it up, my business partner and I decided it was time to sell our 5 year old baby Blushing Cactus Boutique. We sold March of 2023 for more than expected and couldn’t be more proud of what we had accomplished in those 5 years. I spent this year having a bit of imposter syndrome once again while diving into another brand new role, but I finally feel like I’m where I belong. I am certain that the entire path I’ve taken professionally has purposefully led me right to this very spot. I’m beyond grateful that even during a difficult year for the industry I was able to round out my first 10 months selling over 4 million dollars in real estate. I am such a planner and have always been 10 steps ahead in planning out my life and let me say, never in my wildest dreams did I think I’d be starting a new career at 35. I feel so blessed to have taken this journey to get to where I am now. I’m just getting started and can feel that this is going to be the start of the best career era yet!

I’m sure it wasn’t obstacle-free, but would you say the journey has been fairly smooth so far?
Well, I definitely over shared on the last question haha!!

I did touch on a few of the struggles, but to discuss further, imposter syndrome has come up on various occasions. To be completely honest I still struggle not telling people I am a nurse first when someone I meet asks what I do for a living. I have been out of the industry for years, but in this country our career depicts so much of who we are that it is still hard for me to let go of after 10 years of it being such a big part of my identity. I think I struggle with the idea that the title of relator doesn’t come with as much prestige as the title of a nurse or an educator at a college.

My other main struggle is setting boundaries for the time I spend on work. I have a tough time turning it off so work and family balance has been an issue for me ever since I began my journey as an entrepreneur. I enjoy working so I tend to squeeze it in at all hours of the day and have trouble being present for my family. It’s a catch 22 because they are the reason for wanting to own my own time after all.

As you know, we’re big fans of Novak Real Estate. For our readers who might not be as familiar what can you tell them about the brand?
When I got my real estate license I actually didn’t intend to grow a business with it. I simply got started in real estate investing personally and decided it made sense for me to get my license to represent myself and a few friends and family. However, I am not someone who can keep knowledge to myself when I feel like the whole world is missing out. I couldn’t help but share our personal story to acquire more real estate with friends, family and even on social media. As others expressed interest in what we were doing, I realized I absolutely loved teaching and empowering others to use real estate to their advantage and create a journey to financial freedom/early retirement/generational wealth along with us. We wished so badly that someone taught us years ago the strategy we have learned and have put into play. We sold our first home that we bought in 2012 to upgrade in 2017, but had someone explained to us that we didn’t need 20% down to buy our next home and that we could have made money monthly renting out our current, plus the continued appreciation, we would be in a much different place today. This hindsight regret lit a fire for me to educate others and teach them about the buy and hold strategy and to continuously buy primary residences and keep them. You can buy a new primary residence every year and put as little as 3.5-5% down on them. This propels how quickly you can acquire property because the down payments are much more doable versus purchasing investment property where you need 20-25% down. Not only this, but if you live in the home for 2 years and then sell within 5 years there are huge tax benefits with a large portion of tax free gains. I encourage holding properties long term, but I also think in some instances holding for 5 years after living in for 2 is a great play as well.

There is so much I could go on about regarding what I teach and do personally in real estate, but in addition to all traditional real estate I am known for strategizing and problem solving with my clients. At every listing appointment I typically discuss the opportunity to keep the property and use it as a wealth building tool. Keeping the home as a rental, having tenants pay down the debt and one day have a paid off home that is an income producing asset for retirement. This is not for everyone, but educating people is important to me after my experience and lack of knowledge years ago. I will gladly list a home once my client has all the information it takes to make an informed decision about selling. I know for a fact there is a very small percentage of agents doing this for their clients as we could potentially be walking away from commission, but I would much rather be a part of, or the reason for, my clients wealth building journey than collect a check. I have also seen first hand that when you provide that kind of value, the checks will flow in other ways. I also problem solve and think outside of the box. Not every seller or property is great for listing on MLS. At times convenience is the most important for a seller, significant repairs need to be made that they aren’t willing to complete or showings are a major hardship. I present options to sell outside of the traditional avenue. That could be wholesaling the property to get them a cash offer and close in 1 week with the property as is, connecting them to a team to make all needed repairs to get top dollar, offering the home off market to my network and various other strategies, I simply provide my sellers options and they choose what’s best for them.

For buyers I am always getting creative to make home ownership a reality if it makes sense for them financially. I study creative financing and search properties specifically for things like assumable loans where clients could take over a low 3% interest rate from the seller. I provide real life examples and scenarios explaining down payment needs, mortgage payments and home prices that show many viewers that home ownership could actually become a reality for them when they originally wrote it off thinking it wasn’t possible. I would say I study the mortgage and financing world more than most agents and I have had mortgage partners voice that they appreciated that about me. It makes a huge difference when I can also provide insight and create a plan with my buyers when I have a high level of understanding the financing part of the process as well.

I really like to go above and beyond to ensure potential clients understand their options and that they can do exactly what they see us doing and that they can do it on whatever scale they are comfortable with. Whether they purchase a home every 1-2 years to live in and then move to the next or if they want to move slower and do this every 5-6 years, I just want them to know what is possible. I am in the business of building relationships so I happily offer discovery consult coffee meetings where I go over this process or whatever the client is interested in regarding real estate and find out how I can help whether its now or sometime down the road.

Is there anything else you’d like to share with our readers?
I think I wrote you plenty of novels, but please let me know if there is any additional information you would like!

A little about me personally: I am a mama of a 2, my son is 4 and my daughter is 2. They go to pre school part time, so I am also basically a stay at home Mom. My husband Nick is my biggest supporter and my better half. He is a Phoenix fireman so between that and my nursing background, first responders hold a special place for us in life and in my business. Eventually, we would love to grow this business to the point where we can be a husband and wife team and someday even bring our kids into it as well. When I’m not working or with my family I love Zumba and dance, reading and learning (mostly self development or real estate topics), hiking, wine tasting, and DIY home projects and decor.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.Novak-Real-Estate.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/crystal_novak_/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/crystalzoric
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/crystal-novak-0aa5b31b8/
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC0i-Yaw7VGspsFk0Y4xlyCQ
• Other: https://novak-realestate.myflodesk.com/uqknrzls5x

Image Credits
Ashley Caronna