*Intro and outro music are from an original piece by

Carl Zukroff of The Blue Hotel

Monica Gonzalez

Bio

Email

A1 RE Solutions

Simón Bolívar University

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You have stumbled on to another episode of Get Your FILL – Financial Independence, Long Life where we look for ways to achieve those two goals.

My long life goal had sort of a sad turn this week when my 97-year old aunt passed away. I had high hopes for her because her sister lived to be 105 and she was kind of the inspiration for this whole broadcast but unfortunately, she was not going to outlive her sister’s legacy and now, of the family that was originally 10 people, my dad is the only one left. He’s only 86. In that family that’s not much of an accomplishment. He’s got to last at least another 10-12 years to even get on the board. Anyway. I’m curious to know whether you think or how much you think genes play – genetic factors play – in a long life.

I know people whose whole family is riddled with cancer, like everybody in the family has some kind of cancer. I know people who were born with incredibly high cholesterol. I used to work with the guy whose body produces cholesterol and – even though he was a slim guy and always watched what he ate[m1] and took his medication – his cholesterol was always close to 400. So that kind of stuff obviously makes a difference but I’m curious about your opinion. How much of it is lifestyle? How much of it is genetics? How much of it is a positive mental attitude?

I think all those things play a part. I actually read a thing about people who had survived really traumatic things like being imprisoned in some kind of a concentration camp or a POW kind of situation and one of the things that kept everybody going was a sense of purpose. So even if your purpose was to live long enough to seek revenge on the people who put you in that camp, that’s a purpose that can keep you going.

I don’t know, but on a happier note and on a more positive note. I’m really excited today for many, many reasons: not just because our guest, Monica Gonzalez, is an award-winning architect. Not just because she’s a woman, not just because she’s also a real estate investor and developer, but she’s just a joy. She’s just so pleasant and upbeat and happy and interesting. So, I’m really psyched today. Monica, thank you so much for joining us today.

C: I’m excited because you are, I think, the first woman who I’ve talked to who has any kind of a really substantial role in real estate investing and the real estate creation industry. And I looked at your resume of course and it’s extremely impressive and so I’m even more excited for that reason ’cause I know that you’re obviously very talented and very intelligent and have a lot of excellent information to share today.

M: Thank you.

C: Will you enlighten the folks listening, just tell them a little bit about your background and a little bit about what got you interested in architecture and in real estate, in general?

M: Yes, actually I am an architect. I studied architecture in Caracas, Venezuela because I am from Venezuela. I was born there and now I have four years living in Boston, so I really, really like architecture. I went there to a beautiful university named Simon Bolivar University in Caracas, Venezuela.

So I really, really like architecture, I think, because my father was pretty involved in construction in Venezuela, so that was part of his business. I kind of grew up surrounded by people related to construction, commercial and residential as well. So that’s the reason I think I decided to become an architect when I was in high school.

Now I’m here in Boston and I am really interested in residential real estate. My husband i