The way the world works is that the more you make money, the more you get taxed. However, this is not the case with real estate because there are many ways you can reduce taxes through it. Speaking to another real estate goddess in this episode, Monick Halm interviews the founder of The Ivy Investor, Courtney Richardson, to talk about all things taxes and real estate. She talks about tax liens and tax deeds, as well as the common mistakes people make in this area. Also the foremost expert in cannabis investing, Courtney helps us understand this sexy new area of investing and some of the other ways we can invest in it.

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Real Estate, Taxes, And Cannabis Investing With Courtney Richardson

I interview amazing women who are doing cool things in real estate. I’m super excited to have with me Courtney Richardson, who is brilliant in many things. She does tons of different things in investing. I met her a couple of years ago at a conference called FinCon, which is a Financial Conference for people who are influencers in the financial world. It’s a money nerd conference. I’m a money nerd and Courtney too. She’s cooler than me, but we’re both nerds in that way. She’s awesome. I’m super excited to have her here. She founded The Ivy Investor in 2014, which is a resource for women seeking to navigate the maze of the investment world in ways that make sense.

She’s an attorney and former stockbroker and investment advisor with years of experience in the financial services industry. She lends her legal and financial expertise to such outlets that have been Huffington Post, AOL, My Fab Finance Forbes and other online publications, and now the Real Estate Investor Goddesses Show. She was named as 1 of the 7 Black Millennial Financial Experts to Follow on Instagram in 2019 by Black Enterprise. She holds a BA degree in Philosophy from the University of Pittsburgh. She also has a JD from West Virginia University College of Law and LLM in Taxation, Certificate in Estate Planning from Temple University Beasley School of law.

She’s super knowledgeable. She’s probably the foremost expert in cannabis investing. She knows everything there is to know about cannabis investing. We’re going to talk a lot about that. It is an interesting land play, as well as there are other ways of investing in cannabis. I know it is a sexy new area of investing. I’m happy to have her here to talk about that. You also know a lot about tax liens and tax deeds and all of that. That’s her day job working in that. Welcome, Courtney.

Thank you for having me.

It’s great to have you. Before we started going, she was telling me about her first big foray into investing in doing a major rehab. Do you want to share about that?

It is a three-storey house in Philadelphia and it was built in 1933. It has a lot of the original fixtures, so it’s super heavy. We started demo and they filled a huge dumpster. When I talked to my contractor, he said, “It’s going to be about 2 tons.” He comes to me and he’s like, “It’s probably going to be closer to 4 tons.” I’m like, “What?” It was an older home with a lot of the original fixtures, they use heavy, good materials. Back in the day, they used concrete. He’s like, “Your whole bathroom was concrete on the second floor. Did you know that?” I was like, “No, I didn’t, but thanks.”

There was a cedar closet there, so it was a beautiful home. The problem is that there was water damage from a roof leak. Unfortunately, there was a lot of damage that sometimes you have to go down to the bones and that’s what we’re doing. Our timeline is about four months. That’s what we’re looking at. It could be longer but we hope not. One of the things that I’m excited to get into is that the property is eligible for a property tax abatement. We’ll be putting that documentation. It’s available in Philadelphia and in Pittsburgh. It allows a property owner not to pay any taxes on the improvement of the building for ten years based on the level of improvements. We’re only paying taxes on the land. I tell people a lot when we’re investing, we know we have to understand the contract stuff, like getting with contractors, understanding certain things.

On the other side, you have to know the financial aspects of it because you could be missing out on a good opportunity. In this case, I knew about the abatement program. I immediately looked it up when we started the program and we’ll start at the process because I knew what our numbers were going to be. I said this is the documentation that I need. It has to be done by December 31st of the year that you pull your permits. It feels like we have a lot of time, but before you know it, we’re going to be right at that deadline. I don’t want to miss on that great opportunity, because based on the value, we’re probably be saving approximately anywhere from $3,500 to $3,700 a year in property taxes.

That makes a big difference.

I’m super excited about that. That’s my first foray into real estate investing and as my business and my stock investments pick up, I have a real estate background. I was a title attorney when I first graduated from law school. One of the things that I realized, even understanding and with my LLM in taxation is that real estate is the most favorite asset class in the Tax Code. I needed something to kick some love off against my other investments because you start getting yourself into tax trouble. Not tax trouble in a way that you’re doing something wrong. When the more money you make, the more you’re taxed. You have to find ways to reduce your taxes and real estate is a great place to do that.

Isn’t that amazing? I always thought that you make more money, you get paid more or you’re taxed more, but with real estate, you can still be making money with the real estate, but it reduces your taxes. It’s not what you make, it’s what you get to keep. What is your plan with this property? You’re fixing it up. What are you looking to do with it?

Our goal is to live there. That is our thing. The next property we’re looking to purchase, we’re purchasing it from another family member, which I’m excited about because they’re like, “I’m trying to get out of it.” We’re like, “That’s great. We’re shutting it into it.” We’re going to live in the property we’re working on now. We’re purchasing another property and then we’re purchasing multifamily. I wasn’t doing anything in real estate and then now I’m doing everything on real estate. When I saw the steads, I was like, “What did I do?” At some point, I’m going to catch the bug because when I see these tax benefits, not necessarily from the one that we’re living in, but the one that we’re picking up, I’m going to be happy.

I don’t know how it works. I’m not an expert in cost segregation and how that works if you’re going to live there versus if it’s an investment property, but I’ll definitely look into that. Cost segregation and especially with the bonus depreciation that is offered now is generous. You can take a 100% depreciation. That is good. I don’t know if it works if you’re going to live there.

Real estate is the most favorite asset class in the tax code. Click To Tweet

I don’t think so, but as I said, I’m excited about the one that we’re picking up, but we’re going to be able to do it. It’s close to Temple University, which is an up and coming area, like most university areas are now. How that is now based on COVID? I don’t know, but it still has a good value. People are still grabbing real estate like you wouldn’t believe here. That would be fine with it.

Let me ask you a question about the title stuff, because you know a lot about that and you’ve been working on the tax auctions. Share briefly how that works for people who are trying to invest that way and maybe what are some of the biggest mistakes you see people make?

Each county is different. Each state is different, but what I have seen across the board, it depends if you are in a deed state or if you are in the lien state. For the most part, Pennsylvania is a deed state. Every so often, they will do a tax lien sale but it’s once in a blue moon. That being said, when you’re purchasing in a tax deed state, you take possession of the property once the proper time period has elapsed. There are two laws that are predominant in Pennsylvania. It’s called RESTL, which is a Real Estate Tax Sale Law. It’s something I never use. I don’t use RETSL that often because my counties don’t use it. We have the MCTLA, which is the Municipal Claims and Tax Lien Act.

I share with you that under the MCLA, which is what Philadelphia and Pittsburgh, the two largest cities in Pennsylvania, that’s what they use. When you purchase the property, you basically have 10% down. You pay your 90% in 30 days, and then 30 days after you pay that final payment, then that’s when you get the tax deed. However, you have the right of redemption and you also have a set-aside. The right of redemption is saying the owner who lost the property can come back about nine months after the deed has been acknowledged. Remember, that’s 60 days out.

We’re almost looking at a year and say, “It’s me. I’m going to pay whatever. I wouldn’t want my property back. I wouldn’t pay what I owe. Plus you, the third-party purchaser, I have to pay you 10% in any necessary expenses of the property.” If there was something wrong with the roof and the person had to come up to secure the property, that person has to pay them. That’s the redemption. You also have a set-aside, which is, “Taxing authority county, city or whatever, you didn’t do something right, so we’re going to completely undo the sale.” A lot of people get upset about redemptions. They’re like, “What did they redeem?” I’m like, “What if they redeem? You don’t lose anything. You get your bid price, you get 10% and also any necessary expenses of the property. As long as you keep your receipts, you’re fine.” A lot of people don’t realize that.

On the set-aside, that’s where there’s the bigger problem. A set-aside is when the selling authority, the taxing authority does something wrong. They don’t give notice. There’s something procedurally wrong with the sale and that’s when they undo it. That’s when life gets messy. If anyone said, “I have redemption,” I’m like, “Redemption, whatever.” Set-aside, I’m sweating. I’m patting my brow. You can still look for reimbursement because you have an idea of unjust enrichment. If I basically have a property that I had to because I’m the owner, I had to fix the roof. I had to fix some issues to keep the property safe, secure, whatever. This person gets a property with a brand-new roof.

You don’t deserve that even if there’s a sale that’s procedurally wrong. It’s about keeping your receipts. A lot of people are like, “I did it myself.” I’m like, “That’s fine, but you still need to have some documentation.” If you’re a contractor, you’re doing that work, always write it down, “I went to Lowe’s, I spent $10,000 at Lowe’s, here’s my receipt. My labor,” estimate your labor. “I estimated my labor at $50 an hour.” Then every day that you’re there at the property, write it down, “I was at the property for four hours.” If something were to happen, you had the ability to get reimbursed or made whole for your time and your effort. If you don’t have it, the court is like, “All we can deal with is what’s in front of us.”

How often do set-asides happen?

I would say maybe once a sale and there’s a sale about once a month. We put up about 400 properties. That not often. The bigger question is how often are they successful? I would say a fraction of the time.

They may request it set aside, but how often is it actually set aside? Is it small?

Correct. We’ve gotten sued enough to make sure that our process is clean.

People invest in these tax deeds because they get the properties at a significant discount. Correct?

Correct. One of the things that I am very careful about when I would look at a property that I would consider looking at a property that I’m purchasing at sheriff sale is I’m going to look at the title. Always look at the title. There’s a required law that the tax authority has to run before they put the property up for sale. One of the things that is important and looking at that is making sure that there’s nothing irregular by your eye. People are like, “How would I know, Courtney?” If John Doe owned the property now and it was a deed conveyed now, and the last deed from John Doe or whoever was 30 years ago. You look at it, you’re like, “That looks like a fresh signature,” as opposed to somebody who’s older. There’s a lot of property fraud.

 

When a property pops up on a sheriff OD, not only investors are looking to get at the property. I tell people, “Definitely double check because there may be a deed that’s filed that day or the day before.” I know this word is played out, but it does cause entanglement for you as a third-party purchaser in case that happens. Those are things that I definitely tell people. One, know the rules. Two, take a look at the title to make sure. Do a light title to see who owns it. We sell them under the MCTLA free and clear. Their real estate tax is a first lien position. Everything below it is gone. It’s not something to be concerned about like there’s a mortgage from 1965. It doesn’t matter because we basically wipe everything out below us, but it’s still nice to know the chain of title about ownership. You want to make sure that’s clean.

It’s so somebody doesn’t come back and say, “You’ve got to set aside the sale because I own it,” or something like that. That’s super helpful. I could spend the whole time talking to you about this. You know many things about many things, but I want to talk about cannabis as well. How did you get to become the expert in this?

My students are the reason why I even looked at cannabis. It was late 2017, maybe early 2018, somewhere around then. I had a lot of my students asking about it like, “What do you know about cannabis?” I’m like, “You smoke it. What else do you want me to tell you?” They’re like, “What do you think about it as an investment?” I’m like, “Absolutely not.” I had a couple of students come to me and I was like, “No.” They were like, “Courtney, what about this? What about that?” They would offer some other ideas. I had a knee jerk reaction, I was like, “Let me go research it and let me see what I can find out. Let’s talk about it because you’re the 5th, 6th, 7th person to ask me about it. None of you are related. Maybe there’s something there.” I did some research and I said, “There’s something here.” I became a student of the cannabis industry and then also added stocks to it.

Cannabis, as you can appreciate, it’s highly legal. It’s legal upon legal. It’s an avalanche of legality. There are a lot of laws about it. There are federal laws, there are state laws. Federal laws conflict with state laws. The government is trying to piecemeal a solution around it, which is interesting. You also have Canada, which is this dark horse. Canada legalized medicinal marijuana in 2001. In 2018, they legalized recreational. They had this framework. They’re the most developed country in the world that has a legalized cannabis structure. You have Canada above us. Our neighbor to our north has legalized cannabis. The United States is in a hodgepodge. I call it the United States of Cannabis, because when I put up a map, you can see the liberal states are like, “We’re down for the cause.”

You see the coast is super green because that means that when I do a map, I’ll do super dark green for legalized recreational or I should say a responsible adult use. That’s more of the appropriate term. You have medicinal use, so that’s dark, dark green. On the other side, we have dark, dark green on the side of the northern. You have Massachusetts, you have those states up there. As you come down the coast, it starts getting a little bit lighter because that means they only have a medicinal marijuana program, but you’re starting to see the conversation and see the changes. You also see in the middle Bible belt like, “What’s going on down there?” “Nothing.” “Okay.” It’s all gray. It’s a hodgepodge.

It’s basically the United States of Cannabis. It’s all over the place. I don’t know if you’ve ever seen Sesame Place where they’re like, “Everybody is doing their own thing.” That’s exactly what’s going on in cannabis. Everybody is doing their own thing. It’s like the Wild, Wild West and we call it the green rush because everybody expects to get rich off of doing something, touching the plant, but honest to goodness, and this is where the real estate play comes in. It’s the plant supporting businesses that are taking off. Part of that is a part of the Tax Code. There is a rule called 280E that says if you are engaged in any business that touches a Schedule I or Schedule II drug, you’re not able to take any ordinary necessary expenses of a business. You’re probably going, “Huh?” I should say marijuana because the Farm Bill in 2018 got rid of hemp as being illegal. Hemp is now legal. That’s where the CBD is coming from, but you have this marijuana process over here.

I have seen you present about this and you separate it out, but most people don’t understand. What’s the difference between hemp and marijuana?

I’m frustrated because the definition that the government gives is not a real definition. The definition is presented by the federal government or the United States government, they said, “Industrial hemp is cannabis that has less than 0.3% of THC.” We know THC as the intoxicating agent of marijuana. That’s what they said. Anything 0.3% or less that’s going to be industrial hemp and then anything more than that is going to be marijuana. Here’s the kicker, 0.3% of THC is not getting anyone high. That’s the first thing. It’s an arbitrary thought, but hemp is actually a fiber and less a plant than more fiber. In terms of real estate using hemp, hemp at one point was used as rope, but it was also used for paper. It was used as a substitute for wood. Also if you pulverize it, it can also be used as a substitute for concrete. It was a lot more sustainable because hemp grows like a weed.

Also, like a t-shirt or running shirt, the fabric running shirts.

It’s super sustainable. Do you like running on it?

It feels good. It’s silky.

I probably should run and grab one because I have my Peloton. I do cycling in the house. I should probably wear one. I share that with you as it is a sustainable textile fabric. That’s what hemp is. It’s a great play for real estate because as time goes on and we try to get a lot greener, it’s a more sustainable plant and it produces some great things for the real estate market. As we try to build more, build better, that’s where we’re going to be looking too heavily in hemp. That’s the first thing. Hemp is legal. Then CBD is cannabidiol and that’s one of the derivatives from industrial hemp. A lot of people use that for the calming, soothing effects of CBD. That’s on that side.

That’s 0.3%. That’s not going to get you high, so that’s legal. On the other side, the stuff that makes you funny, that’s marijuana.

Cannabis is an avalanche of legality. Click To Tweet

That is still illegal. Eleven states have legalized recreational, as people call it, but we’ll call it responsible adult use. Thirty-three states have legalized medicinal. That’s what the framework is.

It’s still in the minority. In seventeen states, nothing.

The medicinal side, it’s like Canada. I tell people the history doesn’t repeat itself. It rhymes. Canada was like, “Fine, we’ll do medicinal in 2001.” It took them seventeen years to bring on recreational. I don’t know if we’ll take that long in the United States, but one of the things about COVID that has changed things is that a lot of dispensaries were considered essential. It’s changing to me. It seems like the thought process behind the necessity of having marijuana as a staple is coming a little bit more to the forefront. We’re taking it seriously like, “Maybe people need this like they need their other medicines.” That’s changing the ideas. I wouldn’t be surprised if they split the baby and said, “We’re going to legalize medicinal first and see how it goes.”

You mean nationwide?

Correct. I wouldn’t be surprised if that happens, but a lot of activists are like, “Forget it. Let’s not do that. Let’s go full steam ahead and do recreational adult use, which would include medicinal.” Also, a lot of people want to get rich off the green rush, but these other plays like also real estate and cannabis that is taking off. Cannabis is a plant. What do you need to grow plants? Land. A lot of it. Different types of land too. It’s not just, “I need land to grow.” Your yields when you grow outdoors, I believe it’s about 70%. What I mean by yield is basically what you put in the ground to plant to basically what you bring out for harvest. You lose about 30% outside or outdoors. Your yields are a little bit better indoors. I believe it goes up to about 10%. If I plant 10 plants, 8 of them I can take the market if I’m into a greenhouse or indoors. If I’m outside, if I plant 10 plants, I can take about 7 of them to market.

Here’s the thing. I don’t know this personally, but they say that the outdoor weed tastes better. I don’t know. I can’t verify that. That’s the conversation that they feel that there’s a better quality of plant that’s grown in soil outdoors than it is in a greenhouse. It also grows best in a warm climate. The warmer the climate, the more resin you receive from a marijuana plant and the resin is where the THC is. That’s why everybody loves California weed. It’s a good environment to grow. You’re going to have land that you’re going to need. There is a marijuana REIT, which is IIP, which is Innovative Industrial Properties. What their business model is they purchase a property for some marijuana use whether it’s growing, dispensary or whatever and they lease it to a marijuana company.

They receive the rents from those properties and they’re a REIT. They’re going to push that out. About 90% of their profits have to go to their shareholders. That’s why everybody seems to like REIT. That’s another real estate cannabis play that you’re going to see more of them. A lot of other cannabis companies are thinking about creating REITs to deal with their real estate holdings to try to get away from 280E because it was real estate holdings. It doesn’t matter what’s in it because it’s basically a way not to penalize your whole entire business by spinning off the real estate.

A different entity can own the real estate and then another entity is growing it.

Everybody is trying to get creative. I always laugh when I look at people’s creative strategies or our business’ creative strategy. The first thing they do is like, “What are we going to do with this real estate?” “We’re going to do something with it because it’s valuable.” It reminds you that out of all these things we have, this is the most valuable. Same thing even with Sears. Sears went bankrupt. They had many problems, but the one thing that they had with the most valuable of their portfolio was real estate. They ended up spinning that off into a REIT.

For people who are interested in cannabis investing, what would you recommend to them?

I always tell people an educated investor is a good investor. Educate yourself about it. There’s so much information out there, but sometimes it’s hard if you don’t know enough about the industry going in to separate the real from the fake. I have a class that I teach.

Tell us a little bit about your class.

What we do in the classes, we talk about all the legalese and all the legal stuff that pushes the agenda for the cannabis industry. I tell people about the legal aspects. They should understand what they’re getting into. It definitely dictates exactly where the industry is going to be going and where the opportunities are. We talk about prohibition, which is alcohol. They had prohibition in the early 1920s and how that looked and how that rolled out. I said, “There are some opportunities here where cannabis may mirror.” We talk about that. We also talk about the war on drugs and the Controlled Substance Act of 1970 and how that affects 280E, which is the tax rule. We also talk about the Safe Banking Act because one of the things about these cannabis companies that are in the United States, they can’t use banking.

 

Banking is not an option for them because one of the things about banking institutions is they have a requirement that they cannot aid and abet illegal businesses. Guess what cannabis is on the federal side? It’s illegal. They have the Safe Banking Acts. We talk about some of the legislation that’s in the pipe. It’s like the light switch. If the switch flips on, the game is going to change. If we ever get marijuana off of Schedule I, the game is going to change. That’s the first thing. The second thing is that if we can at least get them some helpful baking resources, the game is going to change. It’s not going to be as poignant once we get them off Schedule I, but it’s going to change the game for these marijuana companies.

All the United States marijuana companies that are publicly-traded are traded in Canada. They’re not traded on the Toronto Stock Exchange because we have the New York Stock Exchange in the United States. We have the Toronto Stock Exchange in Canada. They’re the equivalent of each other in their respective countries. One of the big things that makes a difference is that in both of these, one of the requirements of being listed on the Toronto Stock Exchange, New York Stock Exchange or the NASDAQ is you can’t be engaged in any illegal business. The Canadian Securities Exchange said, “Bring me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses. Come over here, we’ll take your companies.”

A lot of the US companies that are the big ones here are traded in Canada. A lot of times, I’m not a huge fan of investing in foreign companies, but that’s our best solution of looking at these companies in the United States and looking at their place. We talk about all the United States companies doing business in the United States as cannabis companies, but how they’re trading in Canada and what that looks like. We also talk about non-plant touching companies because not every cannabis company that we know to be actually touches the plant. There are many things. We get stuck in cannabis and saying dispensary and grower, and it’s like, “Who is going to take the plant of cannabis and condense it into an oil?”

I tell people, “You need to look at companies that were doing these things before and they brought their gifts and talents to the cannabis industry because they know what they’re doing.” There’s a company called Waters Company and it’s out of Boston, Massachusetts. The reason why I like them is that they’ve been extracting oils from plants for almost 100 years. They got into the cannabis industry. What do you think they’re going to do in the cannabis industry? They’re going to body the cannabis industry because that’s what they do. They take oils from plants, that’s it. Whether it’s cannabis or basil, it’s the same process. Even if it’s not the exact same process, they have the minds that are able to do the work because they have a baseline.

You have ScottsMiracle-Gro. We know them from Walmart, but they have a whole hydroponics line that supports the cannabis industry. There are many other companies that don’t necessarily touch the plant, but support the plant. We have a lot of conversations about that. We also have conversations about pooled investments in cannabis. It’s like a basket of cannabis companies. A lot of people are like, “Courtney, this a good opportunity, but I don’t feel comfortable in picking one company. Do I have other alternatives?” I’m like, “You sure do. I don’t like mutual funds for cannabis, but you can get an ETF, which is an Exchange Traded Fund.” It’s a fund traded on the stock exchange, but it’s a basket of stocks traded on the stock exchange. I like it. They’re good because it’s like a slicing of the industry, but it doesn’t expose you to multiple companies. It gives you that exposure people are looking for, but it doesn’t require you to do a lot of heavy lifting in terms of knowledge.

How can people find out more about you and this course and the other stuff you’re teaching and doing?

You can always find me on my website, which is the www.TheIvyInvestor.com. I’m heavy on Instagram. That’s my biggest social media platform. I’m @TheIvyInvestor on Instagram. I’m also on Facebook, www.Facebook.com/TheIvyInvestor, and then Twitter, I’m @TheIvyInvestor. I’m also on YouTube. I’m starting to use it. I’m not great at it. We’re getting there.

It’s @TheIvyInvestor on all the socials. You can find her there. It is time for our famed end of show trinity, which is a brag, a gratitude and a desire. What is your brag? What’s one thing that you’re celebrating?

I am celebrating getting this house on the road. I have been working on this house in one way, shape or form in terms of we had a roof to put on. I had to do some title issues. I cleaned them up and I am glad to get this party or the show on the road. That’s my gratitude and my brag. I’ve worked on it. That’s a great thing.

What’s a gratitude?

My health. I had COVID. It’s not a public thing, but it’s not private either. The worst of it was about three days. There was an article floating around that gave you the level. I was like level two, so it wasn’t terrible, but still I had it, so I’m glad and grateful for my health. I’ve lost 60 pounds. That helped a lot, I’m sure. I can’t imagine how I would have fared had I been heavier because being overweight does contribute negatively to your outcomes when it comes to COVID. I was on my Peloton. I was working out. I needed to lay in bed, but I did work as much as I could because I was following the general understanding of if you can work out, work out. Work those lungs. I was doing that. It worked out relatively well. I feel fine. I feel better, but you don’t take your health for granted. That’s definitely gratitude.

Last but not least, what is one desire?

To build up this real estate portfolio. My goal is to get it probably around $2 million in one year. That is my goal. We’re relatively close to getting a base on a couple of the things that we have in the pipe. I’m super excited about that. That’s my desire to make that goal come to fruition.

An educated investor is a good investor. Click To Tweet

So shall your desire be or so much better than you can imagine.

Thank you.

You’re welcome. Thank you for coming on. This was so fun. I feel like we need three more shows to talk about and touch the surface of all the way. This is great. You can find Courtney, @TheIvyInvestor on all social and at www.TheIvyInvestor.com. You can connect with me at REIGoddesses.com. On there, I have a book that I am I’m gifting you, Investing in Real Estate From $1 To $1 Million, Investing Strategies for Every Budget and Every Goddess. Go check it out. They also have free training and an investor club where you can find out about our passive investing opportunities. Go to REIGoddesses.com for all the goodies and join us next time for another Real Estate Investor Goddess interview.

Important Links:

• The Ivy Investor
• Waters Company
• ScottsMiracle-Gro
• @TheIvyInvestor – Instagram
• www.Facebook.com/TheIvyInvestor
• @TheIvyInvestor – Twitter
• YouTube – The Ivy Investor

About Courtney Richardson

In 2014, Courtney Richardson founded The Ivy Investor, the resource for women seeking to navigate the maze of the investment world in ways that make sense. Courtney is a current attorney and former stockbroker and investment advisor with fifteen years of experience in the financial services industry. Courtney has an engaging and unique style that breaks down the stock market, retirement, and college savings in a way that encourages everyone to run out and take action. She lends her legal and financial expertise to The Huffington Post, AOL, My Fab Finance, Forbes, and other online publications. Courtney was named as one of the 7 Black Millennial Financial Experts To Follow On Instagram in 2019 by Black Enterprise.

Courtney holds a BA degree in Philosophy from the University of Pittsburgh. She also holds a JD from West Virginia University College of Law and a LL.M. in Taxation and Certificate in Estate Planning from Temple University Beasley School of Law.

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