Episode 184: From Real Estate to Data Centers with Paul and Letitia Montelongo
Summary
The experts say “show me your 5 best friends and I’ll tell you who YOU are”. Who do I hang out with? Folks who make me level up. Today’s episode is no different. These folks have LOTS more real estate experience than Mike and I, they are real estate mentors, and have even launched their own podcast; what are they up to now? They have jumped into data centers. Paul and Letitia Montelongo join me today to discuss their past, present and where they are headed, and explain why they have jumped into a different wrinkle of real estate.
Listen to the full episode :
This Week’s Blog Post:
How We Met and Where Their Journey Began
Hi friends! I’m Dr. Jen, and in this episode of My Life as a Landlord, I had the joy of welcoming my mentors and dear friends, Paul and Letitia Montelongo. Mike and I met them through the Multifamily Mindset world, and they’ve been walking the same multifamily path we’re on—only bigger, earlier, and with even bolder stories to tell. In our conversation, Paul and Letitia shared how their 13 years in multi-unit investing—marinas, apartments, storage, RV parks, all kinds of income-producing doors—eventually led them to an unexpected new frontier: data centers. After nearly 2,000 units transacted over the years, they decided to intentionally diversify, opening the door to a whole new class of investing.
Taking the Leap Into Data Centers
About a year ago, they met a group operating micro-data centers across the U.S., and after months of conversations, trust-building, site visits, and due diligence, they decided to jump in. As of just days before recording, they had an LOI signed to acquire 117 acres in Alabama that comes with enough power for a 23-megawatt data center—enough electricity to run a small city. The land once housed a brass foundry, which means the site already has the rare trifecta data centers require: power, fiber, and water. One company will even pay them $1 million for the steel on the property when they demolish the existing structure. They laughed about how most of us don’t walk around talking megawatts daily—but in their world now, megawatts are the new currency.
What a Data Center Really Is
Since I had to ask the obvious question—what actually is a data center?—Paul explained it simply: it’s a physical building filled with racks of servers that store and compute everything we do digitally. Your phone photos, Ring doorbell alerts, medical files, toll road images, AI processing—all of it touches a data center. Some racks handle intense computation for AI; others handle long-term storage. These centers need enormous cooling systems, redundancy upon redundancy, and stable infrastructure. Their project is considered a micro-data center—not Google, not AWS, but the mid-range facilities that will number 400–600 new builds in Texas alone by 2026. And as Letitia pointed out, the landlords are businesses—not people—so the “tenant issues” look very different. No noise complaints, no balky service requests, no unauthorized pets. Just commercial clients needing reliable power and storage.
Their Path to Each Other and to Entrepreneurship
Part of what made this episode so energizing was hearing their personal history. Before meeting Paul, Letitia spent years as a senior vice president in corporate America before becoming a serial entrepreneur—owning everything from a med spa to a food truck to a crypto trading company. She even hosted a television show, The Crypto Café, which is how Paul first discovered her. They joke about their first podcast together where she ran off mid-recording to change dresses, and how that one interview led to ten months of dating and a Maui wedding. Paul, for his part, has been in real estate since he bought his first property at 17. He moved from contracting and flipping into multi-unit investing, then into marinas, apartments, storage, and land development. Everything he’s ever done—permitting, building, syndication, deal-making—has layered perfectly into their newest venture in data centers.
Building a Life, a Business, and a Legacy Together
We also talked about their podcast High Velocity Couples, their retreats, and how they learned to blend two strong Type-A personalities into one powerful partnership. They shared how they took a marriage class meant for couples on the brink—by accident—and how it actually strengthened their understanding of each other. Their retreats mix adventure, personal development, and investment education because they believe the environment matters. They want to help couples stay aligned while building businesses and legacies together, and they show that through their own example—bringing their grandkids on property tours, supporting each other through surgeries, and staying fully engaged in their “third quarter” of life. They’ve decided they’re not leaving anything on the table.
I recorded this episode in Maui, Hawaii. Why? Because real estate takes you places. Where do you want real estate to take you? Join me next week for Episode 185, our final Rental Roundtable Toastmasters Style with Dan Dyble and Karen Hall. I’ll see you there!