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The Real Estate Addicts (REA) podcast is a must-listen for anyone interested in real estate development, investment, construction and entrepreneurship. Each episode dives into a wide range of industry topics and features conversations with savvy, successful entrepreneurs who candidly share their career paths, challenges, breakthroughs, and the stories behind the remarkable companies they’ve built. Expect big personalities, thoughtful insights, and conversations that both educate and inspire.
Co-hosted by Ray Hurteau, Dan Rubin (Instagram: @rhinvestgroup), and Marc Savatsky (Instagram: @choose_boston)
Follow the Real Estate Addicts Podcast on YouTube: @RealEstateAddicts
00:13
Do think I can stand up while we record this episode? feel like this is the fat chair and maybe it be... These chairs can go all the way up. You could do almost like you're singing a live performance type situation. I'm six feet tall, so could do that? I don't know. I'm sitting in the chair and I felt like I was getting neck fatigue. You're kind of like...
00:32
Your neck is forward, but it's comfortable. We can switch. Do you mind? Yeah, no, I'm cool with that. Oh, I'm switching. Live hot swap on the pod. I feel like I'm at a lindsey green angle on the other. Oh, God. It's okay. I think I get into my stories a little bit better. Lean back. Oh, I got this. And I see what you're saying now. But meanwhile, like this sofa. I know. can't find myself getting comfortable on this either. fiddle with this thing 700 times during the podcast. I have ADHD.
01:01
Oh, you just unscrewed it in the wrong direction. Guys, this is just absolutely incredible airtime. I'm nervous. I don't know what to tell you. We got Willie here with us today and I'm really excited about the second time back. The one and It is. is. Yeah. I think we can skip to like how I built this kind of thing. Like this was how I got into the game and my first property was this. Like I want to talk about what's happening today. Well, you're just telling us a funny story. Namely your latest eviction. Yes.
01:28
Let's get right to it. Let's get right to it. right, guys just want to go right into the good stuff. What made the eviction funny? Because usually they are. They're still scared. Let's not really talk. Yeah, so, have this woman's been at our place for, I don't know, she's been there for 18 months now and she's been wreaking havoc throughout the neighborhood. So I have, I've been on a chat with myself, the two owners to the right and at least two to three owners to the left.
01:55
And it's just been chaotic. They text me almost weekly about what's going on. We have, they all have cameras on the street. I have cameras in my lobby. I have cameras in the back. I cameras in the basement. And she's just a known prostitute. She's been running John's in and out. have video of them sometimes coming out of the building a little bit upset. I don't know if they maybe didn't get what they paid for. it's not a massage place. No, no, it's full on. Like I said, I have a full on porn hub in my...
02:24
And it's all content that I've been, again, required by the police, the state police were involved. The state police? You're not allowed to retain the content. Why state? I don't know. think there were some other crimes involved with some of the guys that she was messing with. It's across state lines, but it's like interstate stuff. Or that, so it could be. But there was definitely the state police that asked me to retain some of this footage. So when I say that, I want your listeners to understand, this is not my personal collection.
02:52
Oh shoot, I'm just, you know, collecting. This is, this is, this is evidence, you know, that's been, you know, submitted to the state police. Um, but no, she was basement common area. Again, the guys would come outside. A lot of the content is just, uh, is just destruction of property. Guys would come outside and just immediately like kick a car that was outside, pick the, the, what call it? Rear view mirror off. There was times where she was running from guys.
03:16
You caught her like running into the apartment and he would like grab her like right outside the building. Oh my god. She's working but she's not paying rent. Why? Sounds like she's not making it professional. feel like she's got a lot of one star reviews based on these exit experiences. I haven't seen her yet but I mean I imagine so. So now like the nuts and bolts of it no pun intended.
03:43
You have to get a constable out there. Yes. Well, how long did it take you to get her out? Yeah. How did this start? We started the eviction process about nine months ago. Typically it takes longer, but the benefit that we had with her is she never showed up to court. would, or she had, she had one representative on her behalf show up one time and then they just said, it with her. Okay. So nine months of no pay. The property is where again? JP. Really? Yeah. Wow. JP. Usually you get that type of tenant like profile.
04:13
Yeah, other places, mean, prostitution, people need sex everywhere, really. it's the profession in the world. Oldest profession in the world. Oldest one, know. Crazy. But she's not paying rent, so constable shows up because you have to pay this guy. How much does it cost to bring a constable? A constable is 400 bucks. That constable wasn't that much. It was the movers that wire. That's not your cost. It's the locksmith and the movers. It's the movers. It's the locksmith and the movers and then the board up because we had the board up the place as well so she couldn't regain entry.
04:40
Right now my place is sitting boarded up because I don't want... Was it first floor? It was a third floor. But the back staircase would allow her to get access. It was two broken windows that she'd broken, was kind of entering access. the concept was about $400. They tried to build me for about $4,200 for the movers. But I said absolutely not. We negotiated them down to like $1,200. But then even that was kind of a ripoff because they didn't take anything. Everything was just trash. So in the state of Massachusetts,
05:10
What the law requires, if you end up executing an eviction, you have to pay, as a landlord, you have to pay movers to go in and they basically deem what's trash and what's not. Who's that? The movers. No They're the impartial third party and almost adjudicator of like, this is just trash from the dumpster that is on the ground. This is a bed that could be worth something. And then you, as the landlord,
05:38
have to pay, not only have to pay to move their stuff that's like worth something out, you have to pay to store it for a certain number of I think it's three months. then it ends up on storage. That's exactly what Exactly what happens. yeah, so we got to about 1200 bucks. That wasn't too crazy. But then again, I have to pay a couple of guys I know to board up the place and everything else. And then it's the lost rent for the continued 30 day period. And then another
06:04
The rehab, was messed up doors, walls, floors, appliances, everything was just kind of trashed. And then there's the, you know, the additional lease up. So I think I estimated without, before I started crying, I think I got to about $45,000, close at 45 to $50,000. I was down at the end of the day between legal fees. Um, and then the attorney that we paid to go to court to get the eviction, everything else, it was just kind of, uh, kind of, kind of nuts. But so, so 30 days, I know we're probably confusing everyone because
06:31
Like we started with the end of the story, but like the beginning is a 30 day notice. 30 day notice to quit. Yeah, 30 day notice that's pretty easy to like service. You have to have that served, right? You have to have it served. You get another, what is it called? A constable when you do that as well? a constable. You get a constable when you do that as well? But the timing is like, it's, say it's like April 2nd, the 30 day notice doesn't even cover April. It covers the next full rental period. So it could be up to 59 day notice basically. are landlords at a very liberal place, man. Yeah. A very liberal place. You can...
07:00
I mean, as a landlord, can literally go through hell. And hopefully, like I said, as your new listeners or listen, I don't want to discourage anybody from getting into this business. I've had some really amazing success stories as well. This was one of the rougher periods, but I mean, there's, uh, it's, I, I'm at a point where I'm really looking to diversify my portfolio, trying to get into some of these a little bit more red states. I'm to have to go a little bit further than Rhode Island. Um, obviously, but.
07:25
I tried to get into something was a little bit more landlord friendly because we live in a place and again, we've talked about rent control, obviously coming down the pipeline or possibly coming down a pipeline. It's just a, it's very tough on landlords. think in my opinion, this is year 20 in the business. bought my first multifamily at an 06, took up to 2026, crazy to say. But it's just always been, if you're the landlord, you're the, the evil, you know, villain in the, in in the story at the end of the day.
07:53
I always compare landlords as, and to some degree, I property managers to like car salesmen. you always just feel like, how are they trying to rip me off or like, what are they trying to not do or hide? And some people are like that, of course, but most are not. What states are you looking at? Tennessee. Oh, real? That far? That far. Georgia. Below, below, anything Virginia and down is essentially where I'm looking. Yeah. You manage stuff that's that far away, like.
08:23
I don't even like to take projects that are outside Boston. think it was going to be, I think, you know, I self-manage everything here. I think when I head down that way, there's going be a certain level of trust that's going to be needed. So I just also just bought, again, it's not exactly the same because I can get out there, but we own a single family on 10 acres in the Berkshires started going out there and kind of testing the waters with my abilities to manage from afar. But yeah, there's going to be a certain level of trust. Property management companies are going to be involved.
08:52
But I need to diversify away from, in my opinion, too much of my... Two eggs? It's too many eggs in one basket. That's what say. The location risk. The place you bought out in the Berkshires, is that like a short-term rental? It is. It is. We're Airbnb. We stay out there. We bought it for dual purpose. We wanted something for our family to enjoy, get away. I live on a...
09:18
quarter acre and in my neighborhood I'd have an amazing lot. Yeah, that's That's an amazing lot. Anything that's measured in acres instead of square feet in Boston, like you've got land. yeah. Quarter acre in Quincy is like an amazing lot, but still it's like you're right next to everybody. I can see everything. I just really wanted something where we can go outside and in the Berkshires we don't see anything. Look to your right, you can't see neighbors. Look to your left, you can't see neighbors. There's deer everywhere, just running around. It's just a beautiful property, man. We just...
09:45
slightly slopes of the kids are sledding down and everything else. We refinished the basement and really just put in a pool table, foosball, ping pong, arcade games. Outside is archery. We're gonna be a pool at some point, a sauna, a jacuzzi. It's just really... you the listing. It's pretty set. We're trying to make it a destination itself, right? The Berkshires is already nice, but really, we really wanted this house to be like, hey, even if you didn't go outside for three days.
10:14
you have everything you need to just really just kind of enjoy the family there. that's and so we've been able to rent it out. have July is booked. August is pretty booked. I was going to say, how's season? How is it I think it's a combination of things. think we get we're going to get some good winter rentals because of the skiing and everything. We're right next to. I'm still trying to learn the names of everything out there. But we're a couple of mountains out there that we're really close to. And then.
10:41
the college out there, Williams College. um So we were booked, had people fighting over the graduation weekend. Oh, prices now. And I'm gonna learn that next Are you guys gonna go to BNB or houses when the Olympics come? well, the world. Oh, you mean the FIFA World Excuse me, yeah. I don't know. My buddy, or sorry, my buddy, my brother-in-law and sister live in Sharon, which is, they live five minutes from Foxborough Stadium, and they were considering renting their house out for like,
11:10
I'm just going to go stay with my parents. mean, that has its own costs. Yeah. But I mean, that's crazy. Just kidding, mom. I love you. Are you really going to do it? I would. I wish I would. But my wife probably had an opinion. Willie, do you have AirDNA, like that subscription where you see the historical data and-
11:33
Like that's like the data driven side of Airbnb, which is. I haven't gotten that far. So the only thing I've done is we're on booking.com Airbnb, Verbo. And then I just put us on Logify, which is basically in maybe a lot of people familiar with if you have Airbnb, it basically connects all the three platforms and gives you sure there's no overlap in booking. Cause we were having a tough time. say, I don't know how you coordinate those things. That's exactly what Logify does. We were having a tough time. Basically my wife was trying to like,
12:02
making sure that you didn't overlap schedules and schedule cleaners and everything else. Oh, someone booked on Airbnb, it wouldn't automatically sync with Verbo or VRBO. would be a too. I was once staying in a hotel in Strattening, Vermont, and we were asleep in the middle of the night and some group like opened the door with a key, came in and turned the lights on. And I was like, what is going on? What is happening here?
12:25
and the front desk basically booked our room twice. Oh, geez. And they didn't know that you already checked in. don't know. That was Vermont. My sense of drug use, I don't Possession is nine-tenths of the law. It is. is. It is. in that part of Vermont. So you did all the list. You didn't pay anybody to help you with the... No, we did. I paid a photographer just to go and take some professional photos. I'm gonna eventually do some drone footage once the weather's a little bit better.
12:53
But no, that was the problem that we were having. When we had one, two, three listings, it wasn't a big deal. When we started listing seven, eight, nine, and 10 came through, we were like, this is a lot to kind of manage. So that's when I started looking at what people do to kind of solve that problem. And there was a couple of different short-term rental um websites that help you sync everything together. So now Airbnb comes in, it goes to Logify.
13:17
and Logify spits it out to booking.com and verbal so there's no double bookings. And then we just go into Logify and say, we want to spend this weekend here. It's blocked off. No one's able to. meant you don't pay a third party person to kind of manage the listing and help rent I do everything myself right now. We duplicate Logify's capabilities with a spreadsheet right now. But I think eventually once we're comfortable with that platform that it's supposed to be doing what it's supposed to be doing, then we'll get rid of it.
13:45
Um, no, the most part I just do everything by myself. Um, think cleaner is obviously the hardest part is just having an expectation for the cleaners. put together a full checklist. We want you to, you know, I think some of it's very obvious, like, right, you know, changing the bed sheets and stuff like that, but there's a fireplace. We want you to scoop the ashes out of the fireplace, clean it, know, um, wiping down the pool tables. There's a, it's, it's, a robot. That's really where it is. Yeah.
14:11
We're not far. I love snow removal this winter. That seems harder than House Fuping. Snow removal was brutal. Six grand? Oh, yeah, six grand. I'm six grand deep in snow removal. I think it's done. One of the hardest things about em even so I'm Berkshires or I'm in Quincy. We're two and a half hours away on a good day, right? When there's no when there's no weather. The thing that I'm starting to realize and it can it sounds obvious to you know, when you're talking about it in hindsight is the weather is so different.
14:40
on the other side of Massachusetts. It's just completely different. I look outside, it's not that bad. And then I open my, the camera's on my phone and it's a freaking blizzard in the Berkshires. And I'm just kinda like, the guy's like 1800 for February, 1800 for um January. think uh December was a little lighter and hopefully March will be a little bit lighter. But it's been- to log in for your cameras. Yeah.
15:05
Sure. Explain. uh All of them? Specifically JP. This is the one's that JP, that's the one he's talking about. You know what's nice about- You'd probably throw your phone after you saw some of the stuff that's on those cameras. Yeah. My threshold is, I'm kidding. Okay, I was going say, I think that we are trained to be very rational consumers of real estate.
15:35
as developers and what's kind of nice about the vacation home purchase is you can kind of turn off a portion of that, that brain when you're like, I'm going to live there. I'm going to enjoy it. And you can convince yourself of it because like it's a tax write off too. So we furnished, we painted, we replaced the windows in our place. Jesse and I, uh, got a place recently in Florida and, like all of those expenses are tax deductible. did a cost segregation study. It's not leasing very well. If I'm being really honest. is it?
16:05
It's in Longboat Key, Florida. It's beautiful. But you have more restrictions in terms That's my whole challenge, is that it's a two-month minimum. So like, yes, I leased it for January and February for 10 grand a month. It was great. that's not- That's incredible. That's very good. 10 grand a month? But my mortgage is upwards of five. Fair, but still, I was not envisioning that number at all. I was surprised at all the taxes and licensing that Florida wants too.
16:30
You have a lot more competition in Florida as well though too. I'm sure that's true. Yeah, I bet you'd be able to crush it if you could do much shorter term rentals. Yeah, totally. 100%. But the bottom line is that the other people, I proposed this recently and all the other folks in the association basically said, we like that the pool is empty and that you can't lease your unit. More beach chairs for us. Yeah. So a very friendly HOA.
17:01
Well, let me ask you this. mean, we talked about that last time and Willie, I don't know if you've did the same thing. When you're getting started at a location, do you artificially kind of keep your prices really low because you want to get people in so you can get the reviews and then once you have the reviews, there's your... Oh, we're, my wife every day is like, when are we jacking up the prices? When are we going to go the prices? Because yeah, we're somewhere around $5.50 a night, which isn't...
17:26
you know, two, it's not crazy low, but it's also like for what we're getting. mean, we're four bedroom, four, four bedroom, bath on roughly 2,800 square feet. You know, again, pool table foosball, all this other, all these different other amenities. Um, removal, a snow removal. Yeah. And then you're on 10 acres. You can go outside and do whatever you really want to do. Complete privacy. Uh, we have the outside fire pit and you know, a couple of things. think our target is somewhere around the seven 50 range at night, you know, at end of the day. So did you go into it?
17:55
running the metrics as a short-term rental or exactly what Mark said I went in there emotional yeah and again because it was it was one of those things where it was kind of like if we do it and it goes really well that's great and if it doesn't then you know we have the resources to to fund it anyway you know and I mean I think we made some significant improvements I think we can resell it immediately and I think it was again we went into that with the attention of it being more for our long our family long term
18:22
You know, was this place that my mother, my mother's been up there. My brothers have been up there, my niece, my nephew. It's just been, it's been a great experience just for the family itself. So if I'm trying to talk myself into my bad investment further, I think it's a good way to lock in today's prices for the future. Like, yeah, I'm using it a few weeks out of the year and we enjoy it. But like, think going forward, uh, you know, it's a place I'm going to spend progressively more and more time. And I got to imagine that the, I bought it for in 2026, I'll look back and go like, damn, was.
18:52
That was a good buy. You just described a timeshare. What? Isn't that like timeshares? You got to buy in and you... D to... No, it's very different. Yeah. Right? I don't know. of them will I think it was just ones. You should look at a cost seg because like we didn't do much work there. And it's almost beneficial when you do a cost seg if... It front loads all of the accelerated depreciation. what's good about that is like you can, you know, kind of get some of that money back without the tax it impacts.
19:20
The is if for some reason something comes along and you want to sell it, you just have to recapture it. the difference between straight line and accelerated, would be the But what Mark said, when a sauna is a tax write-off, it's like, that's pretty nice. Yeah, yeah, it is. Or it offsets another project or something that you're doing if it's like assets. we spent, to give you some context, we spent $540 on the house, probably put another $60,000 in renovations and then another $20,000 in furniture.
19:48
you know, and everything else. So we're into it for six and a quarter, a little over 600,000. You know, I think if we trend the way we want to be trending, where we're trending right now, I mean, our mortgage taxes, insurance, roughly 3,500, we should be covering that plus some with no problem whatsoever. If you can just break even. If we can just break even. And use the free essentially. the tax benefit.
20:16
That's what went in my book. Absolutely. So I mean, and this is where the investor mindset did kick in though, is you come off of 116 and you turn into the driveway and then it kind of veers left and it kind of goes up and comes around. And one of the first things I noticed was when I got there is someone's already cleared a path to go to the back half of the back half of the 10 acres. Right. So you could subdivide that at some point five and five. And I was like,
20:42
You know what, this is kind of nice. And the other thing that I was thinking about, and this is where the investor mindset comes in, is the tiny home thing, right? I mean, you can now basically use that second half of lawn and start doing some of the long-term, you know, or not the long-term, but like some of the tiny home cabin feel type of thing. And there's actually a space right in the Berkshires and Adams that sell those things. So I've walked a couple of times and that's, that's what's in now. Is this a tourist welcome?
21:07
No, I can't remember what it's called, to be honest with you. It's right down the street, but, check that out, man. So tourists, welcome tourists, welcome tourists. I think I've talked about it for us. got old hojo, like Howard Johnson's and they made it so cool. Oh yeah. And it's like the lead singer from Wilco who's the one's the business, but, um, they now have like a tourist welcome small home and there's one on premises that you can go and like check out and stay in and they sell those for like a unit. Square feet. ahead. How many square feet are they roughly?
21:38
500, 600, or something. Actually, don't even think they're that big. It's kind of like the hotel, remember the Howard Johnson in Fenway that they converted, I forget what the vibe, the verb, the verb hotel. It's similar type concept, right? They took an old rundown piece of shit motel hotel, and then they made it cool. You know what I've noticed though, again, maybe I'm just speaking from my experience, but I'm seeing a kind of a little bit of a trend here.
22:08
Um, I'm 42, two young kids, six and eight. And what I've noticed is that when I, when I was growing up, we didn't have, there wasn't a lot of devices, right? It was barely in, it was internet, you know, when I was six and eight, right? So we spent a lot of time outside a lot of time going on just tire swings and freaking fishing and riding, doing all that stuff. Yeah. I think that the, generation are now parents, young kids, and they're trying to.
22:37
give their kids that experience now, right? They're trying to get them off of the devices, get them out of the house. And that's, think, why the Berkshires has really taken off for us. Cause our poll, our marketing poll is really get out of the city, get away from the crowd, come spend some genuine time with your family, get off the devices. And it's been, it's been working. It's an interesting concept. I've read a few articles where our generation with young children have read all of these studies and
23:07
obviously and clearly having all access to all of these devices at a young age and social media and phones and all this shit is pretty fucking bad for these kids, right? We're seeing the results of it. And I think our generation, being the last generation that grew up without anything oh and grew up with everything, right? So we didn't have anything as kids, but then everything became...
23:34
accessible while we were going through high school and college and everything. So I think being that last generation, we're seeing that and we're saying, absolutely fucking not. We need to do something about it and we're trying to rein it in. I think kids should have a driver's license before a smartphone. 100%. That's a pretty good argument. Yeah, yeah. that's what I've been telling, that's actually what my, Linda and I have said the same thing. Linda and I have talked about it. That way they can text and drive. Yep.
24:01
Exactly. But Taurus, welcome. You check in and there is a burlap sack over the flat screen TV. So like, yes, it's there if you want it, but like it's kind of discouraged. Oh, that's kind of cool. Yeah, I like it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So we, yeah, that's what we've done. Like we didn't have like a closet full of games. We've actually put them out for there's Scrabble, there's a chess everywhere. There's a piano.
24:24
We really, and that's why the 20,000, didn't cost me $20,000 to furnish this place, right? With a couple sofas and stuff like that. was, it's the more, I bought hundreds of board games. The IRS is actually auditing. think it's crazy that it's not. monopoly. Yeah. it's Willie Mandrell branded monopoly. No, we will. And we try to in every room, right? Is like.
24:52
There's just something there. There's just a, there's Django on one table. There's a tic-tac-toe on another. There's just something to kind of enjoy yourself would just be, I want the, when you get there, the weekend is just can blow by and you'd like, don't know where the hell the time went, but I enjoyed myself and I need to rebook this shit. I'm coming. Yeah. give you, I give you a coupon, a discount card. I uh love a good coupon. The coupon code is real estate addicts. All right. There you go.
25:20
Um, that's sweet. really sweet. Marks is in a, super investor from the area. How's it been in that area? Berkshires? I haven't had any problems. they people? Cause tourism. That's a big political risk. Like Airbnb in general. no it is. Housing costs are going up. Who votes for the local city councilors? But like an area like the Berkshires, it's, it's very tourist.
25:40
driven, not obviously entirely, but it's very tourist driven. doesn't mean that people aren't insane that vote against their interests. Of course. But I think one of the things that we have to our benefit is that we're not, it's not like when our guests pull in, there's neighbors watching. can't, nobody even fricking knows that it's a Burke, you know, like I said, doesn't say registry or anything like that. Like, did you have to register yours, Mark? Yes. oh 100 % Florida's like for such a conservative, like small government state, their rental process is.
26:09
Very bureaucratic. Interesting. How long did you look for a place? We've been looking for years. We've been in Maine, we've been in Vermont, we've been... Oh, wow. Honestly, it was crazy because um we had a checklist. We went through and we said, what do we want? We want five plus acres. We want four bedrooms, three baths. We want enough space for nieces and nephews and everybody to come up. We really wanted something quiet up on top of a hill. This checked 80 % of the boxes. The reason I never looked in mass is I didn't think I can afford anything in mass.
26:38
You know, I wanted, in my mindset, and this might sound kind of silly, I was like, I make a decent amount of money. Where am I rich? Where can I go get this that I can, you know, like I said, it's not gonna kill me. I don't wanna spend a million dollars on this piece of property. And so we were in Maine and Maine, I love Maine, but it doesn't, the prices don't really go down until you get three to four hours up, you know, Vermont. And in. And in, right. Yeah. Because you hug the coast, it doesn't really matter at all. Vermont. You also don't wanna live there. You can get 20 acres in Vermont.
27:08
but it's on the side of a mountain, right? It's like, it's great for skiing, but it's like, you know, the house is here, but everything else is just kind of going downhill. New Hampshire, I, know, we were trying to get away from Massachusetts. I don't want to offend anybody here. Well, no, lot of folks are Massachusetts to where they go. that's like New Hampshire, you're not really getting away from anything. You're just kind of, it doesn't have the same vibe as Vermont or Maine. I never looked at Massachusetts. This thing just popped up on my feed.
27:38
And I was just kind of staring at it. I'm just kind of like, kind of checks all the fricking boxes that we had, sent it over to my wife. Within like three minutes, she was like, think I love it. Submitted it all for a site on scene. Wow. You can even go. know, something you should buy is snowshoes for your place. I'll give you one better. You know what I want to do is if you look it up, they have a bear snowshoes.
27:58
They leave bear tracks in the stock and stuff. I don't want to scare the shit out of the kids. That's awesome. gonna need therapy talking. They're definitely gonna need therapy. We fucked up. yeah, yeah. Exactly. There was a struggle. We better open a down pillow. You had a brokerage business for a while, Lily. Tell us why.
28:28
You, well, I'm changing gears a bit from Bear Tracks. But you divested, is the target word for it, from the brokerage. Did you give, that gone altogether? It's gone altogether. um And again, not, not to, I'll give you, I want to be as frank and transparent as possible. I just felt like, how do I put this? Everyone had a real estate brokerage. Everyone has a real estate brokerage. Everybody can get there, has their real estate license. I felt like I was competing in a pool of everyone.
28:57
You know, and I felt like it was, it's really difficult to make a mark. It's really difficult to become a Sirhan or one of these other guys who are on TV. uh I felt like, and you guys know this, in the developer space, half of Boston Development sitting in this fricking room right now, you know, I mean, it's, it's uh not sound arrogant about it, but it's a very, it's a smaller pool of people that are capable of doing what we do on a regular basis. There are, I mean, you look at, I would imagine that.
29:26
We're in a 1 % to 2 % of real estate professionals have taken a built-in or a piece of land and erected something at the end of the day, you know, or taken 6,000 square foot factory or church or something like that and repurposed it or done what you guys have done in Linton. That's not a, you know, so I felt like to focus more of my time in that space where I was a big fish, small pond.
29:54
Um, was a better serve, a better use of my time. know, fair. And that's all we're doing is trading time. So it makes sense. It was one of my first calls when I started at brokerage and we were good enough to share a bunch of templates with me, independent contractor agreements and such. So yeah, you've got it. Boston wealth builders and you just had a tour. Yep. feels like it's been your biggest success in terms of.
30:22
name recognition and exposure and like publicly just getting things done. You've been able to leverage that for a lot of I you started that group early enough before these so-called groups were a thing.
30:40
I 100 % agree with you. mean, again, I'm not the guy that's gonna go out there and say, blah, blah, blah. But then secretly in my head, I'm like, you guys are all fucking following my lead. It's cool because I, and again, I'm not mad. There's no animosity or any, you know, like I said, I'm not mad about it at all. Cause I tell people, like, if you want to build an audience, right? It's, you can go out there and dance on Instagram and stuff like that. That shit's difficult, man. It's not my personality.
31:08
The best way, in my opinion, to build an audience is just to offer education to people. know, and that's all Walsh and Wealthbidders has done since day one is to, I know two things to be true, right? It's like, um there's a lot of shit in my head. um I read a lot. I listen to a lot of podcasts. I just pay attention a lot, you know? And there's a lot of stuff in my head that is not necessarily public knowledge, right? And if I can go out there and give this information to people.
31:36
there's always going to be some type of reciprocation back at the end of the day. And that's all Boston Wealth Co. is, is basically just going out there and saying, hey, since the very beginning, since I first met Dan and Ray, hey, guys, come on and just show people exactly what you're doing. And you guys know it leads to money. It leads to other opportunities. It leads to people coming calling me every day like, hey, I got this great thing in Dorchester. I have no idea what to do with it, but I know you do. And that's all it's been. But yes, it's been...
32:04
probably the number one lead source for me, the number one thing that's brought some type of notoriety to uh the name. You know, it's amazing. I think one thing that I didn't appreciate early on is that what that really means is that you don't have to hunt for deals as much. Deals come to you. It's like people, hey, I bought this. I have it under contract. I've got the permits on it. Will you enter? It's like, that's a much better place perspective to look at a deal from than.
32:34
you know, at the open house, 100 other people like. There is this book. Right. um And again, it's not not a secret. It's called The Go Giver. And that's that's all it teaches you to do. It's basically like if you give enough, everything that you want in life will appear eventually. Because like I said, know, like I said, just got to give till it hurts and then it should all come back to you. And it's been, you know, it's been true. that's almost the the the to admit it to myself and to admit it to you guys. And publicly now I got away from that for a little while.
33:01
If you see, there's kind of been a resurgence of Boston wealth builders because I became a little selfish. um You get tired, you know? Oh yeah. At some point you give and you give and you don't necessarily see the direct turnaround. um
33:14
If you're gonna cry, it's okay. You're looking for me to cry. You're blowing it. That's not how you look at it. are fuck It's a song. They're like, shit, let me dig a little deeper and see if I get some tears out of him. No, I mean, not... We need to get to 40, subscribe. Lily, tell me more about your... Tell me about your grandmother. Tell me about your grandmother. Tell me your grandmother. Did you lose your grandma? She was a special person to you, No, that's it. I became a little selfish and...
33:42
I needed to get back to that. became overworked and kind of just, you know, there was some deals that went wrong and the economy went south. People pointed their finger and said, Hey, you promised me this level. I'm like, it's investment. When you're investing, that's the essence of an investment, right? Is like, if it was just work, everyone would do it and everyone would have great success. But investment, there's inherently risk in investing and not everybody sees that, especially the younger crowd when things are going really well.
34:11
Um, if you haven't lived through the 08, 09, the COVIDs, the, you know, the political changes and stuff like that. And you just saw interest rates at 3 % and just shit just taking up for the entire, uh, the entirety of your career. Um, when things go a little bit wrong, you, kind of start to point fingers. That's a great insight. Not, you know, I'd add to that when you talk about what an investment means at the outset, people shake their head and smile at totally understand and appreciate it. They'll get it.
34:40
But then when the cards go down, all of a sudden it's just like, wait, no, no, no, no, no, no. That's a lot of people during any sort of type of risky investment. Where was I seeing? Yeah. I remember back when we were- very quickly. Even down to like, I'm trying to think of someone like recently, like a sub, I recommended a sub to a larger general card owner. It's like, this guy is very inexpensive.
35:09
He can't flake out like this is not the most reliable sub you're going to hire, but there's a massive savings. So consider the amount of ad value you're buying for the headache. And he and I like, because the sub fell down on him and he had to replace him and it was a little bit expensive, but I told him that upfront. He smiled and nod and then it went bad. And he's just like, mother fucks me. that that's the exhaustion that I felt over the past couple of years of just kind of just like those relationships being burned.
35:38
being just kind of investments, not necessarily, when I say not performing, not getting foreclosed on or like losing money. Like, you know, there were just situations where we thought we were gonna go in and we were gonna build $300,000 equity and being $100,000 in equity. And that's just the way it goes sometimes. as things are- chips and like each little thing eats at you. It does. It So we completely understand where you're coming from. And then not to add to that, but then, you know, if you're a family man, so you're dealing with those challenges too.
36:06
There's only so many hours in the day, it makes 100 % sense that that's what's happening. so I decided, like I said, I had to take some, took a little sabbatical, got off of social, got off of couple other things and just kind of- You're back though. I'm back. You're back. He's energized. Look how energized he is here. I'm back. You I just needed a rest at the end of the day. I was a little tired, man. You get away from things, the industry, you take a step back away from the industry. But it was helpful though, because it took me...
36:33
Um, it took that time or I took that time to reorganize my life. We're gonna have my portfolio, spend some time just cleaning up some holes in my bucket. That's what I described it. You know, like I said, just the things that are leaking out of your financial life. And I had like hundreds of subscriptions that I was like paying for that. was like, what the fuck is this? know, it's like things that I just had examined, be magnified so many times. It's like, is my, have I.
36:58
I like 40 my car insurance in 15 years. Am I paying towards this edge and 100 all around you these things do like these little holes in your bucket. Yeah, I totally feel that and I if you have enough holes, I know you hope though that like the reason that you're not really paying attention to the small holes is because you're focused on really productive things and like you can't
37:21
Optimized for everything and you can't be too smart. I like to say right and the holes are different types It's not just the financial ones. It's also the time one. So yeah, yes in time in areas where you should not be spending time This is a major challenge of all ours is just god. I was in a u-haul truck this morning Yeah, why should I be driving a u-haul you won't I worry because you're trying for the bigger picture trying to keep something moving forward Yeah, so I want to get you want to see me cry though mark as I wanted that one of that
37:50
That period. Get your glasses, Marco. Get your glasses. Zoom in the camera, Dan. The 18 to 24 months was also a discovery period of me personally, right? Because I realized that like I'm 42, I've always been a basketball player. I broke my foot not too long ago. I can't play basketball anymore. I just can't move. there's everybody on the court's 25 now or younger. And it's just kind of like, so I needed to rediscover like...
38:18
what do I like to do? Just finding, like, I realize that, like, yes, I make good money. My retirement is well off. I spend some time with my wife and my kids and my family, and I'm a good son, and I try to be a good brother, I hope, you know? But then I looked around, I was like, but what about me? Like, what is, what am I doing? What defines me outside of just kind of work? And I, it was funny, like, I just...
38:44
was on Instagram one day and there was like just like a 99, $99 discovery flight. Come, you know, come test plane or come test this, you know, like small single engine plane for $99. I just said, fuck it, Burn, I've been flying ever since. Wow. Really? I haven't told you guys this yet? This is a genuine reaction. You go back to flying. You have your license. Let's take a step. No, I've been taking flights. is this $99 introductory flight? Like you get to sit next to the pilot. No, no, no, no, they put you on the plane and you fly.
39:13
You fly. I I literally pulled back on the yoke, took off. the only thing they're not gonna let you wait. They're gonna still be there for emergency control. No, they're sitting, you're sitting next to them. You're sitting next to them. That's it. That's it. That's it. They, they, they, give you the, go try this. Just smoke that little bit. And then here's the real point. what's the plan? they trying to sell you like a pilot's course here?
39:37
It's way past that. It's way past that. Willie Oates the It's way past that. It's coming in February. Willie! It's gonna be fun! I wanna be like, Willie is like, why am I crying? Alright, so Willie's like, it's two and a half hours, the Berkshire's on a good day. It's 45 minutes. We already blew up.
40:05
So you have a, officially have your pilot's I do not yet. I'm working on it. So I, I'm at a point where I can talk to ATC. I can get you out of the, get you out of the terminal, you out of the takeoff. If you use that plane to go look at real estate. I'm, I'm, I'm, that's why when you said Tennessee, all the way there and I was like, she's not that fucking forward. Where do you, where do you, where's your plane out of?
40:31
Well, I will be, and this is one of the things I didn't recognize before is because when people talk about planes, they're like, well, there's Manchester and there's Logan and there's prop TCCF. This fucking airport. There's airports everywhere. Yeah. I'd be floating my natural where I used to live. My, I've flown out of Nashville. I've flown out of Manchester. I've flown out of Worcester, um, um, Bedford, Hanscom Air Force Base. Oh yeah. Um, and I'd be flying out of Norwood most likely I'd be a hanger in Norwood and, uh, and fly. it's like 20 minutes from my house. ask you how much is your plane cost?
41:01
It would be, shit, this is going to be on public record. This is now you're fucking going to get me in trouble. No, no, no, seriously. Over how many years? so there's, I'll give you, I'll give you a couple, I'll give you contact. So you can buy a Sessom. A lot of people will buy like, it looks like a 1970s yoke is like this. You probably see them flying around. It's what your, what your father would probably fly in. m
41:29
Most of them built, they built newer ones. Those were probably run to 200 grand, right? For a new one? No, no, for an older one. For a A new Cessna, like a new Cessna 172 would probably be 1.2 somewhere around there. Maybe a little bit less. um I got out of that because what, so I was flying the Cessna for a little while and then I went over to Cirrus. If you have any pilots listening, they'd be like, oh, you're not a real pilot because they don't really respect the Cirrus. The Cirrus has a parachute.
41:59
I respect it. that's safety thing. I know that's going be the question. Not a parachute, like on you. I mean, the whole fucking plane has a parachute. It's a safety thing. where do most accidents happen? Unfortunately, it's smaller aircraft. So if there's an issue, this thing pops the parachute out and it floats down and you don't explode. Really? Yeah. Wow. And it's a prop plane? And it's a prop plane. Yeah. So I'm...
42:25
I converted, I've been flying the Cessna for seven or eight months now. My landings, need to, you know, clean them up a little bit. The, the, if you have, give me a calm day, I can kiss the runway and get you where you need to be. It's the crosswinds that are, that I'm still trying to, to navigate now. Um, and any like extended downwinds, the ATs, like the tower will say, okay, you know, there's a, uh, you know, jet coming in, you need to extend your downwind and, you know, extend your pattern a little bit.
42:53
Okay, it kind of throws me off because now I have to unfold the pattern. It's, But the Cessnas, I would say brand new with fully loaded G7, everything else is roughly 900,000. Wow. And what's the distance that you can fly before refueling? you can do, so can fly like a... Are you stopping to refuel? Yeah, SR20.
43:19
You can get the SR22s, which has more power, a little bit more, the crowd start like 1.2, something like that. you get to Tennessee? No, you'd probably have to stop somewhere along the lines to refuel and then get there. It's cool though. We should start a spin-off called Aviation Evidence. for now, I love that this is what makes you you. And it's gotten you back like centered.
43:46
And I respect that. think we, think, you know, I say this as somebody who doesn't have kids, but like, think often, especially like that's the trigger for like losing yourself. I see this in my friends. It's not a criticism necessarily, but it's just like, you know, like your entire life and it's all revolving. It's hard. Yeah. It's very hard. And then if you're looking, if you're someone who's also responsible for looking backwards, becomes even different, more difficult, right? If you're, if you're, if your parents are good, then it's one thing, but if your parents and your in-laws are not,
44:15
Okay. Then you're looking forward. You're trying to take care of yourself and also looking backwards. And that becomes incredibly difficult. So yeah, I need the fly. It's fricking incredibly expensive. That's you're on Airbnb. Yeah. So it was funny because I broke my foot um around the same time I like maxed out a credit card and like my, my flight instructor was like, Hey, sending you an invoice, the credit card you had on file was maxed out. like, all right, covered the invoice.
44:42
Oh yeah, by the way, I'm going to be out for like six weeks because I broke my puts. was like the most convenient accident that I've ever had. I'm grateful for these new places right now. That's funny. You know, but yeah, I'm going to finish up. The plan is to get my license sometime this summer. Um, and then my, my, my, I have a deposit on the plane right now and it'll be delivered in February or first quarter, uh, 2027. That's awesome. I think we're almost coming up on time. I have one question and we can.
45:11
cut this if you want. Is it more about Willie's grandma? No. So obviously we live in a, like the developer community in Massachusetts is very white, right? So, you know, coming into this as a black man, like how, did you experience any challenges as a black man in development in Boston or Massachusetts or whatever? I just wanted to.
45:38
your side and your experience and, you know, any challenges that you may or may not have had? Um, I think... Poor areas where it was advantageous since there's been a huge push for MBEs and that sort of thing too, you know? I think it's been neutral on both sides, to be honest with you. Because, and again, I'm not just saying not to try to say neutral, because I'll get controversial, but I mean, I don't think there were... There's certain challenges that I've faced and were more or less...
46:10
peer groups, right? It's kind of like, you, it wasn't more educational, it wasn't access, it was more or less, you know, where do you go for support, right? In the black community or especially in development in Boston, there are not a lot of major developers, not a lot of really guys doing what you guys are doing. it's, I think for being a black man, you tend to lean on people who look like you, who have similar past experiences, but in this space,
46:39
That's difficult, right? Ray, to your point, the MEPs or other, there's nothing there. I mean, I know Boston. I've been to all those work-for-workshops. Specifically Boston, that's been pushed very heavily. I've been to all those workshops in developing Blue Hill Ave and developing this and all that. Then maybe some politicians are gonna listen to your podcast, be really pissed about me. That's not me about this shit, but there's nothing that's all right. I've been to all It's an honest review. I'll give you a perfect example. I've been to the meetings and they were like, hey,
47:07
you know, we're gonna give you this piece of land, but we want you to sell the condos at like 350 a pop or something like that. I'm like, you're not gonna pay for me to take the land? Exactly. I'm like, do you understand what it costs to build? I'm like, you clearly don't understand like why anybody's not. Once you do, like, I mean, you guys know, mean, a lackadaisical baseline three family is gonna cost you a million bucks, right? I mean, at the end of the day, what the fuck am I making? It just, I mean, it makes more sense if you just stick in the private market and continue to go, you know, there. Now, Dan said go deeper into your question.
47:36
I think I'm unique because of the, um what do call it, the crew that I have or the exposure that I have through Boston Wealth Builders, right? I know a lot of the Dans and the Rays and the Marks of the world, but if I don't have Boston Wealth Builders and I'm not part of that network, I didn't start that network and I'm trying to get into this business, I think there is a little bit of a difficulty. But I don't think it's a political difficulty. I don't think it's a...
48:02
resources or anything like that. I've never had a problem with any banks. Needham bank loves me. know, Renovo loves me. I never had a problem with the lenders. If you, if you have the credit and you have the assets and your business plan makes sense in your track record, makes sense. You're great. And you guys know, um, I started off in South Boston. started off with capital residential group, capital equity partners, Andrew Shana. um It loved the guy.
48:27
love that John Collins loved that team. Darren Swain loved that team because they've always been super open since day one. We came, we did a development together on 200 West 8th. know, Andrew didn't pay me a lot of money on it, you know, I mean. He's a friend of the pub. So the industry, one thing I would say to people of color, your listeners, if they're listening to this podcast is,
48:57
You know, the industry, though it is not very colorful, is still very open. There's never been, I've never really approached any of you guys or anybody else who said, you know, I felt like they were gatekeeping, uh you know, information. You know, I think as an industry, what a lot of people don't understand is that we, it's not a secret, you know, it's not, we don't, we, you know, we want to help each other. look at each other as colleagues and that can actually be very lonely in this industry. So when you find somebody who's interested in the same things that you're interested in, you tend to be a little bit more sharing with them.
49:26
Can I ask you one follow up? Sure. And the answer to this might be no, absolutely not. I don't, I've never seen that, but I watched Shark Tank and I think the biggest shark is actually Lori Grineer. And I think the people she takes advantage of are women who come in and they pitch their thing and she's like, you need a strong woman on the other side of this. I'm here for you. And then offers a terrible term. And the other shark next to like Kevin might be an asshole, but he just offered you a better deal. I just, don't know if that's it.
49:54
Is that a thing? I don't know if it's a word of caution for somebody out there. can be. It can be. I think I try my best to encourage people of color. Yeah. But not, and again, this is one of the things I told you. I took a couple of years off because it was, you know, the industry can be wary in some respects, but there are some people out there that try to focus their business around black and white too often, right? And not around the business. Great.
50:23
I mean, we're all here to make green, not, you know, like I said, divide one another. I try to, I acknowledge someone of color and say, or not even just someone of color, women in the business, because this is a white male dominated industry, right? So even women in the business, I would say that I'm more likely to pick up your call, more likely to give you an extra couple of minutes of my time and go out of my way because I understand
50:51
there can be a difficulty in terms of representation in the industry. I feel like it's been politicized more so. I agree with you. I agree with you. I think it's if you go on Instagram or you go on social and Facebook, and this is the problem, this goes back to what we talked about. You and I grew up without the pressures of social media right behind us. it's been around, I'm the same age as Mark Zuckerberg, so it's been around.
51:19
the good majority of my life or at least half of my life, but it wasn't, you know, those early years, I didn't have those pressures that the kids growing up now have where it's everything is, you know, going off topic here, the other thing that I had to get away from, and this is real, and I would tell your listeners or, you know, the people that are listening to this podcast is you have to figure out what the hell you want to do with your life and stay focused on that in the business. think too much uh time is spent looking at what Ricky's doing, looking at what Mark is doing, looking at the
51:47
beautiful pictures you guys post on Instagram. It's too much. I get caught, I was 40 something years old getting caught up in the same thing. Like Dan and Ray are building these beautiful buildings. And I was kind of like, but that's not your business model. So why do you have to look at what they're doing? And there's a certain level of jealousy in FOMO and you have to try to emulate that. Just stay in your lane, do what you do and become great at what you do. And that's very difficult to do, but that's the beauty and the gift and the curse that is social media is just like, you see these people out there,
52:17
And everybody posts the most beautiful shit. There's all the successes and everything else. one goes on a podcast to brag about their losses. No one goes on the podcast and brags about the prostitute they just evicted. Yeah. I think that's a great place to leave it. This has been amazing. We appreciate you being so open. Appreciate it. Yeah. Can you give a plug to our audience for adding reviews and ratings? Watch the camera. Watch camera. Sit down. If you can see me, Real Estate Addicts, these guys are
52:47
Best in the business. Best of the business. Definitely leave them a review. Subscribe YouTube, Apple podcasts, um real estate addicts, a ton of good information. I've known, you know, all three of these guys for over a decade. um And again, I wouldn't be here if they didn't have the credibility and the abilities that they do in the business. So we appreciate that. And then also plug in wealth builders, Boston wealth builders. ah
53:14
Boston wealth builders.com join the group completely free. Willie Mandrell.com you can go there. I do some consulting work, some courses. And then if you're interested in the Berkshires, the Berkshire 10.com. Thanks for listening. Yeah. Reviewing we blew through music. So we'll see you guys in the next one.