This last couple of years, I really took a lot of time to get the knowledge that I needed, especially with my partners, learning a lot from them. So for this year, right now, multifamily market’s pretty much at the bottom. There’s no way but to go up. Obviously after we started showing them that we’re able to close, we’re able to operate, we’re able to sell, obviously we built that trust with organizations out there where they just started bringing deals to us. Trying to force a deal to work. I want to say that’s one of the biggest mistakes. You can’t force numbers. You have to go with data. You have to go with the numbers. You have to make sure that everything lines up, all your T12s, expenses, your NOI, everything matches. There’s a lot of uncertainties out in the world right now and a lot of investors are afraid what’s going to happen. They’re pretty much just sitting on their money. They’re still sitting on their money more than we expected it. So I want to say the challenge is that raising capital a little bit.

Welcome to the Real Estate Masters Podcast where we bring you the top real estate investors in the country. If you also want to be in the top 1%, you are in the right place. Listening to podcasts like this is exactly what helped me to scale my real estate investing business to seven figures, flip over a thousand houses and more importantly, step out of daily operations of my business over a decade ago so I could start and grow other businesses. So get ready to learn from the best and start building a business that works for you and not the other way around. Enjoy.

What’s going on guys? Eric, thank you so much for taking the time. I know you’ve been in both single family and commercial. I’m curious what your take is on going from single family to commercial and when do most people kind of make that switch?

Yeah. I mean for most people, obviously it’s a strategic plan. They’ll start off doing single family for X amount of years until they’re ready to move on to the next step. For me, it was a little different. For me, it kind of happened by accident or by fate, you might want to call it. I did single family for a few years. I started in 2019 and obviously right after 2019, what happened? COVID. I mean, it was well, my run was well until COVID and then I was living the West Coast. I was living in Oregon, lived for half of my life and then flipping Airbnbs, midterm rentals. And I went to California to play with the big boys flipping million dollar homes over there. And it went well for a couple. And after that, 2023 happened, went down, made some bad choices, investments, kind of lost it all, to be honest. Lost everything. I had to start all over again. And it was a very humbling experience for me. I felt like it showed me a lot of stuff that I needed to learn as a business owner, even spiritually too. So I decided to pack the bags and start all over again and move to Texas. I know I have a good friend here, my partner now and partners, him and his friend. And they also did single family. And now that they’ve been doing strictly commercial for the last eight years, nine years almost. And he’s like, “Hey, come try it out. ” So I came, tried out, visited for a few weeks and never left.

As someone that also moved from California to Texas, it is quite the good move, I will say. Yes. What got you into real estate in the first place, 2019? What got you into it?

Yeah, it’s interesting. I used to be a firefighter and I did that for many years. I got to experience what firefighting was from city, single family, firefighting to all the way to forest fires and I loved it. I enjoyed it. It was my passion, helping people. And there was an incident where I was on the mission and I had obviously all my gear with me and I had to run to save someone and I got to the person, saved them her on the way back. We both fell. We both ate it. But then luckily I got back up and obviously finished the mission basically. Unfortunately, afterwards my back was hurting a lot and it wouldn’t go away. Going to a hospital, getting checked, I ended up having a thing called the generic … I ended up triggering a thing called degenerative disc disease. So I had to either just stay in office duty for the rest of my life or retire. I decided to retire and I started looking to many other careers out there and I tried some and I realized that I was not a good employee. It just wasn’t meant for me. I was listening on my way home one of those times at my new career and it was a radio commercial about flipping homes. And it was by this guy called Stan Merrill with Fortune Builders. Not sure if you guys heard of them or not. That’s what started off, that radio commercial.

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For the people listening, what does the business look like today?

Today in commercial?

Yeah.

I mean, this year looks great. Okay. I’ll be honest, the last couple of years hasn’t been the greatest, but I think for, like I said earlier, things happened for a reason. I do believe that God has his timing and everything at least with everyone. In my example, the last two years that it hasn’t been great with multifamily, it really helped me really learn the multifamily game, the commercial game. Because I knew a lot about residential, but I didn’t know much about commercial. So this last couple of years, I really took a lot of time to get the knowledge that I needed, especially with my partners, learning a lot from them. So for this year, now that we’re going to, right now, multifamily market’s pretty much at the bottom. There’s no way but to go up. So we’re just getting ready for this big boom that’s coming. I love it.

I love it. What was the main problem that you were trying to solve when starting back in 2019? I mean, obviously you get let go or retire and you’re kind of trying to find almost a purpose and a sense, but what led you to real estate? Obviously the radio, but what was the problem, the root problem that got you to real estate?

I was always that kind of person who liked to drive around and just look at properties. Had no idea why. I love doing it. And I will drive around with my wife and she was like, “What are we doing?” I was like, “Just looking at houses.” They intrigued me for some reason and I never knew why. And that day I heard the radio show, I tried it out. I went to the one-day seminar, then the three-day seminar, and then I signed up and did the whole course. But what triggered it is that I realized that it was a avenue for me where it can challenge me mentally, spiritually, and not only that, but just at the same time, if you think about it, you’re helping families out, on family at a time. And it gave me the purpose and I guess the emptiness I was feeling inside of not knowing what to do next after being a firefighter and it filled me up with joy.

I love that. When it comes to commercial, I’m sure it’s very different than residential, but what are some key strategies that you guys are using right now to find properties?

So key strategies. So there is a couple things that we do strategically. However, thanks to my partners, George and Eric, they already have a huge followers in the Dallas area especially. So we’re blessed that we have a lot of brokers and a lot of relationships that they just bring the deals to us. Also, we’re part of other mentor groups and stuff like that and a lot of people just start bringing deals to us. But one of the strategic ways is that one. We joined other mentor groups, commercial real estate mentor groups who are just starting and are looking for sponsors, main sponsors to help them close deals. So they will go out and find the deal for us. If the deal makes sense to us and it fits our buy box, then we’ll move to the next step with them. The second is, again, I touched this a little earlier, relationships. We built a lot of relationships, especially beginning of the years, a lot of relationship with brokers, sellers, banks. And obviously after we started showing them that we were able to close, we were able to operate, we were able to sell, obviously we built that trust with organizations out there where they just started bringing deals to us.

That’s awesome. What mistakes do you often see investors make in the commercial space that you think could be really easily avoided?

I want to say during underwriting, trying to force a deal to work. I want to say that’s one of the biggest mistakes. You can’t force numbers. You have to go with data. You have to go with the numbers. You have to make sure that everything lines up, all your T12s, all your expenses, your NOI, everything matches. And you know where it’s going to be moving forward in the next five years. Most of the average holds are three to five years. So you want to make sure that you’re underwriting for that. And I would say to be conservative, always be conservative when underwriting. And some people are not very conservative.

Yeah, a little more risky, for sure. What do you think separates the top operators in commercial to everyone else in your experience?

Relationships, having a team and having a system.

It seems very simple when you break it down. Yeah. The word success really intrigues me. I feel like everyone’s got their own definition, their own way of measuring it, their own way of striving for it. How do you measure the word success? How do you define the word success and how do you strive for it every day?

I used to think success was when I had all the money in the world and I was back then living homes and I was doing amazing. But again, there was still something empty inside of me until I came to the realization and I realized when I moved here to Texas that success is just being able to have control over my life and be there every minute of my time for my family because I do have my wife and I do have four kids.

Oh, awesome.

So that was a success for me when I’m able to go out with my family, be there for my family at any time in any given day.

Four kids, that’s a lot. How do you juggle being a dad of four, a husband and doing deals? I mean, it’s tough. How do you juggle that and what do you set to yourself as far as standards for each side of that coin?

So again, with me, it’s a little different. The case with my four kids. I did have them very young a very young age. I had to start working, being a man at a very young age, where most people are still trying to finish high school. I was taking care of kids, my kids. And so now as of right now, my youngest is 16. Yeah, it’s obviously a little easier now to maneuver around the business and family. And the other part is the team that we have in place. Thanks to our property management team, our construction team and insurance team, everybody inside of the companies are able to pretty much handle our day-to-day responsibilities.

Awesome. Awesome. What do you think is the biggest challenge in real estate right now in the actual market itself?

Honestly, with my role, it’s capital raising and I want to say that’s one of the biggest challenges right now, capital. There’s a lot of uncertainties out in the world right now and a lot of investors are afraid what’s going to happen and they’re pretty much just sitting on their money. They’re still sitting on their money more than we expected it. So I would say the challenge is that moving capital a little

Bit. Yeah. If you were going to start from scratch today, let’s say the business goes away, everything goes away, you get to keep all the knowledge that you’ve learned over the years, but everything goes away and you were going to try and rebuild what you have now, what would you focus on first? What would be the absolute one thing that you were like, “I need to attack this first?”

Building relationships. Relationships is key in commercial real estate. It’s your network.

If you were going to rebuild, the flip coin of that question is, would you stay in commercial or would you go to residential? Which one do you enjoy more?

No, I would stay in commercial.

Okay.

No more residential.

Sorry. No more.

No more. No more homeowners not liking the color of the floor or the color of the wall and their emotions all over the place. Commercial is strictly business, strictly numbers.

Fair enough. What drives you to keep innovating, keep pushing and striving?

My family, for sure. That is my big why. Retiring my parents, that’s another big why. And another very important one to me is giving back to younger men. I did have a rough life growing up and now I have opened up my own nonprofit organization where I do have a men’s group and I help men with their faith, their purpose in life and any recovery or any trauma they’re going through. And that’s what really helps this, helps financially help and just changing people’s lives. I figured that’s what I’ve been doing ever since I was firefighting and I still keep doing it, thank God.

I love that. I’m sure you have had a lot of people in this space that help you, but who do you think’s been the biggest influence or mentor for you in this space?

When I started real estate, the biggest at that time was San Maro when it came to single family. And then when I did the transition to commercial, it was biggerpockets.com. And then when I met my partners now, George Abreu and Eric Bariwalla, they have been one of the most humble and very knowledgeable people that I’ve ever met. And I’m super grateful and super thankful for the opportunity they have given me and the knowledge that they have shared with me.

That’s awesome. I love that. Where can people find you? Where can people reach out to you if someone’s interested in maybe putting money in your deals or just learning more about what you do, or maybe they have a deal. Where can people find you? Where can people connect with you?

Yeah, I mean on our website, definitely they can reach out there. It’s elevate my shirt, cig.com, or they could just hit me up on Instagram. It’s Eric, E-R-I-K underscore the investor.

Awesome. Eric, thank you so much for taking the time. I appreciate you. Everyone, thanks for watching and we’ll see you next time.

Awesome. Thank you, bud. Appreciate it.