Important Factors For Scaling A Successful Real Estate Investment Business

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Today s guest is Carlos Vaz Carlos is an esteemed real estate investment expert with a remarkable track record of over 2 5 billion in real estate transactions He is the Founder and Chief Executive Officer of CONTI Capital a leading real estate investment company that has successfully managed more than 12 500 units and facilitated transactions totaling 1 3 billion With over 15 years of experience in multifamily housing and real estate investment Carlos is recognized as an award-winning entrepreneur and thought leader in the industry ————————————————————– Building an External Team 00 00 00 Starting in Real Estate Investment 00 01 13 Elevating Oneself Out of the Day-to-Day Grind 00 06 26 Creating Scale 00 07 42 Empowering Leaders 00 09 20 Building an External Team 00 11 28 Building an External Team 00 14 00 Protecting Your Time 00 14 31 Importance of Company Culture 00 16 27 Building a Company Culture 00 20 57 Multifamily Space and Fundraising 00 23 52 Contacting Conti Capital 00 25 25 ————————————————————– Connect with Carlos Web https conticapital com Connect with Sam I love helping others place money outside of traditional investments that both diversify a strategy and provide solid predictable returns Facebook https www facebook com HowtoscaleCRE LinkedIn https www linkedin com in samwilsonhowtoscalecre Email me sam brickeninvestmentgroup com SUBSCRIBE and LEAVE A RATING Listen to How To Scale Commercial Real Estate Investing with Sam Wilson Apple Podcasts https podcasts apple com us podcast how-to-scale-commercial-real-estate id1539979234 Spotify https open spotify com show 4m0NWYzSvznEIjRBFtCgEL si e10d8e039b99475f ————————————————————– Want to read the full show notes of the episode Check it out below Carlos Vaz 00 00 00 – who is your external team You need to find a good real estate attorney Hey go talk to some people Hey who is gonna be my good real estate attorney Uh title companies get to know who is good title Companies get to know who are the top three five brokers in that supermarket Go have cough of them Go talk to these guys They say listen what do you guys are seeing So externally you need to be able to build your external first right A good insurance company Hey who is a good local insurance company I can talk to So number one you need to create your external team Welcome Intro 00 00 30 – To the How to Scale commercial real Estate show Whether you are an active or passive investor we ll teach you how to scale your real estate investing business into something big Sam Wilson 00 00 42 – Carlos VA is a real estate investment expert with a remarkable track record of over two and a half billion dollars in real estate transactions He s the founder and c e o of Conti Capital which is a leading real estate investment company that has successfully managed more than 12 500 units Carlos welcome to the show Carlos Vaz 00 01 00 – Hey thank you Sam Great to be here Sam Wilson 00 01 02 – Absolutely It s club Glad to have you here Carlos There are three questions I ask every guest who comes to the show in 90 seconds or less Can you tell me where did you start Where are you now and how did you get there Carlos Vaz 00 01 13 – Oh nine seconds or less right I start in Dallas Texas That s uh it s home in uh 2008 I bought my first property in March of 2008 So when everybody was running running away I was running towards the business So that s uh when I started Sam Wilson 00 01 30 – Where d you start Where are you now Carlos Vaz 00 01 33 – Uh right now we re in Dallas Texas We have done over 2 5 billion in uh in transactions We sold a lot of property sold almost 7 000 units in the last two years Wow Uh now I mean we re really building a bigger portfolio right We re just closing our fourth fund Um and uh and we have another closing in the next set I would say four weeks Okay Property or buying Sam Wilson 00 01 57 – Okay So you guys are you you guys are are uh you re busy You ve sold a bunch here there So very very busy You ve grown a company from in March of 2008 I guess what let s let s let s go back to that What gave you the confidence in March of 2008 to say man now is the time to start buying real estate Carlos Vaz 00 02 16 – It s not I mean confidence is a I think that s a it s a function of a lot of knowledge that we re always applying that people are surround yourself with right Because I don t I I I believe that no man is an island Right That s a that s important You should be always be learning make yourself better So the confidence in 2008 was come back to some fundamentals right You re looking for in 2008 you re buying you re buying per pound you re buying cheap So the the confidence came that hey some of the properties I m looking 2008 I cannot even build for this price So it s the the gap is it s too big right If I m able to buy some propers like that one we know can make money So that was a little bit of confidence right You had the knowledge you start to apply and that the numbers now start to make sense Granted it was a horrible time to trying to raise money to talk to a lender and um and all the above right Sam Wilson 00 03 11 – Uh absolutely And you went you went directly into multi-family in March of 2008 Carlos Vaz 00 03 16 – That s exactly I I I mean myself I was born in Brazil originally Have been in the US now for almost 23 years Mm-hmm So I came here 300 in my pocket Wow Sam Wilson 00 03 26 – So I didn t Carlos Vaz 00 03 27 – I didn t have much my my rent was three 50 so my p n l was negative day one Um so my first job actually was work at a at the law office uh a non-paid internship from 8 00 AM to three Uh I was working at the newspaper warehouse from 2 00 AM to six Uh then work at uh T G I Fridays over the weekend and going to school during that night So that s my that was my my beginning And um uh there in Boston I got myself involved in construction working as an assistor carpenter started learning doing the odd jobs That s how the first county was created County construction county s name after my mom it was a county va So that s where county comes from Uh our first company was to do small jobs that start growing I believe that everything that you do if we do of integrity of values start to grow right Carlos Vaz 00 04 18 – It might take a little bit longer And that small company starts growing Then a friend of mine was in the mortgage Hey let s work together You know a lot of people if someone wanna buy a house you let me know I ll do the finance and you do the renovation Sure Teach me I start learn about mortgages Then from oh five to oh seven did over 32 uh 32 houses in the greater Boston area Got early 2007 is should good to be true And that s another conversation by itself I sold all the houses in May of uh in May of 2007 and I start learning about multi-family taking courses Um C C I M I m I I m strong believer in C C I M some of the organizations reading books and everything else And and the data showed that Dallas was the place to be So that s what brought me to Dallas And then up finding the first property in closing March of 2008 Sam Wilson 00 05 09 – Wow Wow I love I I always love the um they re not the rags to Rich s story but it s it is that in its own right It s it s the hustle it s the grit it s the grind It is the yeah Starting with no handouts I don t believe in handouts The no handouts mentality of of go get it done People ask me that like how how did you get where you are I was like well I was hungry That s how we got Carlos Vaz 00 05 34 – 100 Yeah Sam Wilson 00 05 34 – Yeah I was hungry And and I can imagine that s that sounds like the same story for you being negative uh what you call negative 50 bucks on your p and l outta the gate Yeah Carlos Vaz 00 05 43 – Yeah It s I I think never underestimate the the power of grit right You re going and uh and if you look at nowadays the access information like someone listen to this podcast it s priceless because you start really getting nuggets Right Right I think that s the most important thing We should never stop learning Never stop learning right And these nuggets are priceless So good to you Sam Wilson 00 06 08 – How Well thank you And I m glad it s good It s cuz a great guest like you that come on and share those nuggets that we even have a show So thank you for that What what is it how did you elevate yourself out of the weeds So many people are I forget what book it is I m sure you can quote it but we re emit what s that Carlos Vaz 00 06 26 – Emmit Yeah Sam Wilson 00 06 27 – They were they saying Carlos Vaz 00 06 28 – On their business right Yeah Sam Wilson 00 06 30 – The entrepreneurial seizure is that what he calls it They re working in their business Carlos Vaz 00 06 33 – The entrepreneurial myth Sam Wilson 00 06 35 – Yeah How how did you elevate yourself out of that Because I can only imagine running a full-time construction company renovating homes things like that It would be hard to then think about what it looks like to grow beyond the day-to-day grind of of being in the whirlwind Carlos Vaz 00 06 52 – Well it it is you said something good Well Michael Gerber that s the that s the entrepreneurial myth I work in our business work on our business right So uh we are our best friends yet we re the best the worst enemies So and we wake up in the morning and both are your on our shoulders right So you know in each which one are you gonna look I think Sam my perspective is that when uh or so oh I need to make money I need to make money And of course money is really important but then you see I need to do it myself because if I don t do it nobody knows how to do right So it comes that idea of trust and what does it look like in the beginning right I have to trust someone else that we can find a way to do any type of partnership or something that even at the I would rather make less money but create scale Carlos Vaz 00 07 42 – There s something can be said about creating scale Because if you become a one man show you are a hundred percent liable yourself God forbid you get sick or something your business shuts down completely So you need to be able to hold on a second I am the worst liability myself I need to stop I I cannot be working seven days a week man When I was doing renovation I used to bring my mattress work until 2 00 AM taking a nap and waking up at six and doing again and again and again Right How long can it do that I mean and if you re gonna build a family or something else right So what s the point Right Do you wanna have a heart attack in your forties It s uh so I think the first idea is say hold on a second I I need to find some people that uh that I can I can work together and I m okay if I m okay Carlos Vaz 00 08 36 – If I I don t make as much money but I can trust they re gonna be able to finish something there then I ll be able to create scale The first thing the first thing scale in my mind came this project manager I had the project manager who had been working together He was doing a good job and said listen and uh why don t you do the following If if you start taking care of the whole project of the renovation yourself and you deliver this on time this is how much more I m willing to pay you I m gonna give you a 20 increase And the guy was blown away No but I but this you and I are gonna meet now instead of me be on the site five days a week I m gonna be on the site every Friday We re gonna meet at this time but you run all the projects let s test the first one Carlos Vaz 00 09 20 – We test the first one uh was working and say all right so can I give the second one What that allows me to do allows me to stop being in the business looking on the business now hey now I can get another house another house another house Not a house not a house You re just trying to look at that scale When you go to where we are today of course much bigger than everything else My main thing is that how we can find the best leaders in the company and empower them so they can make the decisions themselves Right I believe the best decisions are the ones that the trunk that that the branch can make without getting get it to the trunk Right Sam Wilson 00 09 58 – That s brilliant I love that And that s right in keeping you know with the name of the show it s how to scale Like how how do we scale and how you know commercial real estate But it you know how do you scale anything And I think I think it is it is exactly what you have just described there where it s then moving to that managerial role Every Friday we re gonna have a meeting in review and then you know you re gonna make more money and I m gonna be less involved And that s I think that s a brilliant way to do it What how did you in the uh multi-family space how did you what were some of the first team members you brought on that that or or maybe even some of the tasks if you can remem remember back that far that you said I ve gotta get these things and this off of my desk in order to move this company along in a meaningful way Carlos Vaz 00 10 44 – Okay so I I look at that one from true perspective right First it becomes you at that one man show right Right So picture myself I I I got your math right Hey Carlos hey it s different right So they ll be different But let s say I got your math as in your backyard Sam I wanna start my I wanna start look at I i first I order you need to create your external team Who is your external team You need to find a good real estate attorney Hey go talk to some people Hey who is gonna be my good real estate attorney Uh title companies get to know who is good title companies get to know who are the top three five brokers in that supermarket Go have coffee of them Go talk to these guys and say listen what do you guys are seeing So externally you need to be able to build your external first right Carlos Vaz 00 11 28 – A good insurance company hey who is a good local insurance company can talk to So number one you need to create your external team So that s when new business arch and then you close your first deal right You look now your business you close the first one When you are gonna close the your your first one you need what s the next what am you doing today And what I want to what are the things I want to do And I don t wanna do more important things that you wanna do Is that what I don t wanna do Yeah Right So uh so for example if you don t like the property management side so your job is all right I need to step out I don t need to get involved in the property management How can you interview some good property management and make sure that you hold them accountant Carlos Vaz 00 12 12 – That that would be one You can say that you know what one thing that I always tell people right You are as good as your book If you re your books right you are as good as your books If you don t if you re not an accountant per se you better go find a very good accounting firm or a bookkeeper that you can hire internally right That s gonna save you a lot a lot of headache So your books has to be really really sharp So perhaps the first person need to hire it might be the bookkeeper someone that can or maybe a small accounting firm that you can outsource that one Do not try to do the books by yourself I mean I rule number one right And then as uh the first person that we hired in our firm back then I I need to have a a real estate analyst because you start to look at deals right Carlos Vaz 00 13 02 – And I don t have time to find the deals do the underwriting do all this stuff right The first person I had to hire was a real estate analyst that was able to start look at the deals with me and and let s go meet some brokers Let s see what s happening start putting some notes So that was that was a big uh a little bit of relief right Um that was and the second person that we hired back then was a junior uh asset manager mm-hmm someone that said and now we have the properties but how are we able to hold the the property managers accountable who can have this asset manager that can can help us So that was the initial so the first phase you you you you are taking people that they start to do is some things that you are doing the next phase You want to hire people with more knowledge they re gonna take over the department so they re gonna start doing things that you not even know how to do That s the next level Right Sam Wilson 00 14 00 – That makes that makes a lot of sense And I ve not heard that quite it s clearly articulated uh probably here before on the show but I but I like that thought process where it s where it s at first it is getting things off It s bringing peop people on If I can recap what you said and make sure I understand this right getting people to to to take the task off of your desk that are not necessarily value adds to the business Like here you do this and once you ve done that then move to bringing on department heads that can then grow the company that are you know like you said doing things that you don t even know how to do Carlos Vaz 00 14 31 – Yeah And and and the other thing what s your greatness right And and when I say greatness put the ego at the door right I always say that ego stays at the door Right What s your greatness wanna look at Sam for example Hey maybe Sam has great value He s able to talk to brokers better than anyone else and he is able to find deals I m like it s priceless Hey we need to protect Sam s time because that s where he s gonna give us the 10 x right Anything else not related to that Let s make sure that we re Hey he s not doing Sam Wilson 00 14 59 – Right right right Oh absolutely Absolutely I like the idea That s a good that s a good nugget there Protecting your time Cuz that s that s something that s so hard to uh to do especially in the whirlwind I mean you know it s just tough Carlos Vaz 00 15 16 – I mean it s tough and at the end of the day right good is the enemy of great So it s it cannot be good What s the point of being good in 10 things if you cannot be excellent and great in one thing Right So find the one thing that you re great off Cuz if you re good you re gonna become average right Right I mean yeah Tell me the an average I mean football team Sam Wilson 00 15 41 – Right No no they don t make it to the Super Bowl I ll tell you that Exactly They don t make it to the Super Bowl at all That s that s I like that idea An average football team Oh congratulations You re an average Yeah Carlos Vaz 00 15 52 – yes Look at that Sam Wilson 00 15 54 – You don t win anything Good job Um yeah I like that Let s talk a little bit So you ve given us some some wonderful insight there on talent but once you ve built that talent at what point in time in the trajectory of your business did you really um focus on culture Where did you where did you come in and say look we ve gotta really infuse more of what Carlos believes in and the kind of the philosophy that you wanna do instill inside of your business Where did that come into play Carlos Vaz 00 16 27 – I would say um as soon as I realize if you don t have culture is everything right As soon as I realize I have been doing this wrong in a very wrong way Hmm Uh so it s a because okay so now here you have you are the you re gonna hire a couple of people and you re gonna go to work What for what are you guys doing and how do you know how to hire people What if you if you have horrible hiring decision you know I mean the the the worst thing you can do is hire the wrong person because you spend a lot of time training the wrong person and the wasting your time and the other person s time right So it was a lot of kind of I mean really his lap on my face I said Carlos that s not the and and being this lifelong learner right Carlos Vaz 00 17 17 – Like I said being a lifelong learner is is important And you always need to be your biggest fan Yet your biggest critic say like huh how can I it was this idea of culture I think starts over 10 years ago Uh we have been in business for 15 So the first four years you re trying you re seeing you start to hiring people but these people are not staying And why did you hire that person again Hey raise your hand if you have not made the hiring mistake right Hey we all have those hiring mistakes And I said how the heck will hire this guy Then the first idea came to mind is that hold on a second we need to fire fire that find a better harm process Hey hey I need to have better questions to ask during the interview And then when you ask those questions that okay I m asking these questions but what s my company value Carlos Vaz 00 18 06 – I mean what s my core values as a as as a company right And makes no sense So now it was important for me to uh let s stop And there are many books out there that you can read about company val values core values right Uh what do you stand for Hey these are the values like behind me on the other side here that s our core values there right So if you can see this integrity excellence right Lifelong learner right That s so all this defines who we are at the end of the day So 10 years ago said listen we need to put the core values in place that help us to see a little bit how to hire better people And the other thing too Sam what was interesting is that you start to hold yourself accountable even more So the beauty about like the beauty about having core values is like it s like you you are wearing that 25 pound jacket right It gets heavy but it it gives you accountability right People know that you hold themself accountable and that one start to generate So it was a lot of uh mistakes that I personally have made in the past that force me if unless I have a company culture that I can relate Because whichever you think is what it s who you re gonna become And that s what we re gonna be saying So that s that s where the the the culture became so important to us today I can say culture is the number one priority on my book Sam Wilson 00 19 36 – Right In that in that culture I would argue and maybe you can tell me if I m wrong but having that culture is probably what now begets the talent that you need Carlos Vaz 00 19 46 – 100 and I for good and for bad right So you ve gotta be interviewing a bunch of people and then no no no no Why does it take three months to find one person Yeah Or four months But we re not the best people that that you that you I mean when um when you when you you won a very in a very emotional way hire someone Do you know when you when you interview someone and say wow this person s amazing right You live in the room and walk a little bit more and you re like oh that s Sam guy Wow The guy was he s one of us So that that s how and I wanna wanna have that one of us I m like okay let s bring this guy on board Sam Wilson 00 20 27 – Right now That makes that makes that makes a lot of sense What are some things you do to really just make sure that that culture stays front and center Because a lot of times I think organizations will make all these fancy you know these are our core values and they go on a sign somewhere and then that sign just collects dust and that s the end of it And you might think about it again at next year s you know the whatever retreat call officer s retreat whatever you wanna call it but you re like oh hey we gotta pull these outta the drawer and look at em again How do you keep it front and center Carlos Vaz 00 20 57 – Well a couple of things that we do right So uh when we join our company there s there s a book list and uh that s not telling you what you do It s more like those are mandatory books that you have to read right Uh it s uh hey if you join our company you need to be a lifelong learner One of the books there is gonna be this e o s entrepreneur operating system We have been used this this process for over eight years now So on our core values every quarter every single person side of the company you re I mean you re pretty much you re being evaluated based on a core values They get it they want and they have the capacity So every quarter that s part of it right Uh every every um what do we have uh in terms of how you doing the things to live up to those those values once a week right Carlos Vaz 00 21 49 – Every manager they have the one-on-one of their manager their their people the one-on-one which is very important to us Every Monday we have that quick quick sync on every Monday Just make sure that everybody s on the same page Because if you wanna build a company culture you need to build trust And trust sometimes is hard because if you re building trust you might hear some things that you don t wanna hear that s gonna hurt you Hey welcome to life Life is gonna is gonna is gonna punch you Sometimes there s things that you don t wanna hear Hey Carlos when you show up to a meeting like this this is how I felt Really You are like a jerk Ouch Uh hey how can I become a better person next time Uh what do you mean by that Right Uh give that feedback So it s our weekly conversations our monthly meetings that we re gonna have as well Carlos Vaz 00 22 42 – Once a quarter want to have our we re gonna have a meeting with all the company we disclose our financials everything to everyone to see hmm And this is what we achieve in terms of our goals and this is what it didn t achieve of our goals right I think the more you are transparent and it helps a lot right Russia sure We re not perfect We make a lot of mistakes If there s one perfect person in the world please let me know I d like to meet that person uh we ll make a lot of mistakes ourselves but uh that s what makes us great right Sam Wilson 00 23 13 – Man I love that I love the idea uh of building trust in in in building that trust I think goes back to what you said earlier which was you gotta check your ego at the door And that s uh that s very very powerful Carlos you ve given us so many things here to think about We ve talked almost this entire podcast really just around business business organization hiring great talent how to grow a company We haven t even talked about at all what you do in the real estate space which is tons of fun I want to just spend maybe I don t know we got maybe 60 to 90 seconds here left but you guys have sold 7 000 units over the last two years Carlos Vaz 00 23 51 – Uhhuh Yeah Sam Wilson 00 23 52 – You re in the multifamily space You re in uh you re mainly in the Sunbelt states Carlos Vaz 00 23 57 – Yes What Sam Wilson 00 23 58 – Are you doing in the multifamily space today I mean I know many many organizations are pencils down What are you guys doing right now that you feel like sets you apart Carlos Vaz 00 24 07 – Uh again our people and our culture right And the relationships that we have in place We we I mean very happy to where we are We ll close our first or fourth fund Now we re on a process of launch fund five that s coming Uh our fourth fund was 200 million right So uh happy to uh happen to that one Uh look at the fund five We have one close in the next four weeks We re always looking for deals right We re always looking Uh the last year and a half we created our own index in-house So there is a there s a lot of data that we look right currently We look at over 406 points before buy any property It became a very strong uh screening tool for us Um so uh now uh we re looking at deals We we we now have the right relationships It s harder right Uh this year alone we we look at a a little bit over 6 billion in properties to buy one But that s the name of the game It s uh it s the name of the game It s called Discipline uh I mean perseverance and um and doing the best we can on a daily basis Sam Wilson 00 25 14 – Got it I absolutely love it Carlos thank you for taking the time to come on the show today If our listeners want to get in touch with Conti Capital and learn more about you what you guys are doing what is the best way to do that Carlos Vaz 00 25 25 – Just go your website Uh conti capital com That s it Simple was that Sam Wilson 00 25 29 – Perfect Perfect C o n t i capital com That s conti capital com We ll make sure we include that there Also in the show notes Carlos thank you for taking the time to come on the show today I learned so much from you This was an absolute pleasure Carlos Vaz 00 25 41 – Oh my pleasure Sam All the best Sam Wilson 00 25 44 – Hey thanks for listening to the How to Scale Commercial Real Estate Podcast If you can do me a favor and subscribe and leave us a review on Apple Podcast Spotify Google Podcast whatever platform it is you use to listen If you can do that for us that would be a fantastic help to the show It helps us both attract new listeners as well as rank higher on those directories So appreciate you listening Thanks so much and hope to catch you on the next episode Click here to visit this podcast episode