Mistaking to Success With Dave Seymour From A&E's Flipping Boston

Mario
 Sweet. All right. Cool. Hey guys, I'm super excited because today we've got a guest on our show that many of you already know Dave Seymour, who is a, was actually a TV personality on flipping Boston on and agreed to come on the show today. We're going to talk about some awesome real estate discussions. We're talking about business. We're going to talk about life. So, Hey Dave, thank you so much for getting on here. I know you got some good nuggets for these guys and for me. So I got my pen ready. 

 Dave
 Oh, I gotta tell you, Mario, first of all, thank you for having me. Secondly, I got a bag full of nuggets. I got so many nuggets, right? Mistakes are the best nuggets. We'll even talk about those. I'm not perfect, but Hey, thanks for having me on the show. Let's rock and roll. 

 Mario
 Yeah. You're not kidding. Definitely. The mistakes are where the money is made you learn from that stuff the most. So, Hey Dave, let's talk . You're based in Boston. You were obviously on flipping Boston, a very popular TV show that many of us have seen, and also you're investing in real estate. I mean, that's kind of your main business, right. Is real estate syndication and investing. There was something that stood out to me. You're up in Boston. Most of your portfolio, most of what you're investing in is actually down by me in Florida. Maybe give me a, give everybody some insight on kind of how you got into real estate investing and what you're actually doing within your company that allows you to be up in Boston when all your assets are, or most of them are in Florida. 

 Dave
 Yeah. Great question. Look, man. The number one rule of real estate, right, is don't lose the money. The number two rule is checkout rule number one, and this look, we're both right, sophisticated, educated, successful commercial real estate investors. The fundamentals of real estate don't change. Whether it's wholesaling in a single family house contractually and making five grand, which was my first deal or whether it, I mean underwriting right now on a $24 million ground up construction deal in Cape coral. It's the same story all the way through it's fundamentals. So, finding the money, deploying the capital, putting it in as a risk adverse environment is the number one strategy for all of us. You know, it didn't all start there. I'll make it a short story long, not a long story short I'm an immigrant to the states. Don't tell anyone it's a secret. I'm actually from London. 

 Dave
 I am. 

 Mario
 Hear an accent there. Yeah. 

 Dave
 It's messed up burial. You've got the Boston mixed up with a London. You put that in a pot and swirl it around. I dunno what the hell you call it a month, but so, 

 Mario
 Well, the question is how do you pronounce car? That is the only thing I don't care about. Can you follow with the car? 

 Dave
 Yeah. CA CA in Boston, it's a car back home in London. It's a Mo so it's not even a partnership. You know what I mean? Driving a no boat allowed John got a new boat, but you got me on a roll already, man. I'm 18 years old. I'm dating a girl from long island, New York I'm in London in school she's she was T on a teaching program. We fell in lost. I wasn't giving up the relationship. At 20 years old, it seemed like a good idea to emigrate get married. I was going to join the United States air force because my first wife's brother-in-law was actually in the air force. I never did join the air force. That's a story for another day. It involved a copious amounts of alcohol, which is no longer part of my journey. I'm very pleased to say, but I bounced around, look, I always identify kind of myself. 

 Dave
 Mario was a blue collar guy in a white collar world. I did some research on you. I see that your partner with your father, you've got that entrepreneurial influence and that, that structure in which you've been very blessed to grow up in my structure was blessed. It was just different. The best of us advice might that gave me was, work hard. Do your solid eight hours work out don't lie. Don't cheat, don't steal and outflow you'll have enough money to retire when you're 65. It was like, that was it. That was the game. 

 Mario
 Good luck. 

 Dave
 Right. Anyway, look, I came to the states. I bounced around for a little while and I eventually landed up here in new England. And I was very blessed. My first marriage didn't last very long, three years. I was, I, I was married. I had a young son who's now 27 years old, which makes me feel incredibly old. I, I landed a job as a firefighter and a paramedic. I worked in the city of Lynn, Massachusetts and something inside of me, loves the adrenaline. I tested for police departments. I tested for fire departments and I land this job with the fire department and I freaking loved it, brother. I'm not, I'm not gonna sugar coat it in any way. If I could drop a few F-bombs right now, I'd be telling it like it is, but just that adrenaline rush of being contrary to what everybody else is doing around you, right. 

 Dave
 Somebody sees a house on fire. Everybody runs out, we go running in, what I mean? Yeah. Right. That the opposite reaction with that came some real solid comradery. I learned in that environment that the guy or the girl on the left or the right of me really was the foundation for a successful mission for want of a term. If I needed something and I, and they were there, it was good. We're going home at night. If you needed something inside a structural fire and your partners, doing the, the, the, the dance of death running around in circles of exited the building before the job is done, you've got a problem. However, during that period of time, because I'm bringing in my, my working class attitude around finances, I was a financial illiterate. I was a donkey. I found myself in some pretty serious financial challenges because these a-holes kept on giving me these little credit cards called visa or MasterCard. 

 Mario
 Free t-shirt or something. 

 Dave
 Right. Shared right. Shine on the line. You deserve it. You're a good guy. Why don't you refinance your house at 110% it's value day. Okay, buddy. I think I'll do that. That sounds great. Right? Real estate always goes up. It never goes down always. And, and, I was an absolute victim of the b******t of 2006, 7, 8, 9, and 10 to the point where I was working 120 hours a week, Mario, I would work fire department construction on my four days off. And then nights and weekends, retail security. I was like pot roast police. He said in a fricking grocery store, and that was brutal. And I still couldn't make ends meet. And here's the rub, right? That the emotional attachment to that is, why do we go out and trade time for money? Because we want to make money to support our families. Well, how do you support a family? 

 Dave
 You want to spend time with them. You want to love your children. You want to be a husband to your wife or husband to your partner, whatever's out there. But, time trading time for money took me away from the people I loved. There was this consistent oxymoron, this push pull and long story short in 2007. My second marriage s**t, the bed, because I was working so many hours, it was done. It was over brother. Like how can you, how can you be a husband to a wife and a father to a son? If you're never home, texts and phone calls don't work. And my house was in pre-foreclosure. My marriage was done. I was in a very dark place. It's the closest I've ever come to picking up a drink in 32 years was around that period of my life because I was in so much pain. 

 Dave
 I remember screaming to shout at my God, right? We've all got our own definition of a higher power. A God, a guy said to me, one time just, oh, you have to believe is that you're not going to get truth in that. Right? Just ego ease got out ego. He said, just be humble, man. I'm prey. I was in a dark place and I'm like, praying, like crazy. And a commercial came on the radio. I was in my F two 50 commercial comes on the radio and it says, teach me foreclosure, a free seminar, come into your neck of the woods. Have you ever thought about becoming a full-time real estate investor, sign up now at www dot blah, blah, blah. And I'm like, wow. 

 Mario
 Your home is in pre-foreclosure right now. Keep going. 

 Dave
 I'm like, okay, God is good. I reflected back and I started thinking about some of the construction sites I've been working on. I remember there were these groups of people that showed up to these construction sites, Mario, that weren't covered in crap that didn't have crappy clothes and crappy trucks who didn't have bad attitudes. They were pulling up in nicer cars, walking around these properties, doing this. And then they disappeared. 

 Mario
 The jerks and the suits. 

 Dave
 I'm thinking to myself, what's that a*****e doing that? I'm not doing right. Right. And they were investors. They were investors. They were people who had learned something that I had yet to learn. And I went to a seminar. For the first time in my life, I started hearing things that were contrary to the advice that my father, my teachers, my, my priests has given me, which was you don't have to trade time for money for financial freedom. You can trade a multitude of things. You can trade pieces of real estate. You can trade knowledge, you can trade skill sets. You can trade. There's a lot of things other than just punching a time clock. And that's where I began, brother. That's where it began. I started, I was $70,000 in unsecured credit card debt. My house was in pre-foreclosure. Yeah. My house was in pre-foreclosure. 

 Dave
 My second marriage was ended. And, and I remember looking at the landscape around me. I made a conscious decision that I was going to do something different. That was to really go after this real estate invest in saying, and my very first deal was it was a wholesale transaction during the crash 2008, nine, 10. That's what I started when everybody else was running out, running in and I made five grand selling a contract on a bank owned property. I, I kinda, I kind of, what I did, I, I took the same philosophies of firefighting into real estate investing in a burning building. You have to find a way out, otherwise you die. I looked at real estate investing, and I said, as long as it's legal, honest, and ethical, I'm going to find a way to get it done, not just one deal, but as many deals as I could love. 

 Dave
 I made five grand on my first deal. I I'm thinking to myself, this can't be legal. I didn't own the house. 

 Mario
 I just signed the contract and sold the contract. Wait a minute, 

 Dave
 This can't be legal. I began to learn things like, the power of contract, the power of the pen. I then found out that they'd been lying to me for years about 401ks and government pensions. A guy said to me, one day, he said, have you ever thought of a self-directed IRA? I said, what's that? What's that? What is that? He said, well, you could roll your money into a self-directed account and you can invest it instead of paying it points and interest in and gobbling up your, your compound interest compound costs. Like, what are you talking about compound? What I'm like. I just I'm, I, I want all of it. I want it all. And that's where I started, brother. We progressed from there, just man going. 

 Mario
 That's cool as. 

 Dave
 That for story. 

 Mario
 It's, it's phenomenal. Dave, I gotta pause you really quick on this because I don't think I've ever told anybody. This just it's kind of coming up because you're talking about it. The way I learned to invest in real estate, I was doing a short sale on my personal home at the time. That is how I got, I mean, I started a brokerage with a partner while I was doing a short sale on my own personal home and ended up learning how that all worked. And so it's very similar. Like I got into real estate because I was in a tough spot at the time. And, and it was the biggest blessing ever. Had I not, 

 Dave
 What year was that? It. 

 Mario
 Was, it was probably 2007, to that. I'm trying to think 2000 man. I should know that probably around 2006, 2007 ish. No, it would've been 2007, 2008, right around in that range because I owned a brokerage, a mortgage company with a partner and we started a real estate brokerage together right around the time that I started working on a short sale in my home. It was like crash course and how investing works because somebody actually came to me and said, Hey, I'll buy your house from you, even though you owe too much on it. And I'm like, wait a minute. There's good. There's a lot of people that I'm talking to that are starting to be over upside down. It was just, it was the biggest blessing. I just didn't realize it. That's sounds like it was very similar for you. It, it was, you're in a tough spot. 

 Mario
 It pushed you into an opportunity that you were wide-eyed and ready to go. And that's that took off from there. So very parallel. 

 Dave
 So good. Look, brother, this, it sounds cheesy. I hate the word sometimes that come out of my mouth, but they're based inexperience and reality. There are two choices. One can choose to be a victim or a victorious circumstance. It's what we do during adversity that defines our future. I was a victim for many years. I was evicted because of ignorance. And, you know, I refinanced my house. I think it was three times in 18 months because a friend was a mortgage. A friend was a mortgage broker. He explained to me that there were these special programs for military firefighters and police. I could get 120% value of my house. Then then fast forward. Right. I learned how to read a mortgage. I start looking at the points that this wall, and I'm like, oh wait, maybe eight Fred's though. Boy, 

 Mario
 You were a very profitable friend for him. 

 Dave
 To the tune of $20,000. But think about that, right? Yeah. He made 20 grand on me. I wasn't his only client. Look, I'm not crapping on the guy, but think about that for a second, Mario. It's so critically important. What you don't know will hurt you tough. Right? On top of that, those that seek shall find you gotta look for the answers. 

 Mario
 When you started looking, you started finding the answers and figured out how to make money versus lose money on the picture. Yeah, 

 Dave
 Yeah, yeah. Look, we started with that wholesale transaction. I then partnered with my ex partner, Peter Solaris, the guy from, from the TV show with me, and we became recognized as, a distressed asset investor and the attorney General's office tapped us on the shoulder and Mo excuse me, that was my mic going, bang, bang. Most people when the attorney general calls, they hide, it was nice for us because she was calling her name was Martha Coakley. She had the abandoned housing initiative. Post-crash there were so many bank owned assets that were just pieces of garbage pulling down the valuations in the communities. We became aligned with the AGS office. Now working with the state of Massachusetts to take these crappy houses, turn them around, get them back into the market that got us more recognition, more, more eyes are on us. You get a national TV show and all of a sudden you're an expert just because you got a TV show by the way, the two are not always synonymous with each other. 

 Dave
 And, and along the way, I, I learned the value of somebody else going to work, trading their time for money and paying down my mortgage. And that's called multifamily. That's called cashflow in assets. I've always been in the cashflow business while I've been flipping houses. I've been a hard money lender. I've been a private lender. Today all of that knowledge over it's been 15 years. Now, all of that knowledge through that 15 year cycle has put me in a position today where we run a private equity real estate investment company. We have about $320 million with the real estate in various phases of development throughout Southwest Florida, from Tampa to St. Pete, to Cape coral, Fort Myers. You know, it's funny. I, I didn't actually interview you for a second cause I'd like your take on this. As I moved into private equity and boutique commercial real estate investing, I found very quickly that it's not about the sticks of bricks anymore. 

 Dave
 My team takes care of that. I'm just in finance today, and that's a whole new discussion altogether with the egos and five EDS. But how do you find raising capital? Because for me, it's kind of interesting. I've got the background on the TV that brings some credibility and stuff. It's a challenge to raise money in this market. It really is. 

 Mario
 Yeah. So, so the interesting thing is that what you said, if you want people to follow, if you want people to bring you money, you almost don't need it. It's when you go to a bank, the bank will give you the money. If you have the net worth, if you have the experience, if you have, the liquidity, all that stuff like, oh, cool, you don't need our money. So we'll give you money. It's kind of the same thing. What I learned for raising capital about raising capital is when I was reaching out to people saying, Hey, I've got deals. I want to sit down and talk to you about it. Sunshine, I wanted to sit down and go through a pitch deck with them. I got very little results from that. I actually got a lot of pushback. People were like, let me think about it. 

 Mario
 The, the evil, all think about it. I need to look at my finances. I need to plan some things out. I'll get back to, I got a lot of that. What was interesting is that as I started to get some investors going and they started investing with me and there was success, then other people started to want to get into deals. Because I had some investors that had quite a bit of capital, I was actually turning people away. What was interesting is that I, they got more, I got more pressure from them to invest with me because I didn't need their money. I learned to never ask for money. I don't do it. And, and now today I don't need to raise capital, at least for the deals I'm working, because I've got a handful of very strong LPs that are very scalable. I'm actually, I turned down investors as recent as last night on a live that I did. 

 Mario
 People are constantly doing it, but it's almost like getting into it. You have to not need it, which is very difficult. It's kind of just getting over that hump, but once you get over it does become easier. One last thing on this, and I'm not trying to steal your, your interview here, but you said, you're going to ask me a question. So, I would say that anybody looking to raise capital should consider partnering with others who have good track records and also maybe have a database or a relationships with capital partners already, because then that allows you to bridge that gap, get into some successful deals, learn the ropes and how you can connect your track record with theirs, which then attracts more people to it. So, 

 Dave
 Yeah, no, I'm with you 100%. We're working, we're working on a new program as we speak that 320 330 million that's in various phases of development, because of the compression of cap rates, repositioning, et cetera, B class properties, the consistent pitch that syndicators are putting out there. We started looking at compression of cap rate post COVID, and we're like, I'm not going to put together a 10 year proformer with, 10% year over year rent increases to make my numbers work. I can't, I can't sleep well. Some people can, fly around in private jets and all that stuff. That's not me. What we did was we started to look at the build for rent, single family, community strategy. We have a very extensive background in Southwest Florida, over 25 years of construction through a couple of market cycles. We started looking at that, we put together a program with fleshing out the program. 

 Dave
 Now where we bring in to your point, I don't need the money. I mean, there's plenty of capital coming towards us. I never thought that they would come. I'd say that there were times when it was hard to raise capital, 

 Mario
 There's a lot of truth in that. 

 Dave
 Yeah. I've got a couple of groups SPVs that are coming in that, write that check for the first, say 5 million of a position that allows us to get all of our entitlement work done at planning done. When I go to the bank for that debt piece, for that construction loan, now I'm looking at a 75% loan, a cost or a 60% loan to cost really aggressive. The capital from the bank with finding is, easier to obtain, the investors that come in early, they proformer out at some pretty, pretty sexy equity multiples, right? It's really nice, nice equity multiples that allow for them to your point. Now attach that track record with us. We did a presentation yesterday to a sophisticated accredited investor with a nice database of friends, to your point, right? It's like he gave us a hundred grand, a one of our properties. 

 Dave
 He called me the next day. He said, my buddy was to throw a hundred grand in as well. I'm like that positions God, men. What he said to me, Mario, he says to me, I don't know what were doing the takeaway close. When you told me it was the last hundred. I said, brother, there might be some folks out there that do that. I'm not that guy. If I tell you I'm holding a position for you, I'm holding it. If I tell you gotta make a decision by Monday, you kind of make a decision by Monday. I'm not here to play games. 

 Mario
 But. 

 Dave
 Yeah, I did a presentation to that particular guy yesterday, and he's got maybe a group of, we'll say five or six, accredited investors who wants to put that SPV together. We, we showed him how to do it. We, you could work with us on creating the PPM for your group and make sure that everybody's sec compliant. Nope, no games, no BS. It was Fati man within two hours, he's texted me. How did that, how did I do on the presentation? I'm like, I was presenting to you. He goes, but do you think the opportunities there for me, I'm like, yeah, man, we'll bring in. So, it's a, it's a very interesting landscape right now. I was just talking to the, some of my partners, our executive suite this morning, we had a company meeting and with the landscape, as it is today, the focus is capital preservation. 

 Dave
 It really is. Right. If, if inflation is know, if they tell us inflation is seven, eight, 9%. We know in reality, it's probably 10%, right? If we're, if we agree that we're in an inflationary landscape right now of around 7, 8, 9, 10%, capital needs to be working with some velocity to maintain its value, especially over this next five years. So, we started to adjust some of our presentation, some of our, our executive summary to focus more on preservation rather than growth. It's amazing how fast it's changed, a year and a half ago, we could find those value, add 5050, 200 unit complexes, reposition them, create some, some NOI margin right there. It looks good, but I don't know about you brother. I can't find them today. So we have to create. 

 Mario
 Challenging. Yeah. And, and what's cool about what you're doing and, and correct me if I'm wrong, but you're developing both single family rental communities as well as apartments, or are you strictly doing single family rental communities? 

 Dave
 Both, both, we're doing 106 unit five building apartment complex, presently fingers crossed. They've already jacked the interest rate on us once in negotiation. We're trying to get through committee this week to avoid another, a rate increase next week. But. 

 Mario
 Let me point something out. I don't mean to cut you off, but I want to point something out you can build, which is awesome. I have a lot harder time doing that because I'm, I mostly in manufactured home communities and to do, to develop a manufactured home community. There's so many restrictions from zoning and it's not my backyard. So it's very hard to do. Also the numbers don't quite make sense yet. I love the fact that you said, Hey, I can't buy things that are making sense right now. So let me go create them. I would love to be able to do that. And that, 

 Dave
 Here's the thing. What did you just say less than 10 minutes ago, find ways to partner with people who are doing what you want to do. One, you can get yield, but to learn what they're doing. 

 Mario
 Absolutely. 

 Dave
 It's just the same process, man. It's exactly the same process as Florida's absorption rate is so out of whack, it's just ridiculous. The population continues to grow. The, the retirees continue to flood into the great state of Florida. The scientists continues to be as friendly to business as he possibly can. W w we're in such a friendly business environment down there that we can in good confidence, right in good conscience and confidence put out pro formers that can show anywhere between a two X to a six X multiple over a five-year stabilization plan. 

 Mario
 Think. 

 Dave
 About that for a second. What, how, where else can we look at a risk exposure with a potential upside that I, I don't play the stock market. I'm not a crypto kid. I, it's not my wheelhouse, I know sticks and bricks, so it's an exciting time to build yield. That's what we do. 

 Mario
 Yeah. It's pretty much Florida, Texas. I mean, there's very few tech, Tennessee is doing pretty well, but otherwise there's not some of the Carolinas there's, I mean, there's not too many places that you can expect, serious population growth, job growth, and higher demand going into a potentially ugly economy down the road. You want to be in the well, not kind of, you want to be in the places where everybody's running to. It's a real perfect storm for Florida right now. I would agree with you a hundred percent on that. 

 Dave
 Yeah, for sure. For sure. 

 Mario
 I gotta ask you something. I'm not trying to go backwards, but you kind of skimmed over the TV show thing. Right. I have to spend a lot of time on it, but did somebody just call you one day and go, Hey dude, do you want to be on TV? Or like, how did that happen? You have people running up to you a lot or was it like, how did that happen? Again, I don't want to take the whole discussion on that, but I think if people would be interested in it, including me, how that works. Yeah. 

 Dave
 Well, it's my dynamic. Good looks. As soon as somebody saw me, I, I told you I went to a seminar, right? So I go to a seminar. I spend money that I didn't have, so I could learn, or at least have some accountability in my life. If you've ever been to a seminar and invested in yourself, you very quickly find out that there's thousands of seminar gurus are coming out of the woodwork. Right? There was one particular guy, he was selling websites and he was a firefighter out in California. And he sold real estate investing websites. He was presenting an hour and a half presentation. He was selling his b******t and a box for a thousand bucks. I call it, he was trying to be funny in his presentation and to be quite Frank with you, Mario, he socked, he wasn't funny. I had done a little standup comedy back in London and a few pubs and clubs. 

 Dave
 I had a little entertainer in me and this guy is up there. I, I buy his websites. I, I said to him afterwards, I said, Hey man, I'm a firefighter. You're a firefighter, blah, blah, go, Sean. Nice to meet you. I go, I got to tell your brother, your comedy sucks. I said, your comedy sucks. Now the big guru, right? Leverage hierarchy a him down to my level. I do. I said, I used to do stand up comedy. He says to me, okay, you're my comedy coach. He says, meet me in Florida. I got a three day training down there. You're going to coach me on comedy for three days. He said, I'll pay you 1500 bucks and I'll cover all your expenses. Wow. I'm like this guy, because for me, I would work on all the time in the firehouse and only take on 200 bucks. 

 Dave
 This guy's going to give me 1500 in three days. Anyway, I got on the other side of the equation, I got into the education space and I found very quickly that people resonated with me and would invest in the products and services I had. I was always representing other guys. Once you're in that infotainment info marketing world, I was w I was going to events before Gary V was Gary V like, he'd be hanging out with the rest of us, Russell Brunson, like all these guys. I'm like, this is kind of cool. Russell Brunson sent out an email blast list to his inner circle. He said, this company in new York's looking for house flippers. He said, Dave, you're a funny bass that he said, you should turn in an application. And that's what I did. Yeah. Yeah. It was an online, it was an online fill out an application. 

 Dave
 What I did was I loaded it with profanity, loaded my application with profanity, because I'd learned from these marketers that you've got to separate yourself from the pack. What was I going to do? I do five flips a year. My team is paid at Shelby Terry and timing, barring shifts. Naomi accompany, I put it in there, go F yourself, LLC. Right. That was the name of my company. And then I just loaded. It was s**t. I'm right at the end of it. You said, is there anything else you want to add? I wrote in the commentary on this online application, don't call me a*****e, get on a plane, train, or an automobile. Come from New York to Boston, show you how it's done when everybody else goes running out, we go running in don't effing, call me. And I sent it. The phone rang within 50 minutes to one, two area code. 

 Dave
 I'm like it's. I pick up the phone, Mary, I go, Hey, a*****e. I thought I told you not to call me, click. And I hung up the phone, please. 

 Mario
 That's taken it to the next level. I love that. 

 Dave
 He called back, the kid was laughing his ass off. He said, you either alluded tick or a genius. I said, what's the difference that stopped filming. That's how we got to show man. That's how we got to show. 

 Mario
 This crazy mad. It takes some balls to hang up on the person after, when it's them calling you for an opportunity that takes serious guts to do. 

 Dave
 What have I got to lose at that moment in time, I got nothing to lose. I got everything to win. You know what I mean? It's like, think about it for a second and everything that we do, if we spend so much time weighing up, oh, what it, oh my God. Oh no, we won't do anything. It's there in the headlights. B******t. I'd rather make mistakes and learn how to monetize them, but not even get in the game. So anyway, that's how it started. We did four episodes. We were the highest ratings I ever got on a Saturday morning for that little slot of time. We ended up doing 29 episodes, or it might be four seasons or something. Next thing I'm on the today. Show hanging out with Kathy Lee and Hoda. 

 Mario
 Cool. That is so cool. I got to pull a little nugget out of what you just said. You said that you'd rather make the mistake while trying to learn something and do it, and then figure out while you're figuring out how to monetize. I always tell people, look, you can go and study up. You can do all this research. You can, you know, analysis, prowess. That's right. You can learn there is, but you're never really going to learn it until you start looking at real deals and making offers and making mistakes. When you do that, then you're able to actually figure out how the real game works. Textbook is great. You should study up, you should educate yourself. Most importantly, you've got to jump in and start doing as early on as you possibly can, because bumping your head is how you actually learn. So. 

 Dave
 Yeah, 

 Mario
 That's definitely a gutsy example of doing that, but I love. 

 Dave
 For sure. Yeah. Look, man, people love to go to YouTube university, right? Why do I have to invest in my shelf? I can go online and get the answers. Here's the deal ready? This is how I kind of phrase this education is free. Implementation cost hundreds of thousands of dollars. Now you either invest them with a guy like Mario or a guy like me or somebody who's, who's actually doing the business. I'll just talk about it, but doing it, you invest with them. You buy them mistakes or go out and make your own mistakes. No skin off my nose, but what's the common denominator mistakes. 

 Mario
 That's. 

 Dave
 Right. It's just a choice. 

 Mario
 One thing that's interesting too, Dave, is that you brought something up pre-interviewed. That was interesting. You help entrepreneurs, you help investors. Basically you help high-performing entrepreneurs earn returns and also avoid a lot of mistakes too. And that's done through your syndications, right? Because you've got somebody who's got capital, but they don't want to go learn how to develop these apartment buildings or these communities. They can, they can leverage your experience and get those returns. Anyways. Can you talk about that? 

 Dave
 Yeah. Look, it's his, the one thing that I've done, I, I think I said this either before the interview or during this podcast, I bring a blue collar attitude to a white collar world, right? Just because you can razzle dazzle a spreadsheet. Don't ask me touch a spreadsheet. I can't even add a call on a spreadsheet. I can't. I have no intention alone in it. Right? My partner's a fricking genius. He can do it with his eyes closed. Right? He's almost a quant. He came from fidelity, a young guy, 27. But what is important is knowledge. Okay. An educated investor is a better investor. Whether they want to be an active investor or a passive investor, it got onto the stand. What the hell is going on? Otherwise somebody can rip you off or somebody can make you a lot of money or both. Right? 

 Dave
 We insist that our investors at least understand what it is that we're doing. Right. Understand what a cap rate is. If I asked the average Joe on the street, what's the capitalization rate in oh 1, 9 0 2. They'll go. All right. You got to understand the fundamentals of underwriting. Don't look at an IRR and get all excited because it's 40% when you don't understand what an IRR is. Right. Am I making 40% of my money? No stupid. That's not what you're doing. All right. How about we educate you? I bet we walk you through what it means. So value of money working over time. Oh, okay. Okay. You know, cash on cash returns. Do you understand what a repositioning is? Do you understand that we live or die by the NOI? If you don't know what that phrase means? Don't don't give me a dollar. 

 Dave
 I don't want your money. You, you're going to be crying and complaining. We spend as much time as we can bring investors up the gradient. As we do that, they'll either do one of two things. They'll realize I don't have the time to go out and market and analyze. I don't have freedom venture investments at companies, 60 years combined experience. I'm not going to get the I'm going to be dead before that happens. All they're tenacious. They can that, they were an entrepreneur at their core and they can put a good team together and then we'll help them get it all. Do you want some help with your private placement memorandums? Do you want some help with your underwriting? What can we do to make you be more professional in the marketplace? I told you I don't drink right. 32 years without a drink, a drug of mood or mind altering substance. 

 Dave
 I was only able to do that because I had something of value, which was sobriety and I gave it away to somebody else. I was there to help somebody else when their hand was, was out, give them a hand up, don't get my hand out, give him a hand up. It's the same thing in business for me. If I've got a resource, if I've got a connection, if I've got a, something that's valuable that you need, let's talk, let me see what I can do to make you, or help you be more proficient in your journey. That's kind of how we do it. Yeah. 

 Mario
 I didn't know. It was possible to live in Boston and not drink. 

 Dave
 There's only two of us. 

 Mario
 Yeah. Probably not many. You know, it's funny. Cause I haven't drank in 20 years this year. I, I quit drinking before I could legally drink and I don't normally talk about that. And, and I think it, without getting too into that whole discussion or make it sound like I'm condemning people who drink, cause I don't really care what people do, but it's really a personal decision that I've made my wife made. It's, it really brings a lot of clarity and confidence when you're constantly sober and know exactly what you're doing. Exactly where you've been, what you've done. I think it also brings a lot of confidence from other people because they know you're not going to make bad decisions and blame it on something else that you had no control over. So I respect that a lot. I think it's cool that you talk about that and you make it, you're making it okay. 

 Mario
 That people know it. You don't have to drink to, to even be in business settings. I mean, for 20 years, I haven't and it's always been fine and people don't care, ? And so. 

 Dave
 Look, Madam, I'm the designated driver. 

 Mario
 I get to party. I just, I get to drive you home to, 

 Dave
 It's funny. I used to do a lot of business in, I used to throw a lot of business in Vegas. Once we had the TV show, we'd do a lot of speaking engagements in Vegas and they used to call me the ghost. Cause all these idiots would go out with that Vegas head on, right? All the ladies dress up and look way too. I'm just going to say, wait to h****r ish. Right? All the guys wear tight shirts that they'd never wear in their own neighborhoods. And they'd walk around in these casinos. I was like, they're a Disneyland for grownups and they drank and a gambler and I'd look at it. I go, first of all, they all look like amateurs to me, like drink a drink, don't mess around. 

 Mario
 And of course, 

 Dave
 I'm a London kid limited pasta. Now I got the DNA of the jeans, but I'd start to see the stupidity happened, ? I, I just fade away, gently into the background, go up into the big old fancy suite in, in the Bellagio the, that were in and I've watched Netflix and that'd be all tucked up in bed by nine o'clock at night, but I'd be, I'd be fresh as a Daisy the next morning while everybody else is really like crap. So. 

 Mario
 They're struggling. They're struggling to get there the next day and your crest and that's and ultimately performance is important. Performance really matters. I think, for me, I think it's it. You can tell, you can tell when people make, not even just drinking, but make bad decisions and it affects their performance. I've seen that happen to people where their lifestyle choices have really pushed them over the edge to where now their performance socks, and it affects every area of their life. And so very cool. 

 Dave
 One second, one second, because it's important. You, you just said a really important word and his performance, right? I think it's always important to highlight how that word performance is everything sticks and bricks, construction, dirt, repositioning tenants, et cetera. That's just a business. The business has to be executed by the performance of the people that are running that business. Right. It's that team adage there's no I in team, right? The team is the critical piece that we focus on. Freedom venture is, take a look at the principles of the company. Do you gel with their philosophies, their mission statements? Do they have the skill sets? So more importantly, can they work together? If I'm writing a check for $5 million, I want to make sure that Mario and his dad are doing really good. Right? I want to know that, that family unit, that business unit is a okay. 

 Dave
 For us, I, I I'll just share this and then we'll move in any direction you want. I, I shared, I did 16 years as a firefighter and a paramedic, right? That militaristic environment served me very well for business. I make my partner, Walter, no Vicky, couple of years older than me. He's ex special forces. He retired out of the services as major Walter, no Vicky. He ran an elite group of guys that you only ever whispered about. Never, ever wanted to say. You never would see him way that you wouldn't comment. Right. He's the guy that got dropped into certain conflicts throughout the world and took care of business. Performance execution of a business plan when everything turns to crap around you in real estate, because it will, 

 Mario
 Right. 

 Dave
 Are you able to breathe and execute the plan, Walter and I do that quite often. We look at each other awake because we see people around us spinning out. We look at each other, go stay in an emergency. I know what a real emergency, 

 Mario
 I know what it's like being a firefighter in a gun battle. Right, 

 Dave
 Right, right. It's like this ain't an emergency. Let's just execute the plan. So that work performance is very important. 

 Mario
 I think to, experience is something that you just can't, you can't make up, you can't skip over. As you, as you build your business, as you grow your portfolio, as you've been through more and more business fires, you kind of get, you should be getting more and more of a cool about those things and recognize that, Hey, this probably isn't going to take me down. I just need to stop step back, think about it and then reorganize and think outside the box. I think being a firefighter being, military where you had to get into conflict issue, situations, I think that would be just an extremely strong skill to have that you'd be able to bring from those areas into business, which can get pretty dicey sometimes. 

 Dave
 No, absolutely 100%. 

 Mario
 What for someone who's looking to get, I got two kind of angles to play on this. What for the person who's looking to get into, maybe they're either investing in single family homes and they want to take it to the next level. They want to get into bigger deals. They want to do commercial real estate or somebody who's just kind of coming from no real estate background and wanting to get into real estate. What's kind of some advice that you would give somebody that's, looking at the market, they're going crap, is this bad timing? What do I need to know? Like what would you tell somebody? I know that's a very wide open question, but what's kind of the one thing that you'd tell somebody looking to either scale up or get into real estate investing in general right now. 

 Dave
 Yeah. Great question, man. It's such a, it's such a dynamic environment right now. There's a lot of opportunity, but there's also a lot of risk in the marketplace. Right. When I say risk, I mean, lack of education, knowledge, understanding competencies, right? So let's go with two applies. Let's say I'm a passive investor. I'm a doctor, a lawyer, a business owner. I've got some capital on hand. Maybe it's some of that free money that Biden sent us. We want it to go to work before we have to potentially stop paying it back. You know, that passive investor it's research. First of all, it, if you punch in syndication and Google, they'll be pages and pages, some are beautiful, full performance. Some are, they just got in the business last week. A lot of them don't know what the hell they're doing. They they're peddling s**t. How do you determine that yourself? 

 Dave
 You ask a lot of questions, do your due diligence. If you don't have the time to be a proficient, active investor, yourself allocate serious amount of time to get to know the business, listen to this podcast and podcasts like it, get on the phone and talk to the operators. If you can work a referral process, if you're a doctor, lawyer, business owner and you're successful, you probably only got to be successful because you're part of a network environment yourself. Talk to your peer group and ask them if they have any experience. Now, a friend of mine just bought me a dentist last week, who cut me a check for 125 grand after a quick 10 minute call. Right. The thing was, is the experience with my friend went to the dentist that dentist said, oh, okay. Knows him. He makes me, we talk, shoot the shoot, the breeze, blah, blah. 

 Dave
 The check comes in. It's all good. He's going to get a nice return portfolio. So ask questions. Do you due diligence? Listen to podcasts. Yeah, go ahead. 

 Mario
 You didn't hang up on that guy. Call me, show up at my home. 

 Dave
 I don't need your money Bianchi. No, no I did because he CA what, that's kind of interesting. You throw it out there like a, a gag, but the truth of the matter is that relationship, right. Relationships are the new currency. 

 Mario
 Totally. 

 Dave
 They really are. That's the new value currency and about, especially since COVID so as questions, due diligence, podcast, research, community, find like-minded join a fricking Facebook group. Don't care. Get in there and start lending some stuff. Don't go to CPRE. Don't go to, these black rock, then I'm going to talk to you. You're not going to find what you need there. Get, get grassroots with it. Now, if you want to be the active investor, it's the same advice. Find somebody or a few people who would doing what you want to do. Find out what you have as an individual is a value add to those people. Guess what? It ain't money. Most of the time, your money is not that valuable anymore. It's probably only worth the nickel right now, if that right. So your money, isn't your value. What is your value? It your connections, your relationships, your skill sets. 

 Dave
 If you're one of those millennials listening to this, and you're a Wiz with computers and analysis and underwriting the spreadsheets and all that, maybe that's your value add that you can bring, Hey, let me do XYZ for you. I learned what you're doing. If you have a coaching program, if you have a mentorship, if you have, a, a ground up fundamental 1 0 1 commercial real estate investing costs take the fricking cost drop the 3,500 bucks, the five, join a mastermind. If you can write, start to surround yourself with people who are doing what you want to do. By the law of osmosis, you'll begin to get yourself up for the gradient. I look at, I look at where I am today. I've probably invested north of, I don't know, maybe three, $400,000 in myself over 15 years to be parts of masterminds and groups and things of that nature. 

 Dave
 I'm talking to a real cool guy right now, John Azar, 15 peak capital he's out of the Carolinas. John and I looked at the landscape. We were so sick and tired of like mediocre masterminds. We're working together right now, a couple of war horses in the business that bring in, 25 guys or girls, no bar and a mastermind. I want to level up my own game all the time. Otherwise it becomes redundant. I don't want to keep on doing the same thing over and over. Be aggressive, seek the education, know that education doesn't make you wealthy implementation is what does whether your implementation is investing in somebody else's deal or fund structure, or whether it's investing in somebody else's education, figure out how to bring value. If it's not money, what skill sets do you have and, plan it out, golf, set it, and then execute on the plan. 

 Mario
 That's awesome. I always tell people when you're looking to either get into, to investing or you're looking for partners, you should really be looking for people who have opposite skillsets as you. You're good at the analytics and somebody else is really good at communicating, meaning good at raising money or whatever. You want to find people with opposite skill sets and partner up with them. And that's exactly what you just said. If you want to get active, go find somebody else who's already got experience and is doing it but needs what you have meeting opposite complimentary skillsets team up with them. Now you're adding value to the deal. You're not stepping on each other's toes and trying to like, do the same thing. It's it. Doesn't, it's not, it won't make a successful partnership that way. I think what you said right there is, is a hundred percent true. 

 Mario
 Now let's change that up just . Okay. I've got a lot of, really, for lack of better term, successful investors and entrepreneurs that listen to this and being that you've had, I mean, what you're talking about, portfolio size, that's huge. I mean, that's a really large portfolio. For the people who are already in the business, actively doing deals, actively syndicating, what's kind of one thing that has helped you get to where you're at right now that maybe everybody hasn't heard before from a higher level. I mean, I know I'm in several masterminds as well, and there's some nuggets that I get from those where I walk out and go, man, I think so small. I needed, like you'll walk out to get these picture thoughts, anything come to mind that maybe somebody could even bigger. 

 Dave
 Yeah, there is. This came, I say from the mouths of babes. If heard me say that he probably get a little p****d, but my business partner, I've got a couple of partners. Three partners recall equal partners in our company, myself, Walter, who I just mentioned. My third partner, Eric Wilson, Eric is 27 years old. He's the same age as my oldest son from my second marriage. Him and I are very close, but he is his intelligence is off the, off the fricking charts, right? He was at fidelity. He was one of 20 people hired nationwide in almost like a think tank quant type environment was that fidelity. They were writing algorithms to predict market cycles, right? So that's how smart he is now. Why did I bring that up? Because his perspective on business and life is obviously very different to mine. You say, our portfolio size is large, it ain't, it's not w w we're we're a grain of sand on the beach of capital markets right now. 

 Dave
 Right? We are only as restricted as we allow ourselves to be. Now, that being said, where I am at right now, Walter acquisitions development construction in Florida, look me right in the eyes on the zoom call yesterday. He went a capacity tied to tied to infill support expansion. Right. I am, your question is, what advice could I give my advice is this it's not going to be pretty, but it's truthful make a mess and learn how to monetize it. I want my partners screaming at me because I got too much money coming in, or I got too many deals in the pipeline or, w we're all maxed out to capacity because if you don't stress your environment will never grow. Right? It's always a case of stress in it. I'm a pusher I went to lunch with, with a guy who runs a he's a VC is a venture capitalist firm local here in Boston, Superdome, no airs and graces went to lunch with him, came out of lunch. 

 Dave
 He says to me, I live, I love you. He said, I love what you guys are doing. What can you do with 50 million? What he said to me, I said, if you create an SPV, I'll create a fund structure. We'll put that 50 million to work. I have a lot of confidence that I could turn that 50 million into two 50, 300 million in the next five years. 

 Mario
 Right. 

 Dave
 Now I then go back to my partners and they're like, 

 Speaker 5
 And you said 50 billion. Why didn't you just take 10? 

 Dave
 I said, because now if I got 50, guess what we're going to do? We're going to put it to work. Right. So that's it. What do they call Beehag big, hairy or dashes goals, right? Audacious goals. That's kind of, that's my DNA, you. 

 Mario
 Know, 

 Dave
 Kinda of come back and bite you in the ass yet, but what have you got to lose, man? 

 Mario
 So make up no big old mess. 

 Dave
 Make. 

 Mario
 Force you to grow. Yeah. With the big mess. I love it. That is one area that I, I definitely have to improve on because I've always grown incrementally where I'll push, then I'm like, all right, cool. I've made a mess. Now I need to focus on getting that mess under control so we can scale again. The problem with that is you kind of do this. You plateau, you go up, you apply until you go up. And, and it takes a lot longer to do that. I have seen other people who pretty much they've just made a huge mess. You know, like they bought so much. They're like, okay, so much. We don't even know how to manage all this button. We bought all this. Now we've got the assets and then they grow. They, from there, they go and build the team around it and then they go clean up their mess. 

 Mario
 And so I, I totally respect that. I think it's something that a lot of people who are maybe more risk, I don't wanna say, cause I, I know I can tell you're very risk adverse, but for people who are risk adverse to the point where they don't want to create so much of a mess, that they're afraid that it's going to take them down, they need to at least push the envelope to where they get out of their comfort zone, I think is, is the best way to put that. And I love how you explain that. Yeah. You got to get out of your comfort zone. You got to push it to the point where everybody's looking at you. Like, are you crazy? How are we going to deploy that capital right now? We've got to put out and you just come in with, 

 Dave
 But think about this for a second. Right? You opened that door to risk aversion. Risk for me is defined by the things that I cannot control. Okay. That's, that's the only risk that I, I worry about is the stuff I can't control. If I raised more money than I can deploy, I can control that. I can control that. I go and I expand my acquisitions team. I, I, change out some of my targeting. Maybe I bring in some self storage. Maybe I, I have a, a line in my PPM that allows me to do joint venture. Maybe I can open up my hard money lending business again, and deploy, 5 million of that capital often to that fund structure over there. Like I create the diversity for that amount of capital coming in. I mean, was, that was why one call. I got a marketing team that wants to bring, the flipping Boston face back into the national spotlight. 

 Dave
 They're looking at me going, well, we think we could spend 400,000 a month on Facebook and social media ads and TV and ratio. If we, if we put that much money behind you at how much can we make together? Because we bring investors from that ad spend, and then go back to my guys. I go, well, there's the VC money over there for 50 mil, but this might be about 250 mil. There might be a half a billion coming in over here. We got to put that money to work at a pro forma and rate of return right now you don't. 

 Mario
 They're going all right, man, we got to figure this out, but , 

 Dave
 Pick up a drink. 

 Mario
 I. 

 Dave
 Really, 

 Mario
 And, and for the listeners out there, guys pay attention to the numbers that we're talking, the level that we're talking at right now. I mean, there's, you need to get around people who are growing and scaling businesses and don't have limits on their mind. I think Dave, one thing that I really like about you is you're definitely a huge thinker. Also. You're funny as hell, man. I, there's not too many business guys that you can sit there with a big old generator. I, I believe the whole stand-up comedy thing and it's, and, and I think people respect Jen, genuine personalities and people who are themselves. When people, like I can tell that your personality is you, cause you just don't care. Well, I. 

 Dave
 Don't give a s**t. 

 Mario
 And I, and I can respect that. And I think other people can too. That's, and I think that's something that we, as business people, investors should take a look at and maybe figure, ask ourselves, are we being ourselves? Are we being more of this, in the box mold of what we think entrepreneurs should be, what business owners should be. I mean, how many people are, and I, and I am guilty of that too. Like I think there's ways that I could become more and more myself and more relaxed in business settings. But, a lot of people would say, Hey, wearing a baseball cap and a t-shirt, isn't very professional to a business meeting, but I would, I don't really care. And, and that's, and so in general, I think that we can learn from that and ask ourselves, are we being the genuine self, our genuine self, are we being who we really are? 

 Mario
 Because I think when we are, we have a lot more fun. We're a lot more confident and people are attracted to that more than that in the box business, vibe that people give off. So. 

 Dave
 A hundred, 100% brother, I got a little phrase that, that I try very hard to live by it. I do it 90%, 95% of the time. It's real simple, other people's opinions of me and of my business. How freeing is that? Think about that for a second. Let that one sink in other people's opinions of may and none of my business, I don't have to spend my life thinking about me, myself and I, cause as soon as I'm free of that thought process and I'm not perfect, trust me, bro. I failed miserably every day, but if I can free myself from self, it allows me to listen to my potential investors. It allows me to listen to my partners, listen to my builders, listen to whoever it is that I need to listen to because the power to listen then allows me to solve problems, right? 

 Dave
 Because that's all we do. We solve other people's problems. I got $20 million in the bank and it's dying because of inflation. I can solve that problem for you. Let me show you how right. And then just be real man. Stand in your own skin, stand in your own skin. That's that's kind of the way I look at it. 

 Mario
 That, that's a, that's a powerful message to end us off here. So, so Dave I'm I appreciate you getting on. I am super excited. I appreciate Josh for making the introduction, Josh Wilson, who actually has deal scout podcast. He made the introduction. He's a. Good dude. Yeah. Super good dude. I'm so thankful that you got on here. I got a ton out of this. I'm sure the listeners did too. I'm looking forward to doing some deals with you and doing business with you. I think there's ways we can add value to each other. I love the fact that you're investing in my backyard, which I can't tell you how many homes I bought in Cape coral and Lehigh acres and Fort Myers and over the years, ? That you're playing in my sandbox, which is awesome. Hopefully next time you come down, we'll grab lunch and do some deals together. 

 Mario
 Hey Dave, how can people get in contact with you so they can do deals with you or learn from you? Or, or how can they connect with you? 

 Dave
 Yeah. I'm old school. You can actually pick up a phone. (781) 922-4418. It's a rarity. 

 Mario
 I'm not laughing. I'm not laughing because you said they call you in your old school. I'm laughing because every time you talk about the phone, I keep thinking about how you hung up on that. Dude will tell you, he will tell you to show up at his house. I, after the first call or he'll start hanging up on you. Sorry, go ahead and get that number one more time. Dave. 

 Dave
 7 8 1 7 8 1 9 2 2 4 4 1 8. Freedom venture doc Palm freedom, venture.com. That's that front door. There's education. There there's some deal flow there. I think there's a, a white paper that you can download there that will talk about passive invest in diversity in a portfolio it's a high level, a white paper. It was written by our financial team. I hope your eyes don't bleed when you read it, but it's got great information in there. Look, man. If, if those that seek shall find, my name, where I am, the name of my company and let's see how we can bring you value. That's really what it's all about. So I'm out there, brother. You can find me. 

 Mario
 That's awesome. Hey, thanks again, Dave, for being on we'll catch you guys on the next episode. 

 Dave
 Sounds good.