Victor and his wife both started off in the medical field and started to feel burned out after working 70hr work weeks for 5 years. They both decided to leave their jobs to go backpacking and upon their return, they decided to purchase their first home and discovered it would need a lot of work. This started their journey into real estate investing, and now they have a business with 17 investors.
Victor Leite Real Estate Background:
- Entrepreneur and investor who owns multiple rental properties
- Portfolio of rentals includes a mix of single-family homes and multifamily properties
- Manages a high volume Fix & Flip investment group, they successfully completed over 100 rehab projects in 2019 – mostly with funds from private individuals
- Based in Virginia Beach, VA
- Say hi to him at https://www.lvrinvestments.com/
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Best Ever Tweet:
“Difficult roads often lead you to beautiful destinations.” – Victor Leite
TRANSCRIPTION
Theo Hicks: Hello, Best Ever listeners. Welcome to the best real estate investing advice ever show. I’m your host today, Theo Hicks, and today’s guest is Victor Leite. Victor, how are you doing today?
Victor Leite: I’m good, Theo. How are you?
Theo Hicks: I’m doing great. Thank you for joining us today. I’m looking forward to our conversation. So Victor is an entrepreneur and investor who owns multiple rental properties. His portfolio of rentals includes a mix of single-family homes as well as multifamily properties. He also manages a high volume of fix and flip investment group. Their project has successfully completed over 100 projects in 2019. Most of the funds come from private individuals. So we’ll be talking about that. And he is based in Virginia Beach, Virginia, and you can say hi to him or learn more about his company at 258capital.com. Alright, Victor, do you mind telling us a little bit more about your background and what you’re focused on today?
Victor Leite: Yeah, sure, Theo. My background is not like most traditional stories. I was born in San Paulo, Brazil, which is one of the largest cities in South America, and during the late 70s, Brazil went through a lot of political-economic turmoil. So my family, we immigrated to the United States towards the idea of achieving that American dream. So I followed the traditional paths – I went to school, I got good grades, I worked multiple jobs, I went to university, I went to medical school, I got my various degrees and accolades, and I thought I finally had reached that level of American Dream that everybody’s in search of. But after five years or so, working private practice, working 60, 70-hour workweeks, being on overnight call, the corporate structures with the pressures from the medical business world, it started really taking a toll on me, and really felt that burnout coming than most medical providers feel. My wife also practiced medicine; she agreed.
One day after a long day, I came home and had a strong conversation about our lives and what we really wanted. So we decided that we needed to make a change, and we decided to press the reset button. So we literally packed our lives into two small backpacks and decided to take off to travel the world for a year; nomad style.
So during these travels, we did a lot of soul searching and during the process of soul searching, I did a lot of reading. I read a lot of the motivational books, the Tony Robbins, The One Thing, The 4-Hour Workweek that took me to the Rich Dad, Poor Dad, and then I started listening to a lot of podcasts, including the Best Ever Show. I listened to it; it’s a great show. And what really started resonating with me is that in real estate, it’s a place where anybody can get started, with or without any experience or money, and then with a little bit of hard work, it can really bring you some form of financial freedom.
So once we got back from that year-long travel, we had a little bit of money saved up and so we decided that we’re going to buy our first little home. It was a fixer-upper to us, and it was located in Virginia Beach, Virginia. So we got all of our small little items out of storage. We drove down to Virginia Beach, we had the keys in hand, really excited, put the keys in the door lock, we open up that door, and our mouth and our hearts just dropped. The whole entire first floor of the house was flooded. We think that the pipe had burst in the wall a few days prior and just ruined everything, and we were completely devastated. We didn’t know what to do.
So there’s that saying that difficult roads often lead you to beautiful destinations. So we brushed ourselves off, we became motivated, and we decided to connect with local contractors, handymen that really helped us repair and elevate this property to a state that it wasn’t even close to before. And we did such a great job that we actually turned this one into our first flip.
And then we thought to ourselves after finishing this experience, why can’t we just replicate this over and over again? So we began our process. We educated ourselves on this vehicle of real estate investing, we networked heavily, we became close contact with local contractors who focused on rehabs, we met with local brokers and agents who focused on foreclosures, HUD homes, VA homes. We networked with wholesalers who brought us off-market deals, we networked in JV with a few investors, and we finally got to do another project of our own. And then, like that law of those first deals, it snowballed, and two became four, four became eight, and so on, and now, which is point here today, just like you said, we’ve done numerous of projects, and now today we’ve transitioned our model over into the commercial multifamily space.
We had a thesis that we wanted to prove and that thesis was that we can take our systems from the residential rehab side and transition over to the commercial side, specifically multifamily, and we feel like we did a great job so far, and we’re looking forward to growing our goals and continue scaling upwards.
Theo Hicks: Thanks for sharing that. So a few questions… Before we talk about the multifamily, let’s about the fix and flips. So you mentioned in your bio that you raised money for these deals. So at what point did you tap out of your own funds, and maybe talk to us about that decision-making process to go from funding the deals yourself to raising capital?
Victor Leite: That’s a good question. In the beginning, we had a little bit of money left over. So we were able to start slowly by ourselves and we leveraged a little bit of the money with credit cards and things like that, but we got to the point where we looked at our funds, and we looked at the project that we were going to do and we hit a roadblock. So we reached out to our network and we reached out to family, reached out to friends, and we showed them our business plan, we showed them what we were doing and they believed in us. They came in and started investing with us, and then from there on, we wanted to scale even further out. So we really began a philosophy of OPM – other people’s money. So we started with word of mouth, going off to friends of friends and college friends and co-workers and things like that, and we’ve definitely been using private money to get our business scaling to the point that we are today.
Theo Hicks: How many investors do you currently have?
Victor Leite: Currently, our company holds about 16 total investors. They’re a mixed bag – they’re retirees, they’re self-directed IRA investors, they’re cash investors… A very mixed bag of people investing with us.
Theo Hicks: Okay, and then what I’m leading to is I want to know what types of returns you’re offering to them, but I guess I’ll ask it in a little bit different way. So you say you’re transitioning into multifamily. So what has changed about your approach towards your investors from fix and flips to multifamily? So when you were doing the fix and flips, what was the compensation structure, what were the returns offered, what was the frequency of those returns, and then now that you’re doing multifamily, how has that changed?
Victor Leite: Okay, so in regards to residential real estate, we really began with more of note lending. So we were trying to offer something that was competitive with the market, but also not too high that we couldn’t guarantee those returns. So we went initially between some years ago, but we started at 5%, 6% returns, up to 10% to 12% returns for investors in residential real estate, and then now when we’ve transitioned over to the commercial space, we really try to push for larger returns with our investors in the low to high teens, and we try to give them their regular mailbox money returns, and then our goal is to run a product through the whole cycle and give them a return also in the end.
Theo Hicks: Then what types of conversation did you need to have with those investors when you transitioned from the fix and flip to the multifamily? …just because again, the returns are different for both. So were they onboard right away, did you guys do something convincing, or how did that conversation go?
Victor Leite: That’s another good question. We’ve developed these relationships, and everybody trusting us with their investments, and the majority of our conversations was that we really wanted to scale into a larger space where we had better returns, better asset protection, more consistent returns. We had depreciation and deduction opportunities for everybody… And because of the relationship that we’ve built, they were trusting of us to really follow through with what we were seeing, since we had done it so far over the last years that we’ve been working with them.
So we explained to them the differences of benefits from a residential fix and flip investments from a long term commercial buy and hold investments that we’ve been discussing with them. So that’s more of the differences in conversation. There was not much fight from that standpoint. Everybody was really happy to really have their investments grow for long-term.
Theo Hicks: How many multifamily deals have you done so far?
Victor Leite: So as a company, we’ve only done one official multifamily deal by ourselves. We have been working on junior venture partnerships, general partnerships and limited partnerships with other operators, but us as ourselves, we’ve done one so far in 2020.
Theo Hicks: Okay, and can you tell us about how you found the deal, purchase price, how much money you raised and the returns you offered to those investors and how many investors you have in that deal?
Victor Leite: Okay, so we did a small multifamily. We found this through a lead that we had, through one of the brokers we had a relationship with. It’s a small project. It’s a six-unit in Downtown Norfolk in Virginia. It’s literally a block from the hospital, a block from the university, a block away from the downtown shops and restaurants. We purchased this deal for $400,000, so it’s a $67,000 per unit, and like I said, we developed the same system to fix and flip and we moved it over to the multi.
So when we purchased this property, two of the units were vacant because they couldn’t get them rented out. It was the two top units. So what we did, we decided to go in there and we did our full interior upgrades of the units like we always do, and I can go into details about that if needed, but we did a full interior upgrade of the units, we brought them back up to pretty much be the best units in that building. We did two units and we found that there was a basement area of this property that in the entire history of this property nobody has ever utilized.
So we went there and we’re looking at opportunities of whether we can put a unit down in that basement, and the city gave us a little bit of a tough time doing that. So we transitioned over to our plan B which we turned it into an amenity. We did washer dryers, we did storage lockers, we did bike hookups, we did seating area, TV down there and we put a [unintelligible [00:13:08].12] on the outside, things like that… And we got all this done in ten days. We spent a total of $12,000, and we took the rents from where they were, which were $700 per unit, which was about 85 cents per square foot, and we moved it up to now they’re $1,000 per unit which moves our rent per square footage at $1.66. So we were pretty happy with how it turned out.
Theo Hicks: So you bought it for $400,000, you put 12k into it… Can you tell us a ballpark of what it’s worth now?
Victor Leite: Yeah, we had it appraised. It appraised at $510,000. So we have a little bit of equity left in it.
Theo Hicks: So when you bought that deal, did you bring investors in it, or was this out of your own pocket?
Victor Leite: This was out of my own pocket, because we wanted to show that we could transition our teams over fluidly without any hiccups… And it was a smaller deal so we really didn’t need any private investing for this deal. But now we’re using it as a case study for all of our future projects.
Theo Hicks: Perfect. The future plan– is the next deal you’re gonna buy on your own or are you gonna raise money?
Victor Leite: No. Next deal, like I said, right now we’re currently working on general partnerships on a 100-unit deal, on a 96-unit deal, on an 80-unit deal with partners in our Mid Atlantic region, and we’re going to try to be a strong partner. What I didn’t mention is that 258 Capital is our Capital Group, but we also have in-house, 258 Contracting. So we’re an all in one investment group where we have in-house contracting and labor force that can really go into a deal, and we can really make a really nice deal, a really great deal by controlling the renovations.
Theo Hicks: That makes sense, how you were able to deal with those two units and all that stuff in the basement, for 12 grand. I was like, “Wow. 12 grand…” are you just saying the basement or is that all in? Because it sounds like you were talking it was all in.
Victor Leite: All in.
Theo Hicks: It sounds like it’s definitely an advantage of having the contractor.
Victor Leite: Correct.
Theo Hicks: Alright, Victor. What is your best real estate investing advice ever?
Victor Leite: Okay, best advice ever. So I mentor a lot of young investors and things like that, and I say, the best advice I can give somebody ever is don’t be afraid to just take the action. Going back to my story, if we let our situation really discourage us, we would never be to the point we are today. I took action without really knowing where it really would lead us. So I say to the listeners that are listening now, you’re learning a lot of information, you’re taking it all in, but if you’re doing nothing with that information, information is just worthless.
So taking action on the information, whether it’s educating yourself on the vehicle of investment that you want, or developing or building your team. I can’t do this alone; I have a large team behind me that backs me up, and I’m talking about not just from contractors, but from partners, from project managers, from attorneys, CPAs, from my landscapers – everybody’s got a piece to play in this game. And then also you’ve got to network with like-minded individuals who are doing what you want to do. It will really raise your standard and your standard bar.
Theo Hicks: Alright, Victor. Are you ready for the Best Ever lightning round?
Victor Leite: I’m ready.
Theo Hicks: Alright. First, a quick word from our sponsor.
Break: [00:16:03]:03] to [00:16:48]:06]
Theo Hicks: Okay, so you said you like to read a lot of books… So what is the best ever book you’ve recently read?
Victor Leite: Okay, so I’ve read a few books recently. Now I gotta say, you guys are not paying me this or anything like that for the plug, but the Best Ever Apartment Syndication Book, we as a group just finished that and that book is awesome. It is a roadmap to really doing an apartment syndication from different angles, that other books don’t really talk about. So y’alls book is really a great book that you put out there. And I read a lot of mindset books, and The Power of Positive Thinking – I just recently just finished that. It really was a great mindset shifting book to really focus on confidence and restoring confidence and focusing on what are your fears and attacking those fears so that they don’t hold you back from inaction.
Theo Hicks: Well, thank you for that shout-out for the book. It’s The Best Ever Apartment Syndication Book, pick it up on Amazon, people. Okay, if your business were to collapse today, what would you do next?
Victor Leite: So if our business were to collapse today, which we have a lot of diversity, so we hope it never happens, but I think we’d go back to what really inspired me to do real estate in the first place. I’d go back to traveling again. Traveling opened up our eyes to different cultures and different mindsets and really allowed us to really press that reset button and get off our ridiculous crazy hustle, 9 to 5, and just say, “Hey, what is really truly important to us?” Also maybe, possibly volunteer. Volunteer medical services abroad. When we traveled, we saw a lot of people who are in need. There’s a lot of people in need all over this world. So I think that’s what we would do next.
Theo Hicks: What is the best ever travel destination?
Victor Leite: Oh, do you want my top three?
Theo Hicks: Yeah. Quick top three; just give them to me.
Victor Leite: Okay, quick top three. So obviously, I’m from Brazil. So a lot of people don’t know Brazil because Brazil doesn’t speak a lot of English, but the Northern part of Brazil is some of the most beautiful coastlines you would ever see. Also, Brazil is vast. So there’s a lot of things to do, but secondarily, if not Brazil, I would say, Vietnam. I know the US and Vietnam are not the best of friends based on history, but Vietnam – also beautiful landscape, beautiful ocean, beautiful people and great food. And lastly, we really enjoyed spending time in Bali. We really were able to really spend time in doing all that reading and tapping into our mindsets and focusing on ourselves. So those are my top three for your listeners who are looking to cut the cord and travel.
Theo Hicks: Perfect. I had to switch out one of the other questions because you answered it already.
Victor Leite: Oh, I did? Okay.
Theo Hicks: Yeah… Which is a good thing. So thank you for sharing that. So what deal did you lose the most money on and how much did you lose?
Victor Leite: We’ve done numerous rehabs, and to be honest, we’ve never really lost money. We’ve not made the returns that we were projecting. There was a deal where we made 1,000 bucks, but we didn’t really lose any money because we bought the deals right. We don’t just buy everything and anything that comes on the table; we have certain specific criterias that we look at with our business model and we try to avoid making mistakes, especially from others, who just think they can do anything and sell anything. So we’ve really not lost much. We just haven’t really met the marks we really wanted to on certain deals.
Theo Hicks: And then lastly, what is the best ever place to reach you?
Victor Leite: Alright, so to reach us, you mentioned it, 258capital.com. It’s a place where you can reach out to us with regards to the commercial space. Lvrinvestments.com, that’s our rehab fix and flip business. You can see the projects we’ve done there. We can do a lot of stuff on social media now. We have Instagram and Facebook @LVrealty; you can follow us there. And right now, we’ve been really working on providing educational content on YouTube, so we started a platform called Thinking Thursdays, and that’s where we really try to interview high-performing people and try to learn their various habits that drove to their successes. So those are the areas that you can reach out to us and we respond pretty quickly.
Theo Hicks: All right, Victor. Well, again, thank you for joining us today and telling us about your journey into real estate investing. You talked about how you started off doing the typical corporate job and then ended up a nomad for about a year, and then eventually got into real estate, bought your first fixer-upper in Virginia Beach. It didn’t initially start off as planned, but you were able to connect with local contractors, fix the property up and now it’s your first flip, and you asked yourself, “Why can I just do this same thing over and over again?” So that project lead to another project and it has snowballed into a fix and flip business, and then you talked about how you wanted to essentially take the systems and processes that you created for your fix and flip business and use that in multifamily. That’s what you’re focusing on today.
We talked about raising money, and how you started focusing first on family and friends, showed them your business plan, they started investing, and then when you wanted to scale further, you reached out even more to friends of friends, college friends and co-workers. So you have 16 investors [unintelligible [00:21:28].00] retirees, self-direct IRAs and cash. You talked about the differences between the returns offered on residential and multifamily and that you were able to transition those investors into multifamily because they trusted you and you were able to tell them about better returns, better asset protection, and you really just followed through on what you said you were going to do in the past, so they trusted you to do it again in the future.
We went over your multifamily example where you bought a six-unit in Downtown Norfolk, Virginia. That came through a broker relationship, bought it for 400 grand, two units were vacant, you upgraded those units and then added some amenities to the basement. All in 12k because of your in-house contracting and labor force, and you were able to increase the rents from $700 a month to $1,000 per month increasing the value of the property to $510,000, so a great success story in the first deal.
And then your best advice was threefold, which was one, don’t be afraid to take action; two, make sure you develop and build your team and recognize that everyone has a role to play and you can’t do it all yourself; and then three is to network with like-minded individuals who are doing what you want to do.
So again, thanks for joining us, very solid advice. Best Ever listeners, as always, thank you for joining us. Have a best ever day and we will talk to you tomorrow.
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