Real Estate Happens
All things Real Estate! From the crazy things you see in real estate to better ways to do business. Thought provoking to get you fired up and ready to take on the day. Kenny Letner is the Broker and Owner of Aweigh Real Estate in Virginia Beach VA. Join us as we explore the different aspect of Real Estate as it pertains not only to the real estate professionals but also to the consumer and see what is changing in the real estate landscape.
Real Estate Happens
From Naval Officer to Real Estate Mogul: Geoffrey Whiteside's Journey to Triumph
Have you ever wondered how a Naval Officer could transition into a real estate tycoon? That's the fascinating journey our guest, Geoffrey Whiteside, navigates us through as he recounts his remarkable shift from disciplined military service to the dynamic world of property investment. From his days at the Naval Academy to his unwavering loyalty in college football, he brings us the launch of his motivational Blue and Gold podcast, all while never straying from the life lessons learned from his roots in Columbus, Ohio. His tale is a blueprint of tenacity and vision, showing that true grit can lead to triumph in various fields of life.
Strap in as we unfold the details of real estate investments that have transformed ordinary properties into multi-million dollar goldmines. Geoffrey peels back the curtain on what it takes to make it big in the market, from a 32-unit complex deal in Virginia Beach to the art of value-add investment and the savvy of 'subject to' deals. He emphasizes the importance of staying educated in the industry—a misstep in knowledge could mean leaving a hefty sum on the table. It's an eye-opening segment that pushes agents to constantly seek innovative investment opportunities and reminds us that sometimes, the road less traveled is paved with gold.
Our chat wouldn't be complete without discussing the creative strategies that have been pivotal to Joffrey's business growth. We touch on the potential of snapping up properties with no equity, fine-tuning cash flow, and the collaborative power of joint ventures. But it's not just about the deals; it's about the people too. Building a reliable real estate team and nurturing genuine industry connections are the cornerstones of his philosophy. As we wrap up, I share some pearls of wisdom for agents with an eye on the horizon: find your niche, and never underestimate the power of a service mindset to propel your business forward into 2024 and beyond. Join us for this insightful episode with Geoffrey Whiteside, as we explore the marathon journey to real estate success.
Hey guys, welcome to Real Estate Happens. We have a great guest this week. We are going to be talking about all things investment buying, hold flips, all kinds of stuff. We have a great guest today. Joffrey Whiteside is with us. Joffrey, welcome to the show. I appreciate you having me on. Kenny man, I tell you we just had a great lunch, went over to Cooper's Hawks, maybe had a glass of wine Now, of course, as on the show, as always, drinking old fashions, so you've had a chance to taste it. So, of your old fashioned drinking career, give me a rating one to 10. Last time, but last time was gonna give me a 7.4, I was very happy with that. Where you at on that drink.
Speaker 2:I would say a I'm gonna give it a nine. It's pretty good, it's really good, actually, he's so kind.
Speaker 1:He's so kind. You know what. You're welcome. You're coming back. We'll bring you back on the show for sure. You know we were having this discussion at lunch about oh my God, we talked about everything, of course, jofrey. First tell us a little bit about yourself, what you did in a former life prior to real estate and then prior to that, and then I've got a secret to tell about him. That's gonna really upset the world, but let's hear who you are, jofrey.
Speaker 2:Yeah, jofrey Whiteyne, originally from Columbus Ohio, go Bucks, decided to get in a Navy, went to the Naval Academy and then commissioned as a swole, did a swole for eight years when I started off investing. I started off as an instant here in a local area and then I invest pretty much here in Columbus Ohio for the most part. And then about four years ago I decided to get my real estate license, start up a real estate team here locally. And yeah, that's me in a nutshell.
Speaker 1:Yeah. Well, he skipped a really, really important factor there and I'm gonna throw him under the bus here real quick. So you all heard him. Go Bucks right. Ohio fan. Who'd you play college football for? I played at Navy. You played at Navy Academy.
Speaker 2:What is wrong with this guy? Go Bucks. What is wrong with you?
Speaker 1:So I'm sure you're still invested every year in a Go Navy beat army, Absolutely 100%. All right, good, good, At least we have that. But now let me ask you the really important question Navy plays Ohio. Who you pulling for?
Speaker 2:Naval Academy.
Speaker 1:Okay, all right, all right. All right, all right, so I can live with that. At least you went that direction, so I find it interesting. I've been following you a little bit. You've got a great podcast called Blue and Gold and, being from the Academy in theapolis area, you've got such a great built-in network with a group of people that you obviously have a lot in common with, and I've listened to some of your podcasts and I think they're really informative and I think there's a great message there. So, guys, listen, get on Spotify he's on there look up the Blue and Gold podcast. It's really really great information. What inspired you to really kind of get started doing podcasting?
Speaker 2:Really just to connect with high-level people and really be that bridge to get their stories to people in the Navy or just armed forces just in general, to get them inspired to do something like great with their lives. There's people that have come from the same background as you that have done awesome things in a row, so honestly just highlighting those people and those moments.
Speaker 1:I think that's amazing. Let's go back a little bit farther, a little bit about when you grew up, like high school. What kind of area did you grow up? Was it a rural area? Was it an urban area? What kind of background did you come from?
Speaker 2:So I grew up in the inner city of Columbus, ohio not the best area, but it's all good, right. You know went to public school through middle school and then went to a Catholic school to play football, essentially and for a good education. So really Columbus was really a strong background for me. Not all butterflies and stuff like that. I had some friends go to jail, get arrested, that type of stuff. So I really learned from that environment. But really going to a Catholic high school, totally different speed. So I feel like I have I come from all different type of backgrounds, right, all different type of people.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean, I think our background is always what shapes us, and as well as I do I was in a Navy for 20 years You're obviously a great Navy man and we realize that as we're coming up in the Navy, we're going to be subjected to things that are good and things that are bad, and we always are able to take the leadership above us and around us and look at what works and what doesn't. And it's such a diverse environment, right. You have people coming from everywhere with different thoughts on things. So to be able to take the parts that work and the parts that don't and put that back and then formulate those into a success for yourself is always an amazing trait for someone to have, and I kind of feel like you brought a lot of that background with you up through the academy and then into your real estate career and you've kind of made those things work.
Speaker 1:From you it's very evident by what you're doing in the community that you're a great leader. We see you now with the team. I think last year you did over 18 million in volume, which is high standards of anywhere you go, there's about 9,000, for those of you who don't know, there's about 9,000 agents in this area and he's in the top 100. So just to be able to do that in a short span of four years says a tremendous about you, where you come from and how you've done. What do you kind of attribute to how you got to that level? What did year one look like versus what year four now looks like?
Speaker 2:To be honest with you, I think no, no lie to me. I like this sounds crazy, but I think the Navy kind of molded me for success in entrepreneurship. Just because you deal with people from all different walks of life in the Navy, you don't act. That's yeah. So, honestly, I think the Navy, as far as working 16 hour days you were stationed on the ship working 16 hour days for eight months on the deployment, seven days a week, seven days a week back to back I think it really kind of molded me into this successful I guess successful entrepreneur at the end of the day.
Speaker 1:Well, no, you can say that word, don't be shy of it. I mean, you 100% are very successful, and the part that I love about you is that you are an entrepreneur. We have so many agents in the industry. They come and they do real estate and they buy and sell for agent, for clients, and that's it. And I think they're just missing out on some of the most valuable things of why they became an agent in the first place. I'm gonna brag on you just a little bit. So Joffrey started investing eight years ago and in an eight year time span, he now has 70 doors that he personally works with and has ownership in. Now you wanna talk about building generational wealth. You wanna talk about living legacy. You wanna talk about really making real estate count. That's how you do. It is by becoming an investor yourself. If you're in real estate and you're not investing and you're not looking at ways to use that knowledge to help further yourself, I think that's a problem and you started doing that long before you got your license and that's amazing.
Speaker 2:Absolutely, absolutely. They did a study. I forget what study it was, but they said essentially the number one regret of a real estate agent high level real estate agent right Was they wish they would have purchased more and sold less. And I think that's powerful Cause at the end of the day, being a realtor it's a job, right, but purchasing property is more passive income and you have the inside trade. You're already in the field of real estate. So at the end of the day, I think you know agents do, or anybody that you should really get into real estate, cause it's the proven path to building generational wealth over time. It doesn't happen quick, it happens over time, but if you can kind of figure out how to get in that lane, it can definitely, you know, provide for you and your family.
Speaker 1:Well, if we go back and we talk about the Great Depression in this country and everybody talks about the Great Depression, how hard it was and how difficult it was, but the truth is the Great Depression produced more millionaires in this country than any other time in history, and they did it through real estate. During the Great Depression, you could have bought property for pennies on the dollar, I don't care who you were, I mean, they were just pretty much giving stuff away cause they didn't, you know, couldn't do it, you know. And the people that were able to to grab that or hold onto what they had at the time, came out the other end in a very, very good position. And it goes to the old adage right you can't time the market, it's time in the market.
Speaker 2:Yep.
Speaker 1:Absolutely Right. So the quicker you get in the market, the better off you're going to be in the long run. Absolutely, you're going to lose money short term. Who cares? I mean it goes up and down, but overall it always goes up. Somebody says well, what do you mean? I'm like. Well, it's real simple. Let's go back to when you for me, with courthouse of states.
Speaker 2:Yep, absolutely.
Speaker 1:Courthouse states built 94, 95 timeframe somewhere along in that. Do you know what those houses sold for 94, 95?
Speaker 2:I do not, I have no idea.
Speaker 1:Yeah, those brand new construction homes went for about 124 to $150,000.
Speaker 2:Wow.
Speaker 1:And I just sold one in there for five and a quarter, right, and we're not even really talking that long ago, right? But if you had bought a house back then and rented it out or whatever, look at the equity you had. It's just insane, yeah. So how are you dealing with, or what's your long term plan when you buy property? Right, when you buy property now, you got to be looking at it from several different angles Long term equity, short-term equity, cash flow what of those things to you, what's coming to the most important thing of how you look at these properties to evaluate them for purchase?
Speaker 2:I would say, you know, when I first started off I was, you know, I was looking more towards, you know, the long term play in long term equity built over time. So I was buying in, you know, areas ahead like school districts, um, and things like that. So when I was starting off, I did like house hacking. I was written by the room. I was doing the extra things that will generate more cash flow for me. But in the grand scheme of things, I was, you know, focused on that long term appreciation and it's worked out. You know well, for me Nowadays, um, I'm not allowed to buy any single family houses. Um, my wife said she'll divorce me if I get any more single family houses because she, she kind of like she's in the Airbnb space, she's she manages the manager in the Airbnb space and she's like over it. So she was like you know, any more single family houses were done.
Speaker 1:You know it's. It's funny. You should say that my wife told me that about guns. Um right, so, but I found out that once you have so many, you can add another one and nobody really knows. Right, that's true. So you could with 70, with 70 properties now, you could probably add one here or there and nobody might know, and if it turns out to be a good deal, I think you'll get forgiven.
Speaker 2:Yeah yeah, but but now, now I focus on kind of medium size multifamily properties, uh, where I am adding value through renovations and increasing the rent and the way more bigger multifamily's work is if, if you increase the rent, that increases the value, because that's how values are assessed, and units that are, uh, five plus.
Speaker 1:So yeah, so what you're talking about there is a growth multiplier, and a growth multiplier is a is an amazing thing. Uh, last year uh, well, it won't be last year now, but year before last, so 22 at the end of 22, I sold a 32 unit complex for 7.1 million and was it here locally. Yeah, it was here locally. Oh man, you should call me. Yeah, I had like seven people wanting to buy that thing, right, so we sold it. Seven is not bad. We sold it for cash, so I don't have say yeah.
Speaker 1:Where was it at? Uh down the oceanfront? Uh, on uh old Virginia Beach Boulevard and Burdenack, right at the corner there. Uh, you know where Sun Title is, right there on the corner.
Speaker 2:Yep, yep, absolutely.
Speaker 1:If you turn right there, those townhouses to the left that just look like townhouses, they're actually owned by one person and they were, uh, they're actually his own as apartments. Nice so they're all three bedroom, two and a half bath, the townhouses just amazing. The thing is, is that the guy that owned them built them? And he built them, I want to say, sometime in the nineties.
Speaker 2:Was he a Navy chief? Nope, okay. Uh, I know a Navy chief that owns a ton of units in the area.
Speaker 1:So no, he was, uh. So the man is uh, uh, uh, got a love of the guy at Disney. His name is Kirk Um. Down at the uh Norfolk waterfront there was a barge building thing called Allied. Okay, allied owned probably a mile and a half of shoreline in downtown Norfolk and he sold that in the nineties, I want to say for like 160 million, right. And this is a guy who grew up in South Norfolk, um I, he still owns the first house that he ever bought, uh, little two bedroom house over off of Bainbridge Boulevard, and you know, so it comes from nothing kind of work his way up, you know, through life and I was done, very, done, very, very well. So when he sold Allied um, he built this. His son-in-law is a contractor and builder. He built this right and he has had it rented out for a very, very long time and he's never really raised the rent too much on people. So so here we are with a complex that's all rented out between 1400 and 1495.
Speaker 2:In Virginia.
Speaker 1:Beach In Virginia Beach. So you mentioned something you said value add, right. So the people that bought the property, they looked at it and said, oh, because my you know my grocery multiplier based on our cap rate in the area and one thing another. We're about seven to seven, two somewhere along in there. They bought the property. They immediately, immediately started as leases were coming up, raised the rent to 21 and 2200. And if the people said no and moved out, then they renovated the unit, raised it to 2300, right.
Speaker 1:And as they work through all of those and they get all of that turned over, now instead of units at 14 and 50, they're at 23 and 24, what do you think that did to the gross rent multiplier on the back end? Right? So now they've invested the 7.1, probably another 1.5 in rehab and they're what? Well, above 10 million nine value on that property Easily. So what a great concept to be able to find something like that that is underrated or undervalued or under rented, understand that you can put more money into it and how it does it along, and I think a little more agents should really be able to understand that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, absolutely, I definitely agree. And then, on the flip side of that, they probably pulled money out of that deal, right? They would you say they purchased it for 7 million, 7.1, yeah, 7.1, and it sounds like it will be worth a little bit more than 10 million.
Speaker 1:But Once they get it, rehab and re-rent it and get that out there. I think so.
Speaker 2:Yeah, probably double. So you're talking about even if you didn't pull all the equity out, even if you did like 50%, you could go buy another multi-family apartment. So that's the game.
Speaker 1:It is a great game and I talk to agents and agents will be like well, and here's the question. They always ask Joffrey, how the hell do you own 70 places? How do you get all those finance? And I think agents are remiss. And I'm gonna talk about a deal that I tried to do this weekend where the listing agent and you know, god bless them, I'm nothing against them, I'm not mad at them or anything, but due to a lack of understanding of real estate in general, they left $9,000 on the table for their seller that they could have had for their seller. And what we're talking about obviously is subject to and you say subject to, and 90% of the agents say that too they're gonna be like what, yeah, what.
Speaker 1:They don't get it because they think that the only deals that are to be made are the ones that are written on a rain contract. And that makes up such a small portion of the pie. And there's so many other creative, wonderful ways to do business and to get things done. I'll give you an example. So, on this particular property, I offered right at 250,000 cash and told them look, if you'll let me explain to you what a subject to deal is, I can actually give you 260,000. And it was just a foreign concept to them and they were just listening to reply, not trying to listen to understand.
Speaker 1:If they would have listened to me, I would have explained that in purchasing this house, I am going to go and get hard money lender and I'm gonna bring that money in.
Speaker 1:That's generally gonna run eight to 10%. And if I borrowed $200,000 from that hard money lender at eight to 10%, that's $16,000 to $20,000 in interest that I have to pay back over the next six months while I rehab and flip the property. If they would have just simply left the loan in place, allowed me to take over the payments of that loan, hence the subject to subject to the current mortgage deed it in my name, and let me do that. I would have been more than glad to pay them 10 to a $12,000 in interest, versus paying 16 or 20 to a hard money lender. I would rather the seller get that money and what that does it allows me to help the seller really get out of a tough situation. The agents get their commission, I get the house, I get to do the work and it works well for everybody. But, Jaffer, you just can't get people to understand that or at least pause long enough to listen to what might work.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, and I definitely kind of agree with that. Did you try to kind of like break it down into like a one pager? You know how simple people are. Right, People are very simple. What I found that worked for me if they don't understand, like a certain you know subject, whether that be a VA assumable or a subject, to try to break it down into very simplified one page, no more than one page, right or a short email.
Speaker 1:Here's the really sad part as I start to explain this to the agent, they cut me off and they said I've already talked to my broker. And my broker said just get a cash deal and accept nothing else. And I'm like, okay, well, so worst advice your broker could have ever given you yeah, you know. So it's just breaks my heart sometimes that I'm truly trying to help somebody, trying to get something done for them, and they just won't stop long enough to listen. We could all win at it.
Speaker 1:You know, I bought a house probably a month ago and there was no equity in house. It probably may be. I think the house was payoff and I was like 274, the value like 280. There's no value there, but it had a very low interest rate. They were starting to get behind. They needed to be out from into this house, they needed to be away from it. So I was able to do a subject to right and their payments are 1860, right. I got them away from the house that was killing them. It needed about $8,000 or $9,000 worth of work, rehab, which they didn't have, and I've got it re-rendered now for $23,000, $24,000, $95,000. So I've got a. You know it's not a lot, but it's a you know $400, $500 a month cash flow. By the way, jan is managing that for me, right, and I'll wait until we move down the road and there's some equity gains in the house. I'll re-event and I'll sell it then and that's the play right there. It doesn't take a tremendous amount of money to buy these properties. Has that been your experience?
Speaker 2:I would say, for the most part my tactic is honestly doing like joint ventures or syndications, bringing other people along. You kind of never want to go at it alone. I know we talked at lunch. You know I have a couple. You know properties and stuff that you offered to partner with me. Right, I don't necessarily have the experience and flipping and stuff like that. So you offered that tactic to me. So my tactic has been more so like raising capital or just doing JVs. I'm putting my own capital in but I'm going in with people. So that that's been my tactic over time.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think it's a there's. And again it just goes to show that there's way more ways to do business than just buy and sell property. Absolutely Right, you know. The other thing I found fascinating about you is you're you're running a team over there and you're wanting to grow that team. Talk about that a little bit and kind of where you see yourself going in 24.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah. So we have a team of four people really right now two admins and two other agents and we're actually looking to expand. I think I have a good system that's scalable and repeatable. So I don't know if any agents listen to this podcast. I will be happy to you know, speak to you and, you know, put you on the right path. I think we talked about it at lunch. As long as you can, you know, stay disciplined and do the day in, day out work, you'll be fine, especially if you're like personable. That that makes it even you know better at the end of the day. So I'm a strong believer in you know, just like building authentic you know relationships over time. So that's what you know.
Speaker 2:Our team is focused on building authentic relationships with the people we do know and then the people we don't know. We build relationships with those people as well, whether they're coming from. You know cold calls or anything like that. It's just being a human you don't want to cold call somebody into. Like you know, I want to buy your house, right? You know, like you, you have to build rapport before you know, before you try to assist them, and that's the way we think about it, right Is. I have a really good service and I'm just trying to help you out. What do you need help with? At the end of the day?
Speaker 1:If we come with that servant leadership right and everything that we do and we provide the service and we genuinely want to get to know people and let's be honest, when you, when you're talking about a real estate, that's a pretty big thing and you know, do you should always want to have some type of a relationship or know somebody at a certain level before you do that kind of business with them. At least I do. If we could get more agents to stop talking about real estate and start to get to know people, they would do so much better at this, absolutely. I know you're a great lead generator and you're great at conversions and I know that's gonna be your focus in 24. If you're an agent out there and you wanna talk to Joffrey about, if you're struggling and you wanna talk to Joffrey, joffrey how can they get a hold to you?
Speaker 2:You can find me on Instagram or you could just text me 7578310532. My Facebook is JoffreyWighttide that's G-E-O-F-F-R-E-Y White Tide, and my Instagram is joffreytherelateur underscore.
Speaker 1:He has all those social media channels down. I struggle with that.
Speaker 2:I do. Oh my gosh.
Speaker 1:I have Alex Bird from Social Bird Co. She's my social media coach and she's been doing a pretty good job for me. But I've never been really good at social media. I guess I'm just too fucking old. I mean, let's just be honest about it, Joffrey, if you had one piece of advice for the agents that are out there today of how they can improve their business, what they can do to really kind of take care of themselves in 2024, what would that be?
Speaker 2:I would say start with kind of like a niche market, whether that be like your database or some type of I don't know if you're prior military, look into the military. I think too many people focus, honestly, try to do too much. You need to focus on that one thing and get that one thing. I don't know what it is, it might be cold calling, it might be just if you have a big database, it might be focusing on that. But my piece of advice is focus on that one thing, master that one thing until it gets you the results you want and then kind of expand from there. I think that's a downfall of a lot of just business owners just in general is they don't focus on that one thing.
Speaker 1:I think a lot of people lose focus and we talk about accidental real estate. We won't get into that right now, but I think, consistently, consistency and systematically having a system that will help you be consistent and time blocking and doing the things every day the blocking and tackling. I talk about this all the time. There's nothing fancy and nothing sexy about blocking and tackling, but it's what wins football games Right?
Speaker 1:It's what wins football games and nobody wants to do the blocking and the tackling Right. They get bored, they give up and, guys, it's a marathon not a sprint. Jofre, thank you so much for being on the podcast today. I would love this to get out there to as many people as possible, because I think you've got a great message. I think you are a real asset to the industry and we're just really glad to have you.
Speaker 1:I appreciate you having me. Young Kenny, all right guys, have a good one. Look, join us. We'll hit you up on our next podcast. You've been here today with us with Real Estate Happens. Have a good one.