Danny Jones Podcast - #86 - Florida's King of Real Estate Arbitrage | Bryon Aponte

Episode Date: April 9, 2021

Bryon Aponte an entrepreneur & real estate investor based in Tampa, Florida. He also owns & trades millions of dollars worth of collectible trading cards. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hello, world. This episode of the podcast is all about making money. Brian Aponte is a major player in Florida real estate. He also owns millions of dollars worth of collectible trading cards, which he's constantly buying and selling every single day. I met Brian at a restaurant the other day, and he must have done 10 deals on the phone within the hour I was there with him. It's truly amazing the way his mind works.

And I immediately knew I had to get him on the podcast to get a better understanding of his perspective on real estate, money, and investing. Please enjoy this invigorating episode with Brian Aponte What's up Brian? Not much, brother. How are you? Good. It was great to meet you the other day, man.

Thank you for coming and doing this. Oh, it's pleasure. This is going to be fun. You got it. Tell me, for people out there listening, tell, give me like a brief little background on like who you are, where you came from, and what you do? Look, what are you all about? So basically I was...

Get a little bit. So basically, I'm from Jersey originally. Yeah. Perth Dan Boy, real close to, uh, Elizabeth Norfolk around that area. And what I do is I just buy and sell anything. But mostly real estate, vintage cards, baseball cards, stuff like that, jewelry, watches, anything that has a liquid value.

So growing up, I was born in 1970. My uncle used to own hardware stores, liquor stores. So it was always brought up in the grind. You know what I mean? Yeah. Because in reality, there's really no. money in school. And back in those days, back in 76, Carter was the president. We had a, you know, we had a gasoline shortage, you know, the interest rates were like 20%. So the only way to make

money was to have cash, just like today. But the world's changed a little bit. But so the buying and selling game is where the money's at. So that being said, I moved out here in 19, I would say like 1989, 1990. I had to get out of Jersey because it was just nothing but trouble. So when I came here, my first job actually was I was a custodian at a high school in Brandon, making $6 an hour walking 7, 8 miles a day to go to work. It was my favorite time of my life, the grind.

So then I bought a little flea market booth in SEPA, Florida, baseball cards from this lady for $2,000 Within two, three months, you know, just kept stacking my bread, had about 20, 30,000. I went to Tampa. I bought a little baseball card shop in Fiesta Plaza. Then I started hitting the country. Going to the big shows, buying, sellings. I've always been a big sports fan.

And then in the meantime, you know, I would only work maybe Friday, Saturday, Sunday, do the grind. And then, you know, I meet people buy their collections, just buy out their tables. And then one thing led to another. And you just deal with different businesses, jewelry stores, pawn shops, furniture, bail bonds, real estate. And real estate's a good hustle because it has a lot of zeros at the end. So if you buy something, let's say you buy a pair of sneakers for $500 and you sell them for $800. Sounds cool.

We only make it $300. What are you going to do with $300? Right. You buy a house for $100,000, you flip it for a buck 30. You just make 30 Gs. So the bottom line is to make money, you just got to be well-versed, well-run. And you got to be able to pull that trigger immediately. Because in any game, nobody wants to deal with a procrastinator.

It's either you're in or you're out. There's really no in between. Bro, when I first met you, I think it was like yesterday. It was two days ago, I think. You reminded me instantly of like you were like just Tony Soprano to me. Like you were, you're so much energy. You hustle at your hands are in so many different things. So many different types of businesses.

You have sneaker stores scattered throughout. the state you have this a warehouse full of trading cards like how much money worth of trading like baseball cards and basketball cards do you have? So let's get back to the beginning where your question like the

like the sneaker store. Yeah. That belongs to a friend of mine and I was like involved in the beginning and I still am a little involved. It's it's a slower pace fast pace game. Let me tell you what I mean by that. Then we'll get to the cards. It's a hustle. It's a grind and you're making $50, $60 a pair. You got to push a lot of pairs. You got to do a lot of work.

You got to pay high rents. And, you know, it's just a good game for somebody who's looking to make a million a year. You know what I mean? I still work with the same people. But the trading card, the baseball cards, that's a hustle I like. But to answer your question, the value of what I have, several million. But I constantly buy and sell every day. The baseball card game is something that's really come up a lot because it's an asset without a paper trail.

And everybody's interested in it. Like I was telling you, it's sort of like artwork, but on a different level because everybody knows about sports and everybody wants to get involved. What's the number one most valuable card that you own? You know, I own some PSA Jordan 10 rookie cards. You know, they were bringing like $750 to $800,000. You know, they've cooled off a little bit to about $400,000 to $500,000 basically because, you know, it's a new asset class that the smart money's coming into. But, you know, I have 1988 flare basketball. I probably have 800 graded packs.

You know, the tens are three, four thousand each. But I have a lot of different stuff, you know, from Mickey Mantle to Ty Cobb, to Babe Ruth, to Jordan. You know, I don't really do much with the newer stuff because they're very volatile and I'm not interested in losing money. Sorry to interrupt, but this episode of the podcast is brought to you by our sponsor, Ridge Wallet. For years, society has been shoving, dumbass, awkward, bulgy George Costanza wallet down our throats, carrying around old receipts, pictures of their cats, and gift cards from 1999. Well, hold on to your hot dogs, folks. This fucking thing holds, like, 12 credit cards, and even has room for your cash in the back.

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And you do all these transactions on eBay with the cards? Yeah, we'll buy collections. You know, a guy I call me up here. I got this collection. 1957 tops baseball set, just use that as an example. So we look at what they have. Okay, cool. We just add it up, figure it out, just buy it from them.

Then we get the cards graded. We'll just, you know, whatever we do with it. You know, you just crack the collections down. That's what I did for numerous years. I used to travel the country, you know, spend a few thousand, buy, you know, 100,000 here, 200,000 there, get some graded wholesale, some retail. It's just a fast-paced business.

How do you have time to balance all the real estate you're doing and buying and selling cars? every day because you're like constantly doing this all the time how do you find the time well when you look at real estate it's a fast pace but it's really not and you just have to use your mind you have to take your mind in different avenues it's like when like let me give an example new construction you already know what you're getting into because you already know what the product's worth after before you even build it if a house is selling for 300 a foot and you're building for 100 a foot your value your profits based on what you pay for the dirt minus your expenditures and then at the same time

you're constantly looking for different avenues to make money. Like, you know, I've used car lots. I mean, that's a dead business, but, you know, there's some money there. Anything that makes money and it doesn't take swallow a lot of my time that I could pawn off to one of my people in my camp, we'll figure it out. Because there's always some way where and when to make money. But in the real estate, I like real estate because everybody's your client, your mother, your father, your sister, your brother, your cousin, your neighbor,

because everybody lives somewhere. It's a necessity, a luxury. It's an avenue to just make a lot of money, especially in today's day and age, because the rental income is very high and we're in a market that's growing and the interest rates are low. What kind of real estate do you own?

Well, you know, we own commercial real estate, trailer parks, single family homes, multiple family. But when I own them, to be honest with you, I did a bad job because I don't like to own much. I like to buy and sell it immediately. You know, I've probably bought a few thousand houses in Tampa alone. My thing is get it under contract and call one of my members and my team to dump it immediately.

90% of the stuff I bought, I bought it in one day and sold it the same day. But the ones, the stuff I do, yeah. That's insane. Not really. Think about it logically. If you're buying $100 bills for $90, how fast can you sell them? So because everything has a dump price. You know what I mean?

If you're looking at an asset, you already know what it's worth. based on the wholesale value. And if you're looking at the retail value, you're looking at it wrong. The money's made when you purchase it, not when you sell it. You only realize your profits as you sell. But now the game has changed because, you know, we live here in Florida, Tampa, St. Pete area. So there's a lot of people moving here with no state tax. Everybody wants to be here.

And the properties have gone way up due to the fact that people from up north, Jersey, New York, Connecticut, Boston, and in California, you're tired of dealing with the state taxes, dealing with a lot of liberal liberalism. They just want to come here and get out of that. And their houses are worth so much more than ours. So it's easier for them to purchase them. Wow. But what's the most amount of houses you bought at one time?

Didn't you tell me you bought like a shitload of houses at once? Like a couple hundred? Well, you know, I sold one guy like 56 houses. I think in 90 days. It's buying and sell the same day. But, you know, we bought 18 unit. buildings, we've bought beaches on the water, properties on the water. You name it, I bought it. The thing is, like, when you say what's the most I bought at one time, obviously, I think, you know,

we could buy 50, I think we bought 36 houses from one guy in a deal, the way you structure it, owner finance. So you always want to pay cash because it's easier to acquire. But at the same time, you want to use owner finance, this way you could control the deal with the seller's money. You could manipulate the product using their money. Yeah, it's another thing that you were telling me about. You don't use banks. We had a long discussion about that because there's a different. We were talking about another guy who I used to deal with. We won't mention his name, but he uses banks.

And you were saying that why use banks? Well, the thing with the banks, the banks are, they want to lend money to people who don't need money or people who are desperate. Because the government backs FHA. So if you work at a fast food chain and you're making a tad below, above poverty, they're going to lend you money because it's almost they're forced. the Dodd, you know, Frank Dodd act and all that. Yeah. So a guy who has money and who's going to sell the property immediately and they look at your track record, they don't want to lend you money because they can't see the profit in it for

them. The only way they're going to lend you money is if you leverage it and hold it for a certain amount of time as a rental asset. Right. And rentals are cool for certain people because it's like a fixed income, but I don't really care for the rental business. No, you know, you don't like the long term. Well, let me put it to you like this.

Let's say you buy a property for $100,000, use round numbers, and you rent it for $1,000 a month. You're bringing in $12,000 a year. By the time you pay your property manager expenses for taxes, insurance, maintenance, you might net $8,000. So you're working on an 8 cap. That's good for an investment company because they're borrowing at 2%, so they're 400 times in their money.

But for a guy like me who bought the house for $100,000, I can sell it for $120 and one day. So I can make $20,000, I can make 20% on my money. money in one day when I can make $8,000 in a year and deal with the headaches because most tenants, 90% of the time is a headache. But how do you find these buyers? Like when you say you find a house right now, you can go buy right now and sell it. Like how do you know who you're going to sell it to?

You just have like a Rolodex people you know. You can just like, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, I know I sell to this guy. So, you know, in my phone, I probably got a couple thousand people's numbers in my phone over the years. And I know who buys what in what area and what they're paying, how they're buying it. and, you know, there's a high demand for the asset, you know what I mean? So it's going to sell immediately at the right price. Let's take the $100 bill example.

For $98, you're going to have a line a mile long. For $101, you won't have one client. So you have to know the bottom line, the razor thin line, where to buy and where to sell at. That's where the money's made. How do you, so you, like I could look, you tell me Tampa, Florida, like I, like in the city limits, I know most, I'd say 95% of the streets. Okay. I don't look at GPS.

I already know what the house is worth before I get there. Right. Because everything is based on retail minus the expenditures, minus your expenses. And most people want to make a certain amount of dollar amount, so you already know what they're going to pay before they buy it. Okay. That makes a lot of sense. So let's get back to the sports shit, the baseball cards.

Okay. No problem. Have you, are you going to buy or sell any cards today? Like, is this a daily thing you do? daily. Are you like riding the market day to day? Are there any cards, anything that you hold out on long term? Definitely. Like the best cards to hold are the vintage cards. Like you want to buy stuff that's going to go up in value based on the story of the player. Like let me give an example, Babe Ruth. He's probably the greatest baseball player ever to play the game. So you have a lot of people that are looking for that card. And a lot, there's more collectors than product. So the grading companies grade from a scale of 1 to 10. And then they have a population report of how many cards have been slabbed in certain grade.

Like I buy cards now. Let's take an example for $10,000 that I sold for 1,000, 3 years ago. So you want to buy the old cards. And the newer cards, they have a lot of hype because a lot of young people who are flipping crypto and making money in the stock market. This is what they're seeing. But at the same time, when you're spending $400,000 on a card of a guy who's been in the league three years, you don't really know the outcome of his career. So you're basically making a bet. Like me, I don't make bets.

If it's not a guarantee, I just don't want to deal with it. Right. That makes sense. You know, I get in the product cheap. I try to buy as many as I can. And the more I buy, the more they're worth. Because I'm the one that's going to drive up the price. What other kind of businesses are you in?

Well, I dabble in anything that makes money. You know what I mean? Like, look, yesterday a friend of mine hit me up. That he's a, he's a realtor. He's a good friend of mine. He's actually selling a property of mine for like $4 million. And he hit me with this Eureka coin. He said, Brian, look at this Eureka coin.

It was a dollar 90. Talk a little bit closer than money. It was a dollar 90. You can pull it to you. It was a $1.90. And I think the last I, he hit me up at about 2 p.m. yesterday. And the last I checked about an hour ago was that $5.50. Really?

Yeah. I've never even heard of Eureka coin. Neither did I. Well, 99% of the things today I've never heard of. See, that's why, you know, I jump in and out, you know, and then I'll play to wave. And, you know, I'll day trade and I'll make 70, 80 transactions in an hour due to the fact that you never go broke on a profit. So if you can make your little in and out money, just do it. Right.

Because I don't feel comfortable with any stock unless when you look at the balance sheet, their assets are greater than their debt. Like Macy's stock last year, I think it dropped to like five bucks. When you looked at their balance sheet, their building in Manhattan alone was worth more than their stock plus their debt. So I bought a lot of that. How do you find their balance sheet? Well, you know, any stock broker, anybody knows about stocks, we'll show you how to work that. It's really not that interesting, but it's a common sense.

You can, like, go online or something and, like, download it. Yeah, just talk to it. stock guy, hey look, what do you think about this? What do you think about that? Okay. But like the stock game is really not my hustle. I just don't find any pleasure in buying something that's intangible. I like

to actually feel and look and smell the product. Yeah, that's what a lot of real estate guys do. They're like, oh, I want to drive you around and show you my buildings. You know what I mean? They get like a high off of like driving around and saying like, look, I own this piece of land. I own this giant building. There's like something to that. Well, the reason being is because you already know the worst.

you already see it. When you're dealing with stocks, you got millions of dollars riding on somebody else's knowledge or somebody else's fear. Because stocks are mostly news and fear. Emotions. Yeah, it's just an emotional play.

You know, I mean, it's hard to control that. When you're a guy that's been doing business and you've come from nothing, you have a lot of insecurities. And the biggest insecurity that I've noticed with the thousands of people that I've dealt with is not knowing the future. And when you're dealing with something

that's intangible, you don't know the future. But when you look at other people who've come from money and they make it easily, they don't really have fear because they don't know what bad is. You know what I mean? It's like, let me give you an example. Let's pretend that your father was worth $100 million and you lived in a skyrise

and he had Bentley Coops and Phantoms. And, you know, that's all you know. You go to, you're sheltered in your life. And then he throws you out in the middle of the road, gives you a million dollars here, and then you're driving a E-Class Bent. You think you're doing horrible. But those people have never starved.

They've never ate tomato sandwiches on five-day-old bread. Right. So it's hard to respect that hustle. You know what I mean? So when you come from nothing, you see the value of anything. You see the value of one night stay in a motel. You see the value of getting to the hotel at 601 p.m. So you can stay an extra day.

You see value in different things. You see a value in getting, a used car license and buying a car and using it for free and re-selling it at the auction next week after you detailed it made 500 bucks basically on a floor plan. So you see different aspects of life. When you go to other countries and you see how people live, and then you come back and see, wow, you know what? Nobody in the United States should ever complain because you were born in greatness because you already have a major head start. Why do you think people from other countries come here within three, four years

they own businesses, houses. Meanwhile, you have a lot of people in this country. All they want to do is cry. And their net worth is negative. Because they don't understand what bad is. So once you understand what bad is, you'll realize that no matter what you're going to make it as long as you're steady.

You know what I mean? Yeah. Is there any point where you can just kind of like sit back and relax and kind of stop the hustle? Do you think that one of the time? day you're able to stop hustling and just relax and enjoy it? Are you going to think that's going to something that's... Nah, I think it's something that's embedded in my mind, in my heart and in my blood,

because this is all I've ever known and just all I've ever did. Yeah. I honestly, I'm never happy when I take a day off. Because to me, taking a day off is this a waste of your mind? You know, obviously you have kids and you have your wife and you want to maintain that level of respect and have fun, but your mind never stops. So, you know, like I go to the gym in the morning just to take a long drive, just to think about my next move.

So when I get to push the weights or punch the bag, it's just basically a routine to figure out what's next. Yeah. And, you know, like, I honestly love downturn markets because you actually make more money. Because when you see people's ribs showing, then they get nervous and they start dumping their assets. When you're, like, when you're in a, when you're in a market as we're seeing right now, you know, COVID has affected a lot of things and it's made a lot of people filthy rich that never had any money.

Who has it made filthy rich? Well, when you look at the world today, you look at these big companies who've profited off of this. And you've seen companies like companies like Amazon and internet companies like that. Yeah, you know, just basic companies that you already know, the Walmarts, the Amazon's, they're making money out of people's fear. Why do you think there was no toilet paper? Because they would buy, because people, the media embedded in your mind fear because that's what makes money for them. So as people fear, you see their moves And you understand the person by the moves they make

When they're in fear See, a guy like me, and I don't mean to act like I'm anybody special, but I don't fear anything except time Because the only thing that moves So you have to follow the time Exactly, you know, we spoke on that the other day You can't buy time So that's got to be your most precious asset

Everything else in life is replaceable You know, obviously human beings are not replaceable But every other physical Every other thing in life that you could purchase is replaceable. Getting back to the baseball cards, that's why they have such a high value. If they're extremely rare, they're unreplaceable, so people want to buy them. Because it brings back a point of their childhood. It brings the ego out of them.

Same thing with paying with anything. Anything that's rare has a lot of value. Yeah. Like real estate. I like real estate because they don't create new dirt. In reality, the only thing you're buying is the dirt. The actual building is just a liability because it's depreciation. It's the dirt that's going up, not the building.

How much, how much do you fuck with cryptocurrency? You know, I've dabbled in it here and there, and I got lucky, and I bought some. I don't really like talking about it because it bothers me that I own it because I feel like I made free money and I don't really care for it. And when I talk about it, people get excited and that bothers me because it takes credit away from me. So I rather just let not even talk about that. Yeah, because a lot of people listen to it, love it.

And it's like, uh, yeah, no, most definitely. But if you, it's like stumbling on a, diamond ring in the middle of the floor. I mean, I own some and I've made a few dollars, but that doesn't determine who I am. It's just like, it's just like buying a car and finding, like I said, a Rolex in the middle.

I don't really, I don't respect anything that, that, um, that I didn't earn. Yeah. That was just luck. What do you think about,

uh, but what do you think about the future of it? Do you think there's, do you think potentially in the like the next 10, maybe 20 years, it could be something that's legitimate, that replaces the financial system we have now? I'll give you my point of view on crypto.

Like Bitcoin, I think there's 21 million Bitcoins. Yeah. And I don't think there's going to be any more generated. And I think the people have value in Bitcoin, A, because it's manipulated very heavily. And B, it's the fear of the U.S. currency. If you look at this pandemic,

we've already created $8 trillion of nothing. Yeah, it's insane. So I think our debt was $23 trillion previous. now they would create another age so a third of our world of our overall debt in a year in a year yeah so people look at crypto as a hedge against whatever else they're doing yeah it's just the way i look at like i hedge a lot of things but i think crypto's cool but if they outlaw crypto where you can't use it it'll probably take a big dip and now the irs is getting heavily involved if you spend it you got to pay taxes it. So I don't think it's going to be, I don't think it's going to go up as fast as people are

predicting. I mean, it's hedging, it's hovering around 55 to 60,000 at its peak. Even though last year around this time was about 4,000, it might generate, you know, higher and higher and higher yields, but it just, I own it, but I don't really care to talk about it because it doesn't make me who I am. And it bothers me even owning it. Well, it's just interesting. I mean, it's interesting, because a lot of people, some people, like, will buy it and just hold it forever. Like me, I don't know what the fuck I'm doing with it. I have a little bit of money in it, and I just kind of like sit there and watch it. I say when it dips, it dips.

But I don't like, I don't take money out when it gets up or buy more when it goes down. Or I do, when it goes down, I do buy more. But when it goes up, I don't sell it because I'm like, well, maybe it'll keep going up. Yeah. Or maybe it's, maybe it's smarter when it goes up a little bit to pull it out, all of it out. And then when it goes down, put it all back in. I don't know. Yeah, so how I play it is once it hits a certain number, I target.

I sell it all. And then when it dips, I buy it back. Okay. Because I've already made a lot of money just moving whatever I have. But once again, it's like a hobby for me. It's like I'm driving out of red light. It's like playing fantasy football. Yeah, kind of sort of.

But, you know, and it's a lot easier than real estate or baseball cards or use or vintage cards or diamonds or watches because you're buying and selling in seconds. Yeah. You know. For sure. What about NFTs? We talked a little bit of a lot of that. You know, it's funny when we mentioned that. I'm like, wow, this is pretty amazing how people are just buying pictures of nothing.

I personally don't understand it. Me neither. I don't think anybody does. I do see the value in it because you have a lot of people today who don't know how to interact with people and they live in a box. Yeah. So they'll have a thousand Facebook friends and have like two or three real friends. And if they walk somewhere, their head is down on the floor and they don't know anyone. And the unfortunate reality is I think that's what the world's becoming.

See, like, I interact with thousands of people because that's what I like to do. You're a real estate guy. That's what real estate guys do, though. That's true, but I don't really consider that a real estate person because I only deal with the same people every single day. And when I meet new people, I just try to throw them on one of other guys, because unless they want to sell me something. Because real estate is basically, you don't really need money to make money in real estate. What you need in real estate is either A, a buyer, or B, a product. So, like, what I mean, let me tell you what I mean.

by that. Let's pretend your mother has a house that she wants to sell, right? And it's worth 500,000 and it needs work. And I say, hey, how much you want for this house? Give me 300. So I'll say, look, I'm willing to pay 320. So anything under that 320, that's money you made. So if you get it for 200, you just made $120,000. Whatever I sell it for is irrelevant. Second, if I have a property and say, hey, look, I want to sell this for $250. Anything over that $250 is the money that you make. So that's why it's easy to make. money without money in the real estate business. You just need to have somebody in your camp that can close.

You mean come up with hard money? Come up with the cash to buy because it's hard to make money with hard money. It's really not an option for me. What do you mean it's hard to make money with hard money? Well, hard money. Oh, you mean it's like doing like hard money loans? Yeah, hard money lending. But yeah, no, but getting back to that point.

But what if I don't have money and I want to do that? What if I don't have the cash, the capital to do it? Then you got to do a hard money loan. Like I was explaining previously in a conversation, I would try to get a loan from the seller. Right, right, right, right, okay. Because if you get a loan with the seller, then you don't have to pay for appraisals. You don't have to pay points on the loan.

You don't have to, you know, beg Daddy who basically is the bank to help you. You mean, you're going to be in a positive position instead of playing behind the eight ball. Right. But what if this, I mean, a lot of sellers, a lot of people who own single family homes, they don't have that kind of, that kind of money. Well, you want to target properties that are owned by the property owner that doesn't have any debt. Because remember, you make money on real estate by controlling the asset. Owning it is just a piece of paper, a deed.

You get a HUD, you go to a title company, now you own the property. Right. But you're not going to own it that long. So if you could get a lease option even, if you could buy a house for $300,000, here's $5,000 now, I have a recorded option that I could. assigned to another buyer. So you could make money controlling that asset without physically owning that asset. Like I said, real estate is...

Now you're getting into options, which is more... Can you explain, like, basic for dummies what an option is? Well, basically on a lease option is this. You own the house, right? And I make a lease to rent with the option to purchase it with the agreed time and the agreed price. Okay. So, and then what you put in the last... lease is in the purchase contract, you have an assignable option to sell. So let's say you sell me

your house for $200,000 and then my buddy wants to buy it for $225. So he just pays me to $25,000 and he takes over to purchase. This way I made money with very little money out of my pocket. Because when you're first starting in the real estate game with limited capital, you need to acquire capital by any means necessary. Bringing other people to the table, you know, selling their properties for them, you know, stuff like that. Is it hard to find new deals to make money on

or are people just blowing up your phone all day every day? I mean, are you on the computer, like scouring websites for shit for sale? No, I never used a computer. Really? Never use a computer? No, never. My only device I use is my telephone.

And the reason being is because I have a lot of people in my camp that do certain things and I call them and I say, this is what I'm looking for. This is what I'm selling. This is what I got. So new construction is the flavor of the year. So it's like I hire engineers and I hire people to do the work while I own the asset.

Then you hire a builder. Then you hire a property manager to manage the project manager. So then you're just paying the draws or you're paying the city for permitting or whatever it is. I try not to get too deep inside the game because then people are going to want something from you. They're going to want to take your time. They're going to want to take your money.

They're going to want to pick your brain. And at the same time, that's value. So I prefer to just have somebody on deck that they could just work through me and pay them. But at this current time, to buy property is very difficult because the market is extremely hot. And the assets are very rare. Yeah, it's insane. It's been getting hotter and hotter over the past year. Yeah, well, you're dealing in the number one state.

You know, I think we're the third largest populated state in the country. Yeah, it's fucking bonkers. Yeah, you were telling me, we got more heads here than New York's in New York. Yeah, definitely. We have like $23 million. I think they have $21. But New York is on the decrease. You know what I mean?

Declined. People are going to start moving here left and right in Groves. Oh, they're coming here on droves already. Exactly. I think they're just tired of the politics. Yeah. Politics controls a lot of people's thinking. Yeah, it does, unfortunately.

Can you walk me through one of these deals that you're talking about, these new construction deals? Like what do you look for? Like obviously it starts with buying land. And if you got to find some land. Yeah. Take a sip of this. Take some sick of this.

I like this. Yeah. Murder your thirst. Got it. All right. So you look at the area and you see what the new houses are bringing. So let's say we're building at 110 a foot due to the fact that the wood has gone up and the trusses are hard to find.

So whatever. So if you're selling at $110 a foot and you build a $2,500 square foot house, right? So the cost of. build a new house is about 110 a foot. Right. Plus your impact fees, the price of the dirt. So you got to work backwards. So let's say that, let's just use round numbers again.

Let's say the house is selling for 300 a foot. And you build 2,000 square feet. Okay. So you already know your retail number is $600,000. So you're probably going to have to back out about 8% because you got to pay when you sell it, real estate commissions and closing costs. Got it. All right.

So you're going to net 92%. percent of your sale price. Okay. Okay. So let's say 92% of 600. Let me see. It's 540 plus, that's like 550 to 2000. So you're going to net 550 on that sale, right? And if it's 2,000 square feet and it cost you two and a quarter to build it, so now you got 325 in between profit and dirt and and all fees. Okay. So if you could buy that dirt for $150,000 at the end of the day, you're going to make about $150,000 on that deal. And but that's including if you're paying cash for everything. You're not using anybody else's money. No, no, no financing or anything. Right, no financing. Wow, but that's a lot of, that takes a long time, though. That's like a long

Well, no, you're looking at about six months, but remember, if you got six months to build a house? Probably like three to four months, but let's say you got 20 or 30 of those going at one shop. Holy fuck. So now every week, you're cash in a check. And then you buy dirt. Like, we make money by buying large parcels of dirt and knowing the future land use and doing a PD, which is a plan development, and getting the plans ready. So we take. that and we sell it to the builders. So like I have a property I bought for $250,000 and it's costing me like $50,000 to get it to where it needs to be plan development for 60 units. So I'm going to be in that property for like $300,000 and I'm listed for $1.8 million. So once I sell it, let's say I take

$1.5 after fees, I net $1.3. I'll make a million dollars on that asset with $300,000 out of pocket because I happen to get the dirt cheap enough and I know the zoning and I know what I can do with it. So obviously knowledge is always supreme. So you have to know what you're doing before you do it. And when you're selling that piece of property, you're selling the dirt and you're selling, there's already permits in place to build. Yeah, you're selling what it's going to be. And you're going to sell that to a guy who does build and sells because he's going to take a 1031 exchange, which is Basically, he's going to use the proceeds from his last sale to do the same thing over and over again. This way he doesn't have to pay the government high taxes.

So basically, they're buying a piece of property, turnkey, ready to be built on. You have the permits, you got the plan, you got the builder, everything. And because a lot of builders, they don't really have much money. They use the bank's money. So the time, once going back to our original statement, time is very precious. So they're using our asset that we purchase, develop it for them to get ready, So that's how we make a large substantial hit. Okay.

Wow. So do you do any 1031 exchanges? Nah, not really, because I move pretty fast. And I don't mind paying the government because it's easier for me. And it's just less headaches. Yeah.

It's a lot of stress to chase that window. And I'm the kind of guy that I just like a simple life. You know, sometimes I go crazy to do me, but I just like to have fun and make money. What's your day? Walk me through what your day? What's a typical day in the life of? Brian Aponte.

It depends on the season of the environment we're in. You know, every day's different. You know, with COVID, it's changed a lot than normal times. But let's just say like a day like today. Lately. Yeah, lately. Yeah, so I'll get up at 5.30 in the morning. I'll put the TV on.

I'll watch Squawk Box at 6. I'll leave by 6.20 to go to the gym. I hit the gym, talk to my trainer, workout for 45 minutes. Then I go to a little restaurant, have a cup of coffee, go home, take a shower. It depends if it's because Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, do boxing.

But then I take my daughter to school, I have four kids, have one in middle school, and then I just start hitting the phones nonstop. I call the same people 10 to 15 times a day, force them to act. Because if you let somebody slip, then they're not going to make money for you. You see what I'm saying? A lot of people are content in their lives. Yeah. So whenever you're content is when you're really going to lose. So I try to push the people in my team to do different things.

It's like this, what do we got going on? What do we got new? What's closing? What's happening? okay search this what deals do you have what what what new construction projects what owner finance can we get what hotel what motel what land what can we buy that makes sense then meanwhile i have another partner that does the baseball cards with me so i'm on ebay doing the cards okay cool let's buy this let's try to buy a bunch of these let's get these graded

and then you know i just look for any opportunity that makes mathematical sense so you're got your partner in the cards would you say he's more knowledgeable about what's going on in the card market like at the specific moment well basically he's like a retired attorney and he does like teach his kids this so yeah we're kind of like we've been in the business maybe for like 35 years go ahead i was gonna say like he he's more of the expert you're just the guy that's pushing him to like do more deals make more money and you're just well i think we're both experts because we've both been in the game and i've traveled the nation i did 35 big shows a year for like 10 years and i've been a lot of athletes hung out with celebrities bought and sold big collections

you don't have a lot of crazy stories too So the point of the matter is the card game, to me, is more fun than the real estate game because you're picking and choosing. And even though it's rare, it's readily available. When you deal with real estate, it's like you're finding a needle in a haystack. Because it's very limited. What do you mean when you say even though it's rare, it's readily available? Because eBay is a dumping ground.

A lot of people want to realize profits on stuff. stuff that they inherited, purchases of stuff that they had years ago. So they're the black sheep of the business because they're the dumpers. So let's say a Michael Jordan rookie in a certain grade is worth whatever dollars. As soon as it goes up in value, you'll see a lot of people just start dumping them on eBay. Because they want to realize the problem. So a guy like me will come and hope they drop and then I'll start picking, chipping them off. Boom, boom, boom.

And then when the dumpers are not dumping, then I'll start buying the buy it now so make the values keep going up. Because if I have a hundred of one item and it's $5,000, then I could create it to jump to $10,000. Now, every single one of my cards is not worth $10,000 each. That's how you make money. Holy shit. So you don't make money in selling, you make money in buying. Bro, have you ever seen that movie with Adam Sandler?

It came out a couple years ago where he's, I think he's in New York or somewhere, and he's a jewelry guy? The jewelry guy. So he deals with Kevin Garnett, and he has an old guy. Yes. I mean, that movie made no sense to me because I used to own jewelry stores, and he needed money to pay debt. He had about 100,000,

he had about 50,000 grams of gold and gold scraps out. At the time, gold was 2,000 an ounce, and 10 carat is 41% gold, 14 carots, 58%, and 18 is 75%. So he could have took the gold and scrapped it. But I get the, yeah, he was on 47th Street in the Diamond District.

Bro, that motherfucker was like a roach, a cockroach running around fucking robin' Peter to pay Paul, fucking, like. Well, yeah, they're, jewelry game is a strong hustle because the diamonds are the most manipulated item on earth. There's more diamonds than people. Right. But, you know, that's not my expertise, even though I own a lot of diamonds and I own a lot of jewelry.

Yeah, it's just, but the card game is different because... It seems like it's a similar, like, kind of lifestyle, though. It seems like it's a similar mindset. That dude's mindset, his fucking just eat, sleep and breathe, fucking making money and paying people back and fucking trying to rob this guy to pay this guy. And eventually he thinks he's going to come out even. but he's fucking, he's just digging his own grave the whole time. That a problem is he's a compulsive gambler. Yeah.

You know, it's this in life. Like a lot of people like to spend the money before they have it. So at the same time, they're not really moving forward. They're moving backward. It's just like in the real estate business, any business. People are purchasing out what their payment's going to be, not what the price is. How do you think these furniture store gives 60 months zero credit, zero interest, no credit? Because they're banking on the fact that they need this.

necessity and they're willing to pay that payment. They're just cheap. Right. So it's like when you're a shark and you swim with guppies, you're always going to make money due to the fact that you see the hidden value in people's necessities. How can you control that? And when you're dealing with sports cards and stuff like that, you're banking on other people's egos.

So you look at the guy, you see the ego and you already know how to play them. See, that's the, you know, you see what my point? Yeah. Everybody has a certain need. So the way to make money is just to have a level head And don't worry about anything And just try to figure out your opponent Because everybody's your opponent

They're either with you or against you There's really no medium That's why I only deal with the same amount of people all the time Because a lot of people I deal with They think they could take advantage of me And those are my favorite people Because the only way they think they're going to get me Is to do a deal with me

And when they do a deal with me, the odds of me losing are very low So those are the people I like to work with obviously. Wow. Because people are edgy, pushy, fearful, spiteful, hateful. Those are the best people to do deals with. Really? Of course, if they hate you, that means you love them. If somebody hated you, you should love them because they're jealous or they have something against you. Right. And if they're going to take time out of their life, their most precious asset to have a negative thought of you, you must be in the back of their mind somewhere. Right. So in their storage, in their mental capacity,

you're sitting there. See me, I don't really hate anybody. Even if you screwed me, I still love you. Because it doesn't make sense because the little thing you got from me, I'm going to get it back. Then at the same time, I got that hidden story on you for life. You know, I like to collect stories more than I like to collect anything else. Yeah.

Well, the businesses that you're in, you must have a fucking plethora of stories. Yeah, definitely. We're going to get into another day. You know, I just want to. wanted to come and check y'all see what you know what we're about talk about the game yeah keeping in real estate is a good game you know real estate is the key to everything yeah because go ahead what was that what was that cut can you tell me about that story your cousin was telling me what was your cousin telling me you guys were somewhere in in uh jersey yeah so basically like i told you we used to do

the card hustle you know i mean the yeah he was a bail bondsman so one day we were at the national convention in omanic city and you know we were a little tipsy and i i hadn't seen him in about a year So I seen him And we're at I'm playing crabs, Rollette, whatever Yeah, he's having a good time Right And I hear his voice

And you know, we're screaming Blah having fun And he's like oh, Brian, what's up? It was my cousin Tobin. I hadn't seen him in a hotel Toby. Yeah. So I think we had like four Gs left combined

We took that house down To about $300,000 You know, the pumpkins Or the 2,500 chips And we had all the chips And then Tito Ortiz, the MMA guy Remember back in the day? Yeah, of course

He was there And I'm like, Tito, black or red Every time he'd give me a color, I'd lose. What? Yeah, it was funny. We were buying shots for everybody. You know, me, it was a lot more wild, a lot more vulgar, worse language. But at the end of the day, I think we hit him for about $60,000.

But, you know, it was just fun. But there's thousands of those stories. You have thousands of those stories. That's fucking wild. But, you know, that's the byproduct of dealing with liquor, money, and people with a lot of adrenaline. Yeah. And a lot of craziness. Egos flying everywhere.

Clashing. Yeah, it's cool. You know. It's fucking crazy. If you, anybody out there who doesn't know anything about what I'm talking about, just study the game. Because the game of the real estate. Because, you know, you look at a realtor, okay, cool, Zillow, blah, blah, blah.

That's the after of all the dedication and work that goes to that little sale. You know, I bought properties that I went in there that had so many code enforcement violations. Like, well, how can I even deal with this? Right. But the more problems, the more money. The worst the problem, the more money you make. Right. Yeah, absolutely. What do you say, what do you say to somebody who is like small time wants to get in the real estate game right now? Maybe they have enough, they have enough credit and capital to maybe get a down payment on like

a one single family home, right? And they want to get started in all this. What do they do? So basically, you know, I, you know, I hear a lot of like credit has more value than money and blah, blah, I mean, that's true to a certain extent, but in reality, it does it. Because once again, if you're not going to dwell 51% of your asset that you're going to purchase, the bank is going to have a difficult time selling you the asset. Or excuse me. Wait, explain that again. If you're not going to do what?

So basically, banks lend money to people who are going to live in the asset. If it's commercial property, you're going to use at least 51%. Okay. So that's, you know, limited down payment, 3%, 5, 10, 20%. Like an FHA loan, yeah. FHA conventional with small downpresent. But what I would tell anybody that just that type of person, look, just try to find an area, do the comparables. You know what I mean?

Look at sales. Try to find something that is not that big that you can add square footage later on because it's cheaper to add square footage than to buy a big house. Because let me give an example. Let's say you buy a two bedroom, one bedroom, two bedroom, one bath house, a thousand square feet in an area that's bringing $350 a foot, right? Okay. And you buy the house. You could always build an addition for $100, $120 a foot. Right.

So now you tripled, doubled to tripled your money on the added square footage you're doing. So then you could resell that house and make more money. Or you could get a second line of credit, HELOC, or then you could use that money to go make money. So that's what I would do. If I had limited capital, I would try to get a house that's very small and a good, neighborhood. Okay. Then what I would do is I'd get a G.C.

To get plans to build a square footage, added square footage, then build the added square footage. Now my house is worth more money and I'd immediately sell it. I wouldn't get it. I wouldn't get a HELOC anything. I would take the money. Then I'd stay in the same neighborhood by renting a house, take the money, and go buying some jalopies in worst neighborhoods and just keep reflipping them.

So you would keep doing that same thing, just adding, buying them, buying decent houses or decent or bad houses in good neighborhoods. square footage. I've done that many times. You know what? I was just watching this video this dude bought a fucking like a mansion in California.

And he said what the realtors are doing now in California, like specifically Beverly, Beverly Hills area, is they're building these fucking like pool cabanas out of block and they're counting them

and they're literally counting them as square footage. Like so even if it's like a couple hundred square feet like a pool house out back. Yeah, well think about it. If you have a, if you have a car port that's 250 square feet yeah and it costs you 30,000 dollars to encapsulate that way heated

square footage and it's 250 square feet and it goes for 300 a foot that 25 turned into 75 so your cash on cash investment tripled right but can you just do it yourself do you have to fucking go get out and get permits and do all that fucking buy the phone yeah well you have to have everything permitted otherwise it's not going to be on the tax record it's legal square footage okay and then when you go to sell it you don't want any problems see like taking short cuts is the worst thing you can do. Really? Of course. Anytime you try to do something that's not 100%

legit, you're going to get busted. And then that's just going to cost you time, energy, and money. Do it right the first time and you'll never look back. Never screw anybody over, you never have to sleep bad. You never have to look over your back. Always be a man in your word because in reality, what else do you really have? Yeah.

You know what I'm saying? Because business is a way of life. You know, a lot of people talk to me, hey, Brian, how do I get in this part-time? I said, look, to be honest with you, real estate is not a job, it's not a profession. It's basically a lifestyle. Yeah. You constantly have to be thinking.

When I go on vacation, I try to buy places where I go. Oh, maybe I could buy this here, Airbnb or something. Yeah. You know, you always constantly have to be on a mental grind. I love what you said to me your way of looking at bullies. Yeah, you got to pimp the bullies, brother. You know why? You pimped the bullies.

Yeah, let me tell you what I mean by that. That's fucking dope. Let me tell you what I mean by it. Let's say you buy a car lot and you got this guy's a salesman. He's pushing 50 cars a month at Honda. Like, how much you make? And a buck, 50 car? You make a 7,500?

How about I pay you $20,000? Because you want somebody who's going to work for you, even if they steal from you, even if you make a profit, it's irrelevant. Because you have to have the best people to do the job for you. Why do you need three people when you could have one? So you bring the best that you can do and just overpay them. Because when you overpay them, because everybody has a worth. And if you underpaying them,

them, they're going to rob you. If you're paying them more than what they're worth, they're harder for you. And when you talk to them and pick up their phone call every time, you never miss a meeting, you're there, then they're your family. So basically, all you did was capture the best team. And everybody, when you have a good team, you never lose. Because you're only as weak as your weakest link. My goal is always to be the weakest link. And everything I do, I always want to be the weakest link. You mean, when you say that, you mean you're surrounded by people who are stronger, smarter, richer. Right. Because think about it logically.

If you're the smartest, best guy in that room, you're definitely in the wrong room. Yeah, yeah, for sure. But what about when you're getting ready to do business with a dude? Or like trying to, he's trying to buy something from you or you're trying to buy something from him. It depends. It's a one-time deal. It's irrelevant. If it's a multiple-time deal, it's different.

But at the same time, I try to treat people the same way. See, a lot of people try to disrespect me, so I just reciprocate the same thing. because the way I look at it, if you're going to challenge or hate me, like I told you before, I'm going to make more money on you. Right. Because if you hate me,

you're definitely going to want to do a deal with me. Yeah. And that's what you mean by pimp the bullies. No, what I mean by pimping the bullies is this. Like I just said, that guy on your team. When they're working for you,

but I'm saying, nobody works for me. I always have partners. I don't have any employees. I don't believe in it. Employees are the biggest liability on earth. You have to have partners. It's better to have a partner than an employee.

Right. I see what you're saying there. But my question to you is when you're dealing with a bully that's trying to, you're trying to do a deal with them. And they're trying to, they're trying to fucking, you know, hassle you.

They're trying to hardball you, you know, low ball you. So you have to switch it up on them. You know what I mean? It's like this. Like, let me give you an example.

Give me an example what you're talking about. I'll tell you how I'll switch it up. You're trying to sell a house for. Okay, look, I got this house. I need 300,000. 300,000. And a house ain't that fucking great.

I'll give you, I'll give you, I'll give you $200 cash and I'll close tomorrow. No problem. It's only cash and it's going to close immediately. Otherwise, you're not even talking to me. But here's the thing. You only want to pay $200?

I got a better idea. Do you have any similar ones? I'll pay you $250 and I'll close today. Wait, what? Okay. So if you're willing to pay me $2. I'm trying to buy your house. I know.

Exactly. That's my point. If you want to pay $200 and close tomorrow, how about I buy yours for $250 and close today? So if I'm buying a $250, how am I selling it $200? So you switch it up on them. You get you feeling me now? Yeah.

So you want to pay me $200. I'll pay you $250. So right then and there, they already know they can't dig in my head because I already know what I got. Got you see my point? Yeah, I see what you're saying. It's like a psychological game you're playing with them.

Yeah. Your mind games are easy to play because that's the only thing I play. But at the same time, it's like this. It's either you're going to chill with me or you're going to be real with me or you're not going to deal with me. So it's like, look, this is $300. It's either you buy it or you. don't. Right. I mean, if you come in at $2.90 and I can't redump it, maybe I'll sell it to you.

Right. Because I'm not really stressing it. Because I'm already going to give you the best number. I'm not going to, I'm not going to tell you $300 and I already know I want $250. I'm going to hit you with the bottom line immediately. Otherwise, I'm not doing it. Because I'm not trying to get extra bread. Because I prefer for my person that buys for me to make more money than me. Because this time, they want to keep coming back. Right, right, right, right. I've heard that. I've heard that before. You're busy man Your phone's blowing up Yeah I got about 40 minutes call

But the point The point is In any business In any walk of life You always want to treat The person you're working With better than you You always want to be on top of the game

And you always want to have the best team Around you And you only want to do things That you can handle Because once you start trying to jump rope That you can't jump Then you're going to make promises That you can't keep

And then your word is shit And then nobody wants to deal with you anymore So you have to be able to produce you have to be able to figure things out and at the bottom bottom line is you have to keep what you say because if you don't you're going to get stuck that's strong man that's super strong well thanks for doing this bro i know you're busy as fuck you know i really appreciate you're still blowing up yeah i gotta take these calls no worries take it man thanks for doing this always