KGCI: Real Estate on Air - Global Investments: Guides Through Orlando's Hidden Gems with Karuna Singhvi

Episode Date: February 21, 2025

Hey everyone. This is Real Estate Riches podcast, and boy, is it going to be rich, full of the wealth and the tips and the tricks of all kinds of successful agents, because that's what you want to be, right? A business builder who has success in their business, well, that's what we got going on here. And I'm going to have all kinds of agents, men, women, younger, older, sharing all their stuff because there's technology, there's just, how do you build your business? There's so many questions, right? So let's learn from some of the best. Gather your wealth and build your business. That's what this channel is all about. And I'm excited to bring it to you. I'm Kathy Burns and I'll be your host and stay tuned. Let's get at it, right? Hey everybody. It's Kathy Burns and I'm

here with Karuna Singvi, right? Yes, yes, absolutely. As people who follow me know, I struggle with names and I rehearsed it a little before. So I feel like I did that. So welcome. Thank you so much. Hello everyone. My name is Karuna and I'm delighted to be here today. Yes, we're so glad to have you. And you're in South Florida, the Orlando area, right? I'm in Central Florida. Central Florida. See, yes. So Central Florida, so much I know my states. And we were just talking and you mentioned that there's 26,000 agents in the Orlando area, right? Not just the Orlando area. It's a small association that we have Orlando regional area. So we are covered by three or four other counties, Orange County and Seminole County,

and we have another three or four counties. They have their own associations. So it is just a little association called Orlando Regional Realtors Association, which has 26,000 realtors, yes. Wow. Well, I'll tell you, I remember, I got in the market in 2006. And there were tons of agents there then too. But when that market turned and we have a changing market, thousands got out of the industry. And those are the ones that did it part-time. And you and I are business builders, right?

Absolutely. Yes, ma'am. Yes. Do you do much global marketing in your area? Do you get clients from out of the country? So according to all the studies that have been going through right now, the Texas and Florida area are the most global concentrated investors right now. And for Central Florida, or Florida as a state, most of the global investors are going to

either Miami, which is south of Florida or Central Florida, because we are surrounded by all the parks here. Very cool. So we have Disney, we have Universal, we have SeaWorld, we have all kinds of parks here. So people like to come and invest here into Airbnb's. I mean, they're growing like crazy right now. Yes. That's great.

Have you heard of fractional ownership? I heard about it, but I haven't detailed it. I'm just dip in my toes into it right now myself. My last guest, she has had fractional ownership. It's more for your luxury properties. So and people pay cash. And multiple people are owners where you have your, your name is on the deed along with some other people.

And a lot of luxury people, especially global people, they'd rather not buy the whole thing. They're interested in this fractional. So that'll be more that we'll be diving into. Maybe not you'll be worth checking into for sure. Absolutely. That's great because I'm reaching out and teaching agents myself how to think global. I mean, we are a global world today and especially where you're living.

if you have a lot of international investors, it's important for you to understand what they're looking for, the market, what's appealing to them, you know, to know it and also to market to that market, wouldn't you say? Yes, yes. It's not just the investors that are coming to Central Florida. We have a whole global community who are primary owners here. I mean, if you go into different pockets of Orlando or the surrounding cities, you'll have different ethnicities living in here. Yeah, so it's a mix of all cultures here. Right. It's very, very diverse. It's diverse. That's awesome.

So tell us a little background about you. How'd you get into real estate? What have you been doing with that past 10 years? Okay, so the way I got into real estate was I had my second child. I was pregnant with my second child and I started doing interior design course. And that's when the market crashed. And I was looking for a job. I couldn't find any job.

So I joined my husband. He's a pharmacist. I was helping him. And then he thought of investing into the properties. And that's how I got into it. I was like, why not just explore this area of the world? And oh my gosh, I love it. And I have stuck with real estate since then.

Oh, that's brilliant. So you work with a lot of investors. Yes, I do invest myself. I work with a lot of investors. international, national, from other states. Yes, they are all here. And what would you say your specialty is within the inner investment a portion of it? Is it homes? Is it multifamily? Is it commercial? Most of the international investors are doing the homes or the town homes because it's

easier for them to take care of the town homes. They do not have to do the exteriors of the home. So they like to spend their money on the town homes. And here in Florida area, here in our area, the builders are building communities dedicated to Airbnb's with all the amenities that you can think of. So there are communities to communities which are only short-term rentals or Airbnbs. Well, that's brilliant. That's the first time I've ever heard that. Whole Airbnb communities. I love it. And so investors are then buying a house within that Airbnb community. Correct.

Yeah. They probably have an HOA. Yes, they do have an HOA. The HOA is definitely higher, but everything is taken care because it's full of amenities. You have pool, you have parks, you have gyms, you name it and everything is in there. And these are resort style pools, resort style communities. So that once you have gone to the parks, you come back home and second day, you don't want to go anywhere. Just chill here in the resort.

You don't have to go nowhere. Oh my goodness. Yes. Brilliant. Yeah. So have you done quite a few of those properties? Yes, I'm closing one on September 30th. Oh, nice. Very nice. And what would you say those are running? What's the price point? So every community has different price points here, depending on the amenities and how close they are to the park. Yeah, yeah. So they can run anywhere from 80, 90 a day to 200 to 50 a day. Oh, for the night time. I mean, I mean, purchase. that investment property? Well, choosing the investment properties are, if you want a decent property in a decent

community where there are a lot of amenities or at least some amenities, the price range would start from $300, $250,300, minimal. Okay, but then the ones that are in those Airbnb parks? Yes. Those are only in the 300s? It's depend, again, as I said, even the Airbnb is there, there are some which does not have any amenities, there you can get within 300 something. But if you have lot of amenities in there, which is resort like pool and stuff, you need to go around like 400 plus. Still, those are great

prices. Yes, yeah, yeah. Yeah, you need to be marketing that girl because wow, because where I live, I'm just north of Charlotte. I mean, the average price point of a home up here is $500,000 just as the average price point. My house is a little house. I don't have a big home. don't like big homes and I'm a car girl myself so I'd rather put the money in the cars. If you go for a primary property's primary owned properties which are not investments, of course they have gone so much up on the prices. You cannot find anything for 400,000 here in Orlando or nearby areas. A single family home. I'm not talking about town homes or condominiums, but single family homes they have gone up on the prices like crazy.

here. Okay, so these Airbnb places, are they more like apartments or are they single family homes? They are town homes. Most of them are town homes. Okay, they're town homes. All right. And single family home that we just, we are planning to close on is around like 420. Okay. Wow, that's very interesting. And you don't do commercial though, right? You're strictly, my first would be closing on 10th of September. Oh, really? Yeah, it's. my first commercial. Yeah. And what is that type of commercial?

That's a different kind of a commercial, which is a ground lease. We just buy the ground and the property is leased by some national tenants. Say for example, Starbucks, Firestone, any other big companies like Taco Bell or anything, you just buy the land, but they have their own building and they would be paying rent to you month by month. My daughter does that. She had a business that she sold the business. kept the buildings and lease them to the new buyer.

And they were triple net leases. So it was attracted. So she had the building and the land. And the land. Yes. Yes. So that's I think is a good way for an investor who is not very aggressive. Triple and absolute triple.

And these are a good investment properties for those people who are not very aggressive on investment. They just want to buy a piece of land, a building, and then just get the rent every month after month. Because these national tenants are really good. They sign lease for 15 years, 10 years, and every five years, they increase the rents. And it is good. How nice to that?

Yeah. How did you happen to find the national tenant? So the national tenant is already sitting on the property. So we bought the property as is. Wow, that's amazing. That's amazing. So tell me more about your social media. How are you marketing yourself?

How are you being seen out there? I'm sure good agents word of mouth is critical, but we have to stay on top of it where we're keeping our past clients aware of who we are as we move forward and do business. So how do you stay in touch with your clients? So everybody says CRM is a good tool to have CRM is where you have all your information of your, it's a kind of a data where you have all your past clients, present clients and the future clients where you have all your information. information in there and that kind of tool play around with that CRM where it sends newsletters every month if you want to every week you want to birthdays anniversaries you can just play around with that that is one criteria that I follow CRM and the second utilize a CRM yes yes and the second the social media I do not

have time enough time to manage it myself so I have hired a company who works for who puts my social media from time to time. They put contents three times a week. But as I am getting more deep into it, I find that as a realtor, I should also get a little bit involved more into it and put my personal life in front, not just the professional life.

So I'm trying to do that. So hopefully I am there one day. Well, I'll give you a few tips. So here I am thinking, I know everything about social media, which I do not. That was a really rude awakening. I was invited to a broker open. And this agent did something which I thought was brilliant.

Now, he's a luxury agent here in the area. It's a waterfront property. It was new construction, brand new, beautifully, very contemporary home, $8 million. And he did social media posts where he said, I'm inviting all the, it's a broker open, not a luncheon open. open from 10 to 4. And in that time frame, you can come take all kinds of video. You can have your pictures in front of the gorgeous fireplace or the pool. Wow.

And you can do B-roll and you don't even have to tag me. Well, everybody did. And so I said to myself, this guy's brilliant. I'm going to go there and I want to meet him and get to know him better, right? Sure. And so he just blew me away. the house was stunning. And so it was really a way for that builder to be recognized that they do these incredible properties.

And I was talking to Josh and I said, Josh, who is your client? Because it's very contemporary in a sea of non-contemporary homes. And so it really stands out, glass everywhere. And he said most of my clients are coming from Florida. And I said, interesting. I said, is it a primary? or a secondary? And he goes, secondary.

Secondary. And I said, and I saw this on Instagram versus Facebook. And I said, where would you say the majority of your marketing is? And he said, Instagram. He says, I'm on all, but my focus is Instagram. And I said, I did not think this price point was in Instagram. That was my lesson. I thought they were all on Facebook or LinkedIn.

because in my mind it's typically the woman that's picking out the house and then the man comes along and yes they agree because she told them to and now they buy the house right but that's not true and it is definitely Instagram is it as far as your primary one it seems to be and what's cool about Instagram is you just do like a little B roll that you do and you do your content is rolling is rolling a on the screen. You'll see it all the time. It'll say, you know, read this. Well, as you're reeling it, are you reading that? The music is playing over and over, which is telling TikTok, they like this. They're staying here. Send them more people like this particular person that's looking at it. And I'm like, holy cow. And I said, how much business did you have you, did you do off Instagram?

and he goes, I did $17 million just off Instagram last year. And I'm like, my God. And he goes, I said, what about TikTok? And he goes, yep. He goes, we got a 70-year-old woman who was selling her waterfront home here in our area, like Norman. And she saw us on TikTok and she wanted us to be the listing agents. Now, is his video unique?

Yes, it is. He comes up in cool cars that I'm sure he has dealerships, you know, be happy to let have that Austin Martin pull into the driveway or the Rolls Royce, right? And so he does his drone video with that photography coming in and the drone going through the house. So his videos are outstanding. His photographer is outstanding. And he's a little bit in it.

But it's really, it's just, it's mostly video of the house. And he does that on Instagram. He'll do it also on Facebook. but he said he gets the bulk of his business over there on Instagram. So it changed my whole world. I'm hearing the same thing. I mean, the Instagram, the TikTok are like Facebook is there, but it is going away. So Instagram and TikTok are the ones.

And now, as you said, the YouTube when we were talking about, I mean, YouTube is great for realtors. That's what I keep hearing. I have a channel, but then I'm still struggling. I still have to do on YouTube, but then a lot of realtors do videos on YouTube as well, along with the Instagram. And the good part about it is you just make one video and you put on all these different platforms. And that's it done. That's exactly it. And there's a lot of software.

I have two YouTube channels. One's a tech channel where I teach agents all about different technology. That's tech savvy realty solutions, which you'll be able to see below in my links. and you can go there and learn basic technology tools that will help empower you get your SEO going, get your titles, your keywords and all the things that you need for that. And that's powerful, but you can take those same videos, chop them up, and put them as shorts or reels on your Instagram and your Facebook, and you can tie them back to your original video. There you go.

And then if you cannot do by yourself, these days there are so many companies who would do it for you. If you do not have time to do it for yourself, you don't know how to do it by yourself. Of course, it's not that easy, but it's not hard as well. If you have time to learn and do it by yourself, go ahead and do it. But if you don't have time, just hire someone and do it. Yes. And that's what I'm trying to do, yes. I know, I'm with you. And I really appreciate your time here today.

Is there a nugget that you feel that you would say? to agents that are thinking, should I stay in this industry or not? You know, for me, my comment to them is if you got hustle and you're going to stick to it, stay. If you don't go find something else because this is, you got to have grit right now. Yeah, everybody thinks that the real estate is easy. It is not easy. It's a hardworking job.

You're not just working 9 to 5. You're working 24-7. We are working mostly on the evenings when our family is home. We're working on weekends when our family is home. So of course there are struggles and hustles that as you said, but then if you keep working on it, you'll be a winner one day. But you need to stick to it. You need to have a timetable where you need to follow the timetable.

You cannot be just getting up and thinking, oh, what am I supposed to do today? No, that does real estate doesn't work like that. You have to have a time management. Okay, this is 9 to 10. 10 to 11 I'm doing this. So you need to have a timetable. And that would make your life much, much easier than anything else. And mine's all color-coded on my calendar.

It's like, ah, see? Yeah. Yeah, that helps, right? Thank you so much. I appreciate you being on here. And I want to tell everybody that we will have all of her information on here so you can reach out to her. She's in Orlando. If you're looking at some of those homes she was talking about for investment, think of her.

And I just appreciate you again so much. Thank you so much, Kathy. And thank you, everyone, for having me here. It was a pleasure. Thank you. Thank you. Joining me on this episode of Real Estate Riches, wasn't that great? I'm sure you've got a nugget or two.

I know I did. So if you liked it, please subscribe below, share it with everybody, make some comments. We really find that invaluable. And if you're thinking that you would love to talk about this a little bit more, let's schedule a business strategy call. I'll have the link below. Let's see if we can't mastermind together and see if we can't empower each other. That would be great.

So until next time, signing off hope to see on the next one