The Science of Flipping - From Carpenter to $150M Deals: How This Man Built a Commercial Empire | Mark Vincent Fansler

Episode Date: March 6, 2026

In this episode, I sit down with Mark Vincent Fansler, who went from carpenter to senior corporate executive, walked away from burnout, and built a vertically integrated commercial real estate empire ...operating across multiple states. We talk about the power of elite rooms, the vision he had at 17 that shaped his future, how one intentional conversation turned into a $120M opportunity, and why thinking bigger is the only way to win in business. This is a masterclass in community, commercial scale, and betting on yourself when no one else believes you deserve it. About Mark: Mark Vincent Fansler is a commercial mixed-use real estate developer and founder of the M Vincent Family of Companies, a vertically integrated real estate platform operating across multiple states. With over 40 years of experience, he specializes in large-scale mixed-use developments, creative capital structuring, and building real estate ecosystems that generate long-term wealth. Starting as a carpenter and rising to senior corporate leadership, Mark now leads multi-million-dollar commercial projects nationwide. Connect with Mark Vincent Fansler Website: https://mvincentassets.com LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/markvincentfansler/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/mark.fansler.1/ About Justin: Justin Colby is the host of The Entrepreneur DNA and The Science of Flipping podcasts and a best-selling author. He is a serial entrepreneur with over and a seasoned real estate investor with over 20 years of experience. Driven by a passion to help entrepreneurs thrive, Justin created the Entrepreneur DNA community to support business owners in building wealth, systems, and long-term freedom. Through his podcasts, books, education platforms, and hands-on mentorship, he continues to help entrepreneurs scale with clarity and confidence. Connect with Justin: Instagram: @thejustincolby YouTube: Justin Colby TikTok: @justincolbytsof LinkedIn: Justin Colby Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Transcript
Discussion (0)
Starting point is 00:00:00 What is up, everybody? Welcome to the Science of Flipping podcast. This cat is special. He went from high VP in a corporate world of real estate to being an entrepreneur in under 10 years. He has done something magnificent in building his organization. Mark Vincent Fanzler is here. What is up, bud? How you doing, man? Thanks for having me. I appreciate it. I'm excited. Looking forward to this. You are a very special human being, right? Your story is unique. And what you built is very impressive. So I think if anyone is an aspiring entrepreneur or maybe they're trying to get to a place of hundreds of millions, I think they need to hear what you have to say.
Starting point is 00:00:37 Yeah, I've been through a lot. I'm sure there's lessons that they can pick up one. All right. So listen, you have an incredible story. You've done a lot. But let's start out by what is your world look like today. Yeah, I have a series of vertically integrated companies, all real estate related, specific to commercial mixed use real estate. And for those who don't know what that means, real estate, commercial real estate is about 20, 30 different occupancy types. One's retail, one's office, one's something else, something else. My ventures all have three or more occupancy types in it. So all of my ventures cater to that. All of my companies cater that.
Starting point is 00:01:15 I have two real estate funds, a debt and an equity fund for people who want to invest in real estate, but want to stay hands off. So we can collect money, provide loans to the ventures, or they can be partners in the venture. Yeah. Right. I have a real estate investment company that's national. So we buy commercial mixed use ventures across the country that are distressed in a variety of ways. We buy large land development tracks. We buy decommission hospitals, hotels, projects that have been wildly mismanaged and turn to more profitable campaigns.
Starting point is 00:01:50 I have a real estate. I have a realty group that has a commercial division and a residential division and currently in six states and expanding. That's in Delaware, Maryland, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, North Carolina, and Florida. Texas and Colorado are next because my next two biggest ventures are, and I want my teams in control of that. I have a property management company in Delaware, Maryland, and Pennsylvania, property maintenance company in the same states. I have a steel building business that produces steel in 13. states. I bought that so I can provide steel for my own ventures at cost. Yeah. But we also cater to developers around the country so we can pick a place that's closest to them,
Starting point is 00:02:31 manufacture the steel for their development, you know, for these kinds of buildings, and then ship it to them from the closest place. And then I have a marketing company that originally started out as a wholesale business, you know, all the stuff that we all do. Right. That has become strictly a marketing company. All it does is marketing. It doesn't buy anything, doesn't do anything else. It just markets. Four opportunities that you can try to figure out what to do with it. For real estate to acquire.
Starting point is 00:02:58 Got it. And then 21st of this month, we launched a educational and mentoring program specific to commercial mixed use. That's great. No one fills that space, by the way. I don't know. There's a few, but they're very, and some of them are pretty good. Okay. But none of them come with the kind of background that I come with.
Starting point is 00:03:19 what you are doing. So one of the things that I want all entrepreneurs to hear what you've done, you've vertically integrated. And so there's a lot of businesses and you can pick a industry, right? It doesn't have to be real estate.
Starting point is 00:03:31 There's a lot of bolt on businesses that accent what you're doing. So if your main vertical, whether it be real estate, maybe it's a hair salon, maybe it's, there's other businesses that you actually have as revenue streams.
Starting point is 00:03:46 Right. Right. And so I want people to just also listen, like even if you pick an industry or a vertical real estate or otherwise, start looking at things. This is what you've done brilliantly, right? You have how many, how many seven? Seven businesses, eight, eight on the 24th. And we call them bolt on businesses. The revenue streams to the main thing, right? And I can tell you how that came to be, because I didn't set out to do this. Okay, as I was in retirement, as you can remember,
Starting point is 00:04:11 um, that first two companies were invents and assets and painted horse properties. Painted horse properties was the wholesale business, and out of that we would pick and choose the stuff that Vincent wanted to buy and do the renovations and flips and burn, holds and all that other sort of stuff, right? And Vincent became the luxury brand. That's what people know is for. We do very big, very high-end residential flips. That led to commercial work.
Starting point is 00:04:39 Because when I first left my corporate life, I didn't have the funds to do the kind of stuff I'm doing now, didn't have the packing. So I had to start like everybody else in the piece of the business that I could do it afford. Yeah. The wholesale business provided the leads through its marketing efforts. Yeah. And I was concentrated only on the stuff I wanted to buy. I wanted to buy as much as I could.
Starting point is 00:05:03 And I was passing on everything else. I let die on the vine. Right. Things that were retail leads. Of course, I had a license. Why was I doing that? I had people that needed properties managed. I was managing my own properties.
Starting point is 00:05:15 Why don't I store doing theirs? Right. And I would just go down. on the list and I hired some people, you know, as you grow, you start hiring people. And I said, one of the things I want to do is I'm going to start tracking this stuff. I'm letting die on the vine. Yeah. Very quickly, I got pretty angry with myself.
Starting point is 00:05:29 Yeah. I was going to say, you just started counting the zeros and commas. You're like, so that that turned into opportunity. And I took that stuff and I built teams around it from people that were within my existing companies and said, I see this as an opportunity. I want to see if we can make a run at it. You make it profitable. I'll put you in charge of the business.
Starting point is 00:05:50 So that's how they came to be. And then do you rev share with those individuals? I mean, are you incentivized to grow it? Some yes, some, though. Yeah. Yeah. It just wins. One of the things is some of myself, I've grown in national presence in the real estate space.
Starting point is 00:06:02 There are challenges, right? And you're talking about you're opening up these new markets. Let's talk about some of the challenges by going outside of your own primary market. And again, we're talking real estate because that's where you and I thrive. But I think this is applicable to almost anything because you have to have a certain level of trust in people like, hey, I'm going to give you this opportunity. I think you said you're opening up Denver, Colorado or something. Colorado.
Starting point is 00:06:24 You're not there, right? So you're going to have to trust, like, let's talk about some of the upsides slash downside. I think the upside is obvious because I would say you're looking at it as an open market that you can create more revenue and more business. Great. Upside. Let's talk about some of the downsides when you do these type of things and you go into different states, markets.
Starting point is 00:06:42 Right. So in order to use your own people, it gets pretty expensive to do that remotely. Yeah, right? Because you got to put them all up, you got to send them back and forth and all that stuff. And it just becomes very inefficient, right, and far more costly. So it's a challenge to find those people and put them into positions that you need them to be in. Yeah. So that all you have to do is manage the reports of the business and deal with the person, let them deal with everything else, right? I spent a life of that in commercial corporate life. Yeah. Right. I started as a carpenter ended up senior vice presidents on all sides of the industries. So I've been very fortunate to find that kind of success. So I know what it takes to recognize in a person what I need out of them, give them what they need to be successful and have that person be the person I can trust to do that. Were you fortunate or did you just work hard?
Starting point is 00:07:38 You work smart. You said fortunate and I sit here and I go, I don't know if a carpenter going to senior vice president means you're fortunate. I think there's some things people need to learn about what it takes to get there. Yeah, it's a lot of lessons, obviously. Sure. Most of it, the fortunate part of it is the people that I got exposed to that taught me the certain things that I needed to be and that I was wise enough to recognize it when it was happening. That's it. That's it.
Starting point is 00:08:02 And pay attention to it and take it. That's right. Like this episode, by the way, you all, like, you're listening to the man who did it. Like, pay attention. Go ahead. Keep going. So there are a couple examples of why. what that looked like that were like sort of flashes in my life, right?
Starting point is 00:08:20 One of the occasions, there's a private club in Philadelphia that's the largest in the country and has sister organizations all over the world. It's not something that you can just go join. Somebody has to vouch for you. And back in the 90s, when I became a member, the person vouching for you had to pay for you for the first year. That's commitment. Back then it was 30 grand.
Starting point is 00:08:45 That's still committed. Somebody, it was a couple people, thought enough of me then to put me in a place that could do things for my career that I couldn't do on my own. Right. Can I pause you there? I feel like it. I want to talk about that because you're leaning into what I believe to be my sweet spot, my secret to my success is why you're in my world is building community.
Starting point is 00:09:07 Right. Right. And DJ, Kristen, and so many people that we both know, we just we have a mutual friend sky is out there you know um i think people need to hear that again and you don't have to re-say it but like rewind that you had people that believe in you enough to help you go into or pay for you to get into a community that my guess without you even having say it the people that then were in that community continue to lean into you push you elevate you push you up right to get to right guys and girls like listen to this man like this is everything in life
Starting point is 00:09:43 Keep going. I wanted to really highlight that, though, because that is everything. Yeah. So throughout my life, I didn't have that. I had to sort of go into everything myself, learn it the hard way. I got beat up a lot, lost a lot. But in the middle of it, I ended up with a tenacity that just sort of carry me through. I don't have an off switch. There's, it was either this inner drive that I really couldn't contain. I didn't know how to harness it yet. It was places like this that I began to learn how to do that. These people put me into this place and it was. sort of like a jag hearing when they put me in and they vouch for me you walk in it's this big dark library they're sitting at the other end this ominous desk with these presents on the other side and i'm sitting in the dimly lit side of the room yeah and they're firing questions at you because
Starting point is 00:10:29 they're wanting to test your character who you're how you know how you respond to things i managed to get past it and they accepted me in i can never repay them because one i don't know who they are there was a night you don't you don't you even know who sponsored you? No. No shit. Yeah. It gets me even today that that happened.
Starting point is 00:10:49 Wow, bro. That's phenomenal. And the fact that it was like 30 grand in the 90s, that's a lot of money for me. Oh, I don't think today's a lot of money. And it's not like, and I didn't know who they were, so it's not like I could give them business back. Right. To thank them.
Starting point is 00:11:03 It was just. They literally thought high enough of you. It was just a gift. Yeah. How do you pay that? Yeah. You pay a 10. And I can see the emotion on you.
Starting point is 00:11:11 And that's great. And I love that. Because really that is what we're all, listen, we've all have our stories. Your story is more extreme than mine, but I have a story. I had alcoholic parents. They left, you know, I'd come home or passed out in the kitchen at 2 o'clock in the afternoon. And you have an extreme story. I don't want to take away from where we were going.
Starting point is 00:11:29 What keeps you going? Like, because people could easily become the victim of that story and then lean into alcohol, drugs, and otherwise and become a total, you know, why did you not I don't know that I have an answer to that because I was set up to fail from the start you know off screen we talked about this
Starting point is 00:11:56 you know I was abandoned at birth I don't know who my biological father is never met a man really never had a desire to meet them because I was the kind of I'm the kind of person if somebody doesn't you don't want me I don't need you I don't need you but I also didn't realize the effective was the toll it was taken on me throughout my life,
Starting point is 00:12:14 was adopted into a killer family. The guy that I call my pop is just a stellar guy. I can't say enough good about him. But during the course of my life, I went through a lot of that sort of stuff. And somehow in the middle of it, I became the person that only saw the good and things. I didn't focus on the negative.
Starting point is 00:12:37 I didn't lean on the fact that I was abandoned. I didn't lean on the fact that I, you know, worked in a chicken house as a child because that's what my parents did for a living, you know, walking and crap and having your hands in crap collect an eggs every day. Yeah. You know, it can be a pretty driving force to want something better. Yeah. Right.
Starting point is 00:12:56 So it doesn't, it didn't matter whether, you know, you were intercity or a chicken farmer. Where you want to go is up to you. For me, I got to see, I somehow only got to, I got to a point where I only see the good. Yeah. Now, that doesn't mean I ignore the bad. But I only see the good. And it gave me an inner drive that just was something I didn't really know how to contain. It's like a wild Mustang.
Starting point is 00:13:19 Yeah. They're beautiful. It was fun to watch. If you got on its back before you had any kind of real training, it was a ride. Oh, yeah. That was my ride. Yeah. Right.
Starting point is 00:13:28 And then you get to these places like the Union League that these people did this for me. The one thing that I wished had happened that didn't is they put me in the middle of all this greatness, but they didn't teach me how to be in that space. What it was good to me, though, was they involved me into two roundtables. They helped me pick the ones, put me in places where they thought it could be the most good. Back then, I really didn't know what to do with it, but here's what I got. In the table, and I'm very good friends with all of these people today still. Great.
Starting point is 00:14:04 That we would sit around, and after we knew each other, because I was new, So they'd have to introduce themselves. I'd introduce myself. And then we actually got past that. Every time we came, it was like, you know, how's your kids? How's your wife? What's going on? You know, is there anything personally you need help with?
Starting point is 00:14:18 We were just like that kind of support for each other. And in business, what's going well and what's going wrong? Great. And at the table, this was back into Blackberry days. Yeah. We would, somebody would say, I'm struggling, you know, my lead service. My leads just turned off. I can't figure out why my phone won't.
Starting point is 00:14:34 Yep. We would all start messaging everything. everybody we knew. Yeah. My boy needs your help. We need this. We need that. Before we left, that guy had what he needed. That's great. And the person that was at the table that was the best at that thing was their mentor for the next 90 days until it wasn't a problem for him anymore. That's how it was set up. The most powerful group of people I've ever been involved with. That setup was insane. And that mentor didn't ask for anything. That was just the expertise. So if you're like, I need to create a podcast, you'd say, Justin, I need, right, but I wouldn't do anything.
Starting point is 00:15:06 You wouldn't charge me. I just lean into you. Because there was going to be a time you needed and I'd do this thing for you. Love that. What a great economy. The second thing that happened that was like that, the only two times that this happened in my life because I didn't have mentors. I didn't have business people around me when I was growing up.
Starting point is 00:15:22 I didn't have any of that stuff. New college degrees in my family. You know, so I didn't have advanced degrees to lean on or any of that stuff. It wasn't until this. And this was very late in my life. You know, my careers at that point. Had the same thing happened, this person I did know, was a West Pointer. And he was part of something called the West Point Society of Philadelphia.
Starting point is 00:15:47 We met at the Chart House in Philadelphia every month. Instead of our table, we took over to restaurant. Nobody that was there was there other than staff in us. There wasn't no other patrons that say on these days. Same thing. They had to vouch for me to the head table, which is all West Pointers. you know, high-level Westmears. Yeah.
Starting point is 00:16:10 And they paid my annual membership first year. Same setup. They accepted me because somehow I had managed to become sort of that insider circle. And when you needed something done in Philadelphia, I was one of the people that you called. That's right. Right. I became sort of a corporate cupid of sorts. Sure.
Starting point is 00:16:31 In about three months, there was two tables, them and what they called the movers, the Shakers table, within three months I was at that other table. Wow. We would do the same thing. The whole restaurant, while they were serving the food, they would set stand up. This is who I am. This is what I do and this is what I need. Hands would go up in the room.
Starting point is 00:16:49 When you were done, you say, I'm going to sit in this chair right here. You don't go to the bathroom. You don't start a conversation with anybody. You don't do anything. Go to that spot and you wait. Because if they come to help you and you're not there, they're gone. Wow. They would do the same thing they did at the Union League.
Starting point is 00:17:01 Yeah. Just incredible. These two places. changed the way I do business. Since I left my corporate life, I have not found that. So I created it. We have a private peer group.
Starting point is 00:17:16 People fly in from all over the eastern side of the United States once a month to meet. That's phenomenal. Yeah, that's a powerful cast of characters. Oh, yeah. I can only imagine. So that community that I got to be part of means everything.
Starting point is 00:17:33 You know, you can't gain that kind of So I don't care how long you live. You can't, you can't learn all that. Isn't enough, right? It gives you an opportunity to be in front of the people that are doing all of the things that you want to do that have already worked out the books. Yep.
Starting point is 00:17:49 Gives you an opportunity to be in front of people that have learned things that you will never have the time to learn. Yeah. And it accelerates who you become. If you know how to lean into that. I can lean into it. I can learn it. I just didn't know what to do with it.
Starting point is 00:18:05 Yeah. I didn't know how to leverage all that back then. It's a different story today. But them, these are lessons that took a lifetime to learn. Yeah. And, you know, it led to what I do now, you know, because I didn't start out to run seven companies. Right.
Starting point is 00:18:20 To be 62 years old and getting ready to start another one for Christ said. God bless you. You know, but the thing is, is I love this business. I don't consider any of it work. Yeah. It's just inner stress because the money's big and stuff like that. But I love what I do. do and I'll do it until I don't enjoy it anymore.
Starting point is 00:18:38 Yeah, I'm into that. So what, you know, you had this trajectory in the corporate space. When was enough enough? You know, I think there's a lot of people out there that are, they know they're meant for more. And I think your exit, and you can talk about your story, but your exit was probably more burnout than it was like, I know I could, I could be doing more for myself. But I still want to talk to the same type of person, right?
Starting point is 00:19:02 There's the people out there that know they're meant for more and they just need the mark behind them and then there's people like, I'm so burnt out, I've lost my marriages, my kids don't know who I am, whatever those things are, right? Talk about that journey for you. Yeah, it was a bit of both because what took me from being a carpenter to the senior executive positions is that these are, I know that I'm meant for more peace of me, right? There's a bit of that in everybody, they just maybe they don't recognize it because they're hung up on the negative things in their lives instead of the positive thing. Yeah. But I had a lot of, of that going on.
Starting point is 00:19:37 I spent, you know, so much time perfecting what I was doing only so that I could use it to recharge. Yeah. Right. Everything that I did, I knew when I stepped into that role, it wasn't the end. That was just next for me, right? Yeah. Because the thing for me is when I was 17, 18 years old, I had a vision come to me and I don't
Starting point is 00:19:59 have vision. So this is why it, I can remember it so vividly that I had a thing. had driven up on a job in a car that I couldn't afford, stepped out on a job that had always been someone else's. People working that would normally work for someone, all of it was mine. I owned a car. You were 17? I was 17, 18 years old, 17, 18 years old, had this vision that I had driven up on a job.
Starting point is 00:20:28 The car that I got out of was mine. Yeah. And it was a nice car. The property that I was getting out to walk was mine. The people working there was mine for the company that was mine. All of it was mine. I had no idea how I was going to accomplish that. I just knew that I would get there.
Starting point is 00:20:46 Didn't how painful the path was going to be. That gives me shivers. And here I am, you know, 40 plus years later. And I'm not only done it once, I've done it seven times at the same time. And you are here, frankly, you have done that transition wildly successful. That is why you're in the seat you're in. is because, again, someone vouched for you to some extent. Hey, Justin, you need to have my friend on.
Starting point is 00:21:12 And then I got to know you a little bit, and we geeked out for, God, bon, call. And, you know, so there's all this cool stuff. But it's this, this vision and belief that you had in yourself at 17, that, you know, and again, we can kind of go into your real business now so people know exactly what you're doing. Because what I would tell you is make sure you go look up Mark, Vincent, fans, everywhere connect with them you can see he's a real guy you can see he's he's he's just here to give
Starting point is 00:21:42 for all you um but that belief seen before you you know you you saw it before it was actually visual right because it was it was a mental thing but like the belief that one day i can go do that how far did that like was that something that was always in the back of your head like one day i need to go do this no actually i i never believed it hmm I never believed I deserved it. Let me put it before. Okay. I can appreciate that.
Starting point is 00:22:12 So, you know, I'm coming from the life that I had been abandoned in. I didn't have any kind of formal education. I didn't have people around me that could keep me on a right path. Yeah. Any of that sort of stuff, I just felt like I was wildly unprepared for that vision. Yeah. Right. I didn't have any of the stuff that I needed for that to happen.
Starting point is 00:22:35 other than the vision. And I didn't know the first thing about making that happen. So when you get to a point of breaking in the corporate world and or just tired, like I'm done,
Starting point is 00:22:47 right? I don't know if you broke per se, but you reach senior VP's, I mean, you have it. You have the corporate, everyone wants that thing. You say I'm out. How the hell did you even start your first venture?
Starting point is 00:23:02 It was, I needed some, I needed a break first, you know, because I had spent so much time fighting everything to get to those spots. The companies didn't want me in those spots. I sort of forced my way into those spots.
Starting point is 00:23:16 I had people above me trying to keep me below them, everything else. Yeah. And over the years, gradually I climbed to those spots, and it was exhausting. It just, Christ, it was just so exhausting. You know, it's, and it was wild that, My corporate life in many ways mirrored my personal life.
Starting point is 00:23:40 You know, I had an adopted family. The father, my pop, really poured a lot into me, but his family didn't accept me. They would tell me how you're not but. Yeah, yeah. They use the words. So as a child, that's devastating. Of course. In my corporate life, similar things would happen, and I would know because of my experience
Starting point is 00:24:00 that what they wanted me to do wasn't going to work. It had no bearing on how much time and everything. I was going to put in it, how much skill I'd put in it, it wasn't going to work because I knew fundamentally it was a bad idea. And they would look at me and say, where did you get your degree? Same kind of idea. Same. Like who were you?
Starting point is 00:24:19 Yeah, you don't. I'm not blood, you don't have the pedigree. Yeah, we don't belong here. And they don't talk to me until you get a degree. Three months later, they would have to eat their words because what I told them happened. Yeah. You know, so it was just an exhausting period to go through all of that. Because every time I would go somewhere, that would be my seat.
Starting point is 00:24:36 because in real estate and construction, particularly, if you're very good at a role, they don't want to move you out of it. Right. Because you could step up into another role and suck at it, and then the person they put in your position could not be as good as you. Now they've screwed up two positions.
Starting point is 00:24:51 That's right. So it's very hard to make that move. So part of it is I just needed a break. I went through a lot and I thought, okay, what's next? And I didn't know what that was. Yeah. I just knew that what I was doing was no longer working for me. I wasn't learning anything from anybody.
Starting point is 00:25:11 Yeah. So you exited. So I got out. I took a couple years to myself. Went through, you know, a bad relationship that ended. Met someone who's my wife now. It's just a fantastic lady. Congratulations.
Starting point is 00:25:28 Yeah, thanks. She's got a doctorate and neuroscience and psychology. How I got past that. No idea. Honey, do you know who my child? You know, Larry. Well, that's funny. I mean, by the way, super interesting.
Starting point is 00:25:40 I love that stuff. And so. And then I started doing stuff because I couldn't not do anything. We're just built. I've been built to do stuff. Yeah. So I couldn't not do anything. What was your first venture?
Starting point is 00:25:52 What was the first thing? You're like, how do you do this? It was a house. Just a flip a house? Just a flip a house. Just a flip a house. I went and paid 60 grand for a house. I put 60 grand into it and sold over two and a quarter.
Starting point is 00:26:01 And then what did that lead to? That led to another one and another one and then several of them and then several of them. And it led to, it led from market rate housing to luxury housing because that became the brand we were known for. Remodeling million dollar homes plus, whatever. Yeah, we were just, we were doing level to finishes that people just don't see. How did you break that transition?
Starting point is 00:26:22 And part of that comes from corporate life. The standards are very different than they are in residential. Oh, yeah. Right. So I just brought that corporate standard, commercial standard to the residential platform. and, you know, we got to the point that people were waiting. Like, when's your next one? I got people waiting for your house.
Starting point is 00:26:41 Yeah. Right. So that was kind of cool, but you can't do, you can't scale that. Right. They're just, and they're not big enough to make enough money when you can't scale a product. Yeah. To make it wildly successful. So I got back to my roots, started doing commercial stuff, started doing mixed-use stuff,
Starting point is 00:27:02 and that's when it happened. You know, everything in my business changed at that moment. Because that was your strong suit. That was your expertise. That's my wheelhouse. You were able to lean into it. That's my wheelhouse. A big business because I was doing little business.
Starting point is 00:27:17 And, you know, the challenge is when you step into a company that already has the marketing and the money and the staff and processes and procedures and guidelines, all that's in place, I can step into that and I can make. anybody better. I just have a gift for that. Yeah. A company that's struggling that's in crisis, crisis management, I can deal with that. But when you start a company from scratch, dude, that's a different thing entirely. I'd never done that. Yeah. You know, you kind of had to do everything yourself until you're making enough money. You can start to pay those people to sort of get from nothing to where it was. Yeah. That was a struggle. Yeah. But we got there. So now here we are.
Starting point is 00:27:59 You know, I do commercial mixed-use ventures. So I'll give you an example of a couple of them. Sure. I've got a property under contract in Colorado. It's the largest undeveloped tract of commercial real estate within 100 miles of itself. It's a beast of a project. It's going to be mixed juice. It'll have 350 to 400 condos on it.
Starting point is 00:28:24 It'll have 100 to 125,000 square feet of commercial mixed juice retail on it. So it'll have, you know, stores and restaurants and all kinds of different things. And then with the leftover piece of land and that it wasn't big enough for a building, but it was sort of at the end of a weird shape, I'm able to buy the piece next. So if I put those two pieces together, I can put like 150 room Hilton Garden in style hotel with it. So that's the cross population of the occupancy types, right? killer deal i got it under contract the guy that's in it likes what i'm doing and says only give me this much i'll stay in as a partner on the back end i don't want to do anything i don't want to hear
Starting point is 00:29:10 anything i just want you to show me the reports i want to be able to log in and see what you're doing and if i have any questions i'll call you otherwise you won't hear from me cool it was like 25% of the venture he was going to be behind wow killer deal the i'm met that person at an EXP event, oddly enough. And when you meet these people and you know something's happening, it's like the rest of the room goes away. That's right. Right.
Starting point is 00:29:36 You pay attention to it. I gave the guy like three hours and like a month later he called this, dude, I got a, I got a venture. I think you're, you should be interested in. What was this deal? It gets bigger. Around the corner from this property, a national developer out of Texas,
Starting point is 00:29:53 just won a 40-year legal battle with an environmental company because he's going to redo 300 acres on top of a mountain, put in 1,700 ultra-luxury homes and 225,000 square feet of commercial retail to support that pocketbook because these people are loaded.
Starting point is 00:30:14 These are people that have two, three, four, five houses already. They want another one so that when they go ski, they can stay in their own house, and they don't want anybody else using it when they're not there. That kind of money. So we spent some time talking, and I'm asking much questions, and he says, dude, you're asking me a lot about my business. Why are you asking me so much? And I told him what I'm getting ready to do.
Starting point is 00:30:34 Yeah. And I said, the next thing, what I did also was I looked at your business to see what you needed. And what I see you have a problem, and you haven't fixed it in your own development. He says, what's that? So there's no place for the next 10 to 15 years, for the people that are going to come build your stuff, there's no place for them to stay. He says, yeah, no, we can't figure it out. So I got an answer for you. I'm going to take my condos.
Starting point is 00:31:00 I'm going to condo the docks so everything's legit. I already negotiated with the municipality to treat them as apartments as long as I own. Yeah. From a tax perspective. He said, I'll fit the inside out, build a grade. I'll lease them to your people so that you can build your stuff. And when they're done, I'll renovate them into luxury condos and I'll sell them off. He said, you're the only person that's come to me.
Starting point is 00:31:23 since we won this bagel that's this legal battle that hasn't wanted to be in on my venture, wanted to ride our coattails, or just wanted to do a land grab. You're here long term and you fix my problem. He said, I'll tell you what. You get through exploratory plan approval. I'll give you a corporate lease for the entire project. No, he's going to want a discount. Of course.
Starting point is 00:31:44 We'll have to battle over that. Yeah. But he says, and I'll go one farther. I have commercial retail in my space, but I'm not a commercial guy. would you be interested in partnering up and you take over the commercial piece on mine? One relationship, two deals. Which will lead to more?
Starting point is 00:32:05 Just the condo sales at the back end of the deal after all the other money's made is $120 million in sales. Just on the one job. Plus the retail, plus the leasing for the... From one convention you went to? One person.
Starting point is 00:32:19 Being intentional with communicating this person for three hours. Yep. Not looking to take, looking to add value, interested, asking questions. Three months later leads to this deal, which leads to this opportunity now with this text developer, which leads to hundreds of millions of dollars.
Starting point is 00:32:36 And I'll say it for you. It's about the people you know and the handshakes you make. Exactly. So that's one. I have 13 deals like that. One of the other ones, the one I'm most excited about, is my companies collectively,
Starting point is 00:32:50 because we're all vertically integrate and work so close together. Well, let me, Let me start with this. The reason I vertically integrated instead of just hiring out to other companies. Yeah. Is because we're all in the same building and we all work together. We all see what's going on with each other. And it creates this cyclone of energy inside itself where we're feeding each other.
Starting point is 00:33:12 Hey, I heard you had that gone on. I got your answer. I got this. Right. Instead of having separate companies all over the place. This happened after all this sort of materialized my companies. got introduced to two guys. They're a team of doctors.
Starting point is 00:33:34 They had a vision. I don't like the vision. What they want to create is on five acre parcels around the country. 55,000 square foot facilities, they already got the building designed. They just need to do the foundations down in the site work for each location.
Starting point is 00:33:53 All pediatric related, pediatric dentistry, pediatric or surgery, pediatric pediatric general physicians and all the specialty the therapeutic areas 50 locations 50 my companies are responsible for locating the real estate negotiating them tying them up getting them through the entitlements I'm a development partner with them so I own the real estate with them not the business yeah we manage the facility and maintain the facility my collective companies are responsible for all of that. Wow.
Starting point is 00:34:33 One client. That's insane. Best thing is they have the team of doctors around the country. They have the network to fill every one of those buildings that 70% occupy before we start. The last 30% I'm holding reserve to do their shape with local health care systems. Yeah. Because I want them to be able to come in and do outpace and surgeries and stuff like that. Sure.
Starting point is 00:34:54 Right. So we can include, you know, local presence. So that's 50 locations. we're raising capital for both of those deals. This one we have 100% financing for. They want a 25% surety on the first building. I only got one capital call. I got 50 buildings financed.
Starting point is 00:35:15 I need one capital call. $8.5 million. The $8.5 million for this one gets held as a surety in the form of a CD and it's held in escrow for 36 months. At month 37, they get the money back. get the interest from the CD, which is only about a half million dollars, that's not the exciting piece. First, that surety sets behind my payment and a form is bond. So I would have to fail, which I've never done, and Fidelity bonds would have to fail. That's who my bonding company is.
Starting point is 00:35:48 Wow. Not going to happen. Never going to happen because the bond steps in and finishes a job, right? That's what it's for. So they get their money back at month 37. The people that invest, let's say it's one person or one family office or one hedge fund. they get 15% of the first building and 10% of the next 49. So what does that look like? This is the creative finance stuff that I love. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Right.
Starting point is 00:36:18 They get, if we're using Wilmington, Delaware as an example of the national average for construction costs, leasing, and all the stuff that goes into real estate, you can expect that these numbers are going to balance out across the country average this, knowing that if I did one down here, it's going to be a lot higher. If I did one in Kentucky, it might be a lower or something like that, right? But the numbers look like this. From acquisition to stabilization, that's when I turn it over to a permanent asset manager if it's not in my region. That's entitlements, construction, fill in the building, operating it, everything, 70% complete. The building is $35 million. All of that, to land to everything, improvements
Starting point is 00:37:01 and everything. The building's worth 65, 30 million in equity per building. First building for a partner, they get 15%, that's $4.5 million on top of getting their money back at month 37, on top of the half million dollars in interest on the CD interest, $4.5 million plus 15% of the net revenue after debt service on the first building, and 10% for the next 49. That's $3 million a building plus the revenue. It's $152.5 just in equity for $1.8 million investment they get back at month 37. This is what I do. That is exciting. Makes me question what I do. It's just different, dude. You know, so this is what I love. Yeah. You know, I find opportunities where something's missing. Yeah. And I build something big around it. Big business.
Starting point is 00:38:01 is what I do best. You're an incredible human, man. It is going to be a fun journey to be friends with you and do a lot of business together. Yeah, I'll look for it. This will be good. Yeah. Guys, if this has inspired you, if you feel like Mark is the kind of person you want to be, aspiring to be, or even just want to learn a little bit more.
Starting point is 00:38:19 Mark is very easy to get a hold of. What is the easiest way for people to reach out to you? It's easy. Everywhere you want to look. Just type in Mark Vincent F-A-N-S-L-E-R. I own like the first 20 pages of Google. any one of the websites will lead you to me. Just look the man up. Mark Vincent Fanzler.
Starting point is 00:38:37 Follow him, talk to him. Easier to talk to. Great dude. Appreciate you. And if this helped you, please share it with at least two of your friends.

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