Real Estate Development with Darcy Marler

 

Real Estate Development with Darcy Marler

 

Guest: Darcy Marler is a seasoned real estate investor and developer with over two decades of experience in flipping houses, rental properties, land development, and new construction. From an MIT graduate to a successful real estate entrepreneur, Darcy’s journey has been marked by valuable lessons and insights. Passionate about transforming raw land into subdivided lots ready for construction, Darcy specializes in building and flipping houses, duplexes, and small multifamily properties.

 

Big Idea: In this episode, Darcy Marler delves into the transition from fixing and flipping houses to land development and new construction, stressing the need to align real estate strategies with personal preferences. He outlines risk mitigation and profit maximization strategies, emphasizing the substantial benefits of new construction, including higher returns, better tenants, and efficient management. Darcy highlights advantages such as ease of financing and incentives for developers addressing the housing crisis. He underscores opportunities for smaller investors in smaller-scale projects like multifamily units or residential development. Understanding market demand, leveraging financing, and exploring exit strategies are key takeaways for maximizing returns in real estate development.

 

 

    

Dan Breslin: Yeah, absolutely. I was excited by the topic. I think our listeners will be equally as excited. Most of us listening are probably fixing flipping houses. We are interested in buying and selling real estate. We would improve said real estate to get to that profit. And I think that our discussion today around land and development and making that transition will be a very much well-received topic by the audience and by myself today. So Darcy, would you mind giving us the background and the career evolution to getting where you’re at today?

Darcy Marler: Well, a lot of people, I was an actual IT guy way back in the day, about 23 years ago, I got tired of that. So I wanted to get into real estate and I started flipping and doing long term rentals and that led to some land development and construction. The bird, I’ve done all the strategies I’ve owned, had close to a thousand tenants and 240 renovated units, written a couple of books and then yeah. So now I’m doing a bit of everything, but I keep coming back to new. I like new, I like being creative. I like knocking stuff down instead of fixing it up now. [inaudible].

Dan Breslin: So why don’t we start with an example then this could be your first development deal, or you can not do that one. If that one’s not maybe the biggest lesson and maybe you could pick one that came with a really big lesson that helps us expand our vision from single-family fix and flip or buying duplexes that exist to ground up new construction?

Darcy Marler: Yeah, so actually the first one is a perfect one. So I had this 1950s bungalow. I was just going to flip it. The person next to me passed away, so I bought that as well. I said, ” You know what, I’ve always wanted to build. So what does that look like?” Actually I moved both of the old houses off. I didn’t even demolish them. I actually sold them. They got moved off. I split those two lots into four. I made sure all four lots were serviced and then I built four new homes and I loved it. It was exactly what I wanted. So the big thing that I’m all about too is, is not your personality to your strategy. If you’re not enjoying what you’re doing, what’s a better fit. And I love creativity. I love the pride of watching the stuff come out of the ground. I think it’s awesome.

 

This Episode of The REI Diamonds Show is Sponsored by the Deal Machine. This Software Enables Real Estate Investors to Develop a Reliable & Low Cost Source of Off Market Deals. For a Limited Time, You Get Free Access at http://REIDealMachine.com/

 

This Episode is Also Sponsored by the Lending Home. Lending Home Offers Reliable & Low Cost Fix & Flip Loans with Interest Rates as Low as 9.25%.  Buy & Hold Loans Offered Even Lower.  Get a FREE IPad when you Close Your First Deal by Registering Now at  http://REILineOfCredit.com

 

Resources mentioned in this episode:

https://www.hrrealestatementors.com/

 

For Access to Real Estate Deals You Can Buy & Sell for Profit:

https://AccessOffMarketDeals.com/podcast/

 

Darcy Marler & I Discuss Real Estate Development:

  • Budgeting and Risk Management in New Construction (3:31)
  • Philosophies on Holding vs. Selling Properties (10:02)
  • Pre-Selling Land vs. Building Spec Homes (15:54)
  • Identifying Potential Land for Development & Subdividing (18:21)
  • Evaluating Opportunities in Aging Neighborhoods (23:16)
  • Benefits of new construction for rental properties (36:38)
  • Importance of demographics and location in real estate investment (45:36)
  • The significance of partnerships and operational support in real estate ventures (49:48)

 

    

Relevant Episodes: (200+ Content Packed Interviews in Total)

 

The transcript of this episode can be found here.
Transcripts of all episodes can be found here.

Insights from Crowdfunding Expert Adam Gower

 

Insights from Crowdfunding Expert Adam Gower

 

Guest: Adam Gower, a seasoned real estate crowdfunding and syndication expert hailing from Central Coast California, has embarked on an extraordinary journey in real estate finance. His diverse experiences, from dwelling in Beverly Hills to navigating the California Coast’s tumultuous waters, have uniquely sculpted his perspective on real estate investing. Within his captivating background lies an intriguing PhD thesis, delving into the historical intricacies of banks underwriting financing during the 1904-1905 Russo-Japanese war. Adam’s profound knowledge of financial history and its practical application to real estate investment is genuinely enlightening.

 

Big Idea: In this episode, Adam Gower, a real estate crowdfunding and syndication expert, discusses the evolving landscape of real estate financing, emphasizing the importance of risk management, adapting to changing market dynamics, and leveraging syndication and crowdfunding opportunities for real estate investors.

 

 

    

 

Dan: That’s right. So, Adam, we’re going to get into GowerCrowd, Crowdfunding as our main topic. But before we do it, I thought a cool place to start would be where we are talking about right before we hit record. You have this PhD in an interesting topic. Would you mind briefly describing that?

Adam: Sure. I wrote a thesis that examined how banks underwrote their financing of Japan during the 1904 and 1905 Russo-Japanese war. Oh my goodness, how obscure could that be? What I found interesting about it, why I ended up writing this thing was that when you look at, it’s called the historiography, when you look at how people have reported this particular period in American banking history. The way they reported it was that Kuhn Loeb was headed up by – oh they complete it with JP Morgan. And this was in the day of the railroad barons and the robber barons, they were called. And Jacob Schiff and Kuhn Loeb, and JP Morgan, all these guys, they were all part of that party. The historiography says that Kuhn Loeb took really huge unnecessary risks, and I just didn’t believe it.

When I got the idea to write this PhD, I was working for East West Bank. I was brought in during the global financial crisis, so 2007-2008. I just thought, no, banks don’t take risks like that. They don’t just randomly invest because, whatever, some kind of wacky political points of view, which is what everybody said Kuhn Loeb had done. So, I decided to dive into it. And so, what I did was, it was really cool actually, Dan, seriously, I mean, I was able to access all the telegrams that went back… It was a syndicate of banks, the finance Japan. I look to handwritten letters, telegrams that went back and forth, and contracts. They were all handwritten in those days. It was really, really cool. I read all of this stuff that they never anticipated. They never thought anyone will ever read this. I got into all of this stuff. I figured these guys, they were really, really diligent on not only underwriting the risk but making sure, a couple things, one, they made absolutely sure that their investors were going to get their money back. Even if whether Japan won or lost. If you read between the lines here, you can see how this applies to real estate investing. But they were very, very sure that their investors would get their money back because they had guarantees from the Japanese government. And number two, even more importantly, as bankers, and I”ll extend this to real estate sponsors today, they were also extremely careful in the way they structured their deals that they made money, didn’t really matter if anybody else did at the end of the day.

 

This Episode of The REI Diamonds Show is Sponsored by the Deal Machine. This Software Enables Real Estate Investors to Develop a Reliable & Low Cost Source of Off Market Deals. For a Limited Time, You Get Free Access at http://REIDealMachine.com/

 

This Episode is Also Sponsored by the Lending Home. Lending Home Offers Reliable & Low Cost Fix & Flip Loans with Interest Rates as Low as 9.25%.  Buy & Hold Loans Offered Even Lower.  Get a FREE IPad when you Close Your First Deal by Registering Now at  http://REILineOfCredit.com

 

Resources mentioned in this episode:

https://GowerCrowd.com/

 

For Access to Real Estate Deals You Can Buy & Sell for Profit:

https://AccessOffMarketDeals.com/podcast/

 

Adam Gower & I Discuss Crowdfunding:

  • Market Migration Trends: Exploring the migration of people from California to Florida and its potential impact on the real estate market.
  • Risk Management: Drawing lessons from historical financial practices to highlight the crucial role of risk management in modern real estate investing.
  • Changing Real Estate Dynamics: Understanding the impact of fluctuating interest rates, insurance costs, taxes, and other factors on real estate investments.
  • Principal-Agent Conflict: Emphasizing the importance of active management and hands-on involvement in real estate deals to maximize returns.
  • Syndication and Crowdfunding: Exploring the legal aspects and online visibility needed to attract investors through crowdfunding and syndication, along with strategies for scaling real estate businesses.

    

Relevant Episodes: (There are 231 Content Packed Interviews in Total)

 

The transcript of this episode can be found here.
Transcripts of all episodes can be found here.