7 Essential Tips for Aspiring Real Estate Investors with Aneury

Christian (00:01.904)
Hey everybody, welcome back to the show. Today we’re joined by Aneury. He is a business and real estate investor with a sharp eye for smart growth opportunities. He and his partner own a property management company with 60 doors and operated real estate sales business as a broker. He has a lot of other stuff going on. Honestly, we and him, we’re just speaking offline. So this guy has a huge track record and is a true operator. So Aneury, welcome to the show, my friend. Super excited to dive in and talk with you today about a bunch of different topics, but.

Without further ado, why don’t you just introduce yourself, who you are, maybe introduce your background and just how you got here, man.

Aneury (00:38.798)
Yeah, thanks Christian. I appreciate being on the podcast today. Super excited for the conversation, right? In terms of a little bit about me, you know, I’ve been called in business for about eight plus years in terms of just my investments, my entrepreneur, call it lifestyle, if you will. Prior to that, I was working corporate America for quite a while and decided that wasn’t really it for me. You know, got to the point where I was sort of as an estate broker.

I’m just doing things on the side, early mornings, late nights, got into investing, got into property management from there. you know, just listen to a lot of podcasts like this one, listen, read a lot of books that I heard in said podcasts and just try to implement all I could until I got to the point where I can share what I’ve learned. And most importantly, at least what I think in terms of what are all the mistakes that I’ve made that, you know, you guys don’t have to.

Christian (01:36.432)
I love that, I love that man. Thank you for sharing. So I what inspired you in particular to start investing in real estate in that vehicle class? I mean, we were talking, right? I mean, you have 60 doors in your property management company. Why don’t you share, where did that inspiration come from?

Aneury (01:53.986)
Yeah, I’ll say it was actually quite random and out of left field. was me and my partner, we were driving up to just drop off his sister at her first day of college up in New York. And while we’re driving up there, we saw a lot of signs of homes for sale and we were thinking, well, you know, why not try this? Why not try to buy a home here or two that, you know, she can stay in, she can help manage.

you know, it’ll be a good investment from that perspective. That was not a good investment. A lot of things went wrong with that one. But just that first trip just got us thinking about real estate, got us thinking about, well, you know, we have this, this pool of funds that, we have both had pretty good jobs that we were saving. We weren’t really using it and we thought, let’s give it a shot. From there, like I mentioned, it was just a lot of discovery, a lot of learning.

And the more we discover, the more we learn, the more excited we got about being able to say in general.

Christian (02:54.415)
That’s awesome. So I know you run a property management company, right? mean, how does that, how’s, mean, what transitioned you into doing that as well? Were you looking at more of just like, Hey, I want to start building some passive income as far as that goes, or what was the driver behind wanting to get that now? And how’s that going for you presently today?

Aneury (03:14.231)
Yeah, so the main driver was a lack of good property managers, at least in our area, that we could rely on to manage our properties. We tried hiring others to take care of our properties and they just weren’t doing a good job. And looking at what they were doing, at what we wanted, we said, hey, why not just bring that in-house? We’ll hire our own staff and we’ll just operate it.

Christian (03:17.743)
Okay.

Christian (03:31.535)
Sounds about right. Yeah.

Aneury (03:42.848)
in the sense that we would want to operate our properties. So it started out purely to manage our own properties. From there, being able to stay a broker, as I was helping other clients buy their investment properties, they said, hey, can you guys also take care of this for me? So it just sort of fell in place by just a need. We had a need to take care of our properties, and then we had a need to service our clients.

Christian (04:09.295)
No, a hundred percent. That makes sense. I mean, I think that is the goal, right? To eventually bring it in house because let’s face it. mean, it’s property management. Like you just said, I mean, you can run into a lot of issues, right? Where people, you know, they’ll promise this, but then completely under deliver and it puts you in a really bad position, you know? So I think that was crucial that she made that transition and kind of just did it everything in house. And that’s awesome that you made that happen. So I know you, for those that don’t know, you’re also a real estate broker.

as well and obviously you do invest in real estate. So I’m curious, I do you see advantages to doing both, right? Cause there maybe let’s say there’s someone out there that’s just an agent and they look at the investment side, but they’re just like, I don’t know if I, if it’s worth making the transition to doing the investment side or can I manage both? Like what do do you see the advantages to doing both or what kind of advice would you give, give on that?

Aneury (05:08.033)
Yeah, I think there’s definitely an advantage from the sense of if you are real estate agent that’s helping other clients buy maybe it’s their first home, their first investment, you’re exposed to a lot more than just your average buyer, your average first time investor by means of just being out in the market looking at different assets. So as an agent, as an active agent,

you’re likely viewing multiple homes on a weekly basis. You’re seeing what’s working for others, what’s not. You’re seeing the ups and downs of the market. And with that knowledge, you’re able to then go out and for yourself, look for something that makes sense. I would say from the perspective of becoming an agent to invest, the data and your access to data is the big differential factor.

If you’re doing it just for the heck of doing it, in terms of just maybe collecting a commission, yes, it’s nice to say get a few thousand dollars for buying your own property, but you don’t really need that. At least, in my opinion, you can do better with your time. I think it really comes down to, if you’re an agent, you have access to data that others don’t. You have access to go view properties at your own time that others may not be able to.

and you have connections that you built in your network that will help bring you deals down the line. So it’s really a value add in terms of just those two things. Having a network that keeps on growing as you interact with other agents, other investors, and then having access to data that may not be available to just your everyday investor, where they would need somebody like you to be able to pull this up for them.

Christian (06:53.325)
Yeah, I love that. I really want to touch on that too. know, the big thing you said on there is relationships, And networking and it’s something that’s completely free, right? And you can literally, there is no limit. There’s no ceiling to how many, you know, relationships you can bring. And really it is the lifeline to your business. Right? So I always urge anybody, you know, focus on the relationships first. Don’t focus on a transaction. You know, those people will feed you for life. If you’re able to, you know, build and nurture.

those relationships over time, right? So I know you, yeah, I know you, you you’re now moved beyond, you know, just real estate, you know, and property management, you know, but now you’re acquiring businesses, right? For those that don’t know, you run a Minuteman Press and then EnviroGreen, you’re doing some other stuff as well. What motivated you to get into, you know, acquisition with buying businesses and running that as well? Why don’t you talk about that?

Aneury (07:24.813)
100%.

Aneury (07:50.958)
Yeah, I would say, know, the biggest lessons that I learned from property management and just from buying real estate for from doing flips is that it’s all a business, right? It all operates the same way that my corporate job used to work on on the, in the backend. You’re still running a P and L you’re having to manage people. And to the extent that you can learn to establish and operate systems.

and to the extent that you can manage a balance sheet and a P &L, those skills transfer immensely over to just regular business acquisitions and they operate the same way as you’re buying a property. A property is just another business. It’s just located in one spot. And in thinking of it that way and thinking about the relationships that we’ve built as real estate brokers with other investors, for the most part, they’re always

There’s always a, at least there felt like there was a vacuum in our inner circle where we were getting presented with a lot of opportunities. We weren’t really acting on it. And ultimately we said, well, why not? Why don’t we just try this out in terms of acquiring a business that made sense to us for our current operations?

And we plug that into our current infrastructure and operate it the same way that we’re running our property management company, the same way that we’re running our real estate team. And it just sort of worked. And from there, it’s proven to be something that we can rely on in terms of times of, say, high interest or low inventory for acquisitions. We have something that can help, say, pay the bills, if you will, on the back end.

Christian (09:40.367)
Yeah, yeah. So I’m curious, I how do you evaluate a business acquisition? You know, when you were going to Minuteman Press and Virogreen, how did you evaluate to ensure that it was going to be a strategic and a smart investment for you long term?

Aneury (09:58.936)
Yeah, so as I mentioned, when I look at a property to do a flip, I’m looking at what is the value that I can bring to that property? What improvements can I make to it? And then what can that exit be on the other end? It’s the same kind of thought when it came to any other business that we acquired. We look at the current performance, what is happening in the business, how much revenue is it generating, how much money is it spending.

And we really dive into the books to understand how does this operate? How many employees do they have? How many does have an operator? Is the owner the one actually running the business on day-to-day basis? And once we understand that and we understand just a big picture of the business, we look in terms of what value adds can we bring to the table? What inefficiencies does this business have that I can solve with my own skill sets?

whether it’s a matter of reducing expenses, improving on marketing, improving on distribution. There’s many things that if you had a business that’s been running for 20, 30 plus years that at some point you just give up on, you don’t really upgrade. And that’s the piece that we target. And in doing so, I can see that if a business is making, let’s say, like a million dollars a year in revenue,

but it’s spending 800,000 in marketing because it’s doing a lot of print marketing versus no online presence, no modernization in terms of just how they acquire customers, then I know that that’s a huge chunk of expense that I can convert into income later on by just optimizing it.

Christian (11:45.072)
Wow, yeah, that’s incredible information that you’re giving out. So I know you have partners involved with the property management company and these companies that you’re running as well. I think this is always an important thing to ask and also just touch on because partnerships, right? I think that you definitely gotta choose who you marry, right? When it comes to come to the business side of things. mean, could you give any advice for maybe, what do you look for exactly in a partner?

you what do people need to look out for, you know, because obviously, you you have your strengths and your weaknesses, right? Your partner could be stronger on this side, maybe on the operations, maybe they’re better at sales, you know, things like that. So I’m curious just to get your thought process on those, you know, as far as advice and also, you know, what do you look for inside of a partner?

Aneury (12:32.791)
Yeah, 100%. I think it’s definitely the way I see it. Partnerships is just like another marriage. So it’s somebody that you have to be able to invest yourself with long term. It’s somebody that you should date first before you go into a serious relationship long term, know, something that, you know, apart from the actual agreements, operating agreements, which are always crucial to have any partnerships to.

you know, get down in terms of the terms that you guys will operate by when things go wrong, if they go wrong. What I look for is somebody that complements or supplements, you know, what you bring to the table. If you are great at finance, perhaps look for somebody that’s good at running a business. If you are good at all that time in sales, then look for somebody that’s good in terms of data. Somebody that’s your opposite.

that can sort of fill in the gaps where you lack skills and that can teach you those skills that you’re missing. But that can do so in a way that you’re happy to talk to this individual on a day-to-day basis. mean, that you’re happy to go on random trips with this person and talk business and not get on each other’s nerves just because you don’t match. I think that…

Christian (13:49.571)
Yeah, right. Right.

Aneury (13:51.47)
Synergy between you is very important. Me and my partner, we have a daily hour call where we just talk about everything that’s happening. I see him more than my kids, more than sometimes, so I actually like him a lot. So that’s something that’s very important. It took a long time to get to that point, and it’s definitely something that I wouldn’t rush. It’s a big investment of not just money, but time.

and getting the wrong partner can quickly derail your whole investments or operations.

Christian (14:29.391)
100 % like you just said, I mean, it’s a second marriage, right? So you want to pick, you want to be careful when you’re doing the pre vetting process and also just making sure, you know, you’re looking out for the next 20, 25 years, you know, you got to look at that long-term vision, you know, how is this going to play out? You know, how do they, how do they respond to, you know, you know, fires that are happening in the business, you know, you gotta, you gotta really check those things out. Right. So I’m curious, you know, how are you and your partner?

Aneury (14:33.229)
Yeah.

Christian (14:56.879)
I mean, you’re managing multiple businesses at the same time, right? There’s a big thing that people talk about, you know, they say, you know, quote unquote, they get burnout, right? The day to day, the grind. So I’m curious, I mean, do you believe in burnout for one, if not, why? And then also, you know, how are you scaling these businesses, right? mean, is it, do you have the proper systems and operations in place or, you know, why don’t you walk us through? mean, how are you, how are you able to do this successfully while…

You’re still on the real estate investor side, you’re a broker. I mean, I told you offline, said, I think you got a clone or something, but as you said, your life revolves around the calendar. It’s a lifesaver. So why don’t you expand on that?

Aneury (15:36.354)
Yeah, yeah, I would say, that’s your first question. There definitely is burnout. That is something that does happen, but it can be managed and you can avoid getting to that state. Burnout is, as I see it, a lack of planning and a reaction to a lack of systems and a lack of process in place.

when you don’t have proper systems, when you don’t have proper processes, when you’re just reacting to whatever’s happening next, all of that stress accumulates and it leads to burnout. So how do we manage that or avoid for others by having the proper systems, the proper just tactics that will make it so that you’re not reacting, you’re actually getting ahead of issues before they happen. And so for all our businesses, have, you

proper systems in place that can manage those independent businesses. The vetting of those systems, we took our time to make sure that we were implementing the right ones. Then we have an overarching system that we use to sort of manage all the individual businesses below that, that brings them all together in a way that we at a higher level can see what’s happening on a day-to-day basis.

We use virtual assistants for just everyday tasks, whether it’s emails, phone calls, anything that’s repetitive that can be outsourced. We have a VA assigned for each business and to us that can support us. But most importantly, we have operators in each business. There is no way that one person can run at 100 % multiple businesses. So, and we realized that.

But what we can do is manage the individuals that do run these businesses for us. So in our vetting process of whether it’s acquiring a business or hiring somebody, we look for qualities that make it clear to us that if we were to put you in charge of something that’s important to us, that you’ll take care of it. So from a management perspective of multiple businesses, the way we’ve done it is that

Aneury (17:57.814)
As I mentioned before, I have a standing meeting with my partner every morning where we talk about just what’s happening, what are the important goals that we need to accomplish. Then we have a standup meeting with our VAs where we will assign them tasks based off of that meeting that we had early on in the morning with things that need to happen in each vertical across the companies. And then we have weekly chat parties with the operators of our business to see what’s going on, see where they need help with.

And our overall task is not to be in the business or be making sales calls or talking to clients or operating. Our main goal is to optimize and find the synergies amongst the multiple entities that we have and bring them together in a way that they can themselves do the best they can on a day to day.

Christian (18:49.825)
That’s incredible. No, thank you for sharing that. I think it’s, it’s so important, you know, especially, you know, having SOPs and all that stuff put inside in place, you know, because I think sometimes where people can kind of get tricked up is, you know, they have the business set up in place, but they don’t have a clear process for the people that are actually, you know, working, right? Especially a VA, they have to know the tasks at hand on what they’re looking at so they can execute it properly. Right? Because if you’re just coming in blind without no, you know, process or documents or

really just any type of flow chart or any work around on that, it’s gonna be pretty difficult to optimize, right? And it’s only gonna set them back, right? So I think it’s amazing how you really take the time when you have those systems and processes set up and it’s no wonder why it sounds like your businesses are pretty streamlined. So cool, man. What advice would you give to somebody that wants to acquire a business, right? Because obviously, there are a lot of people out here that are probably gonna listen and there’s so much information out there.

I mean, could you maybe just walk a person, obviously you don’t have to explain everything, but where does someone need to go and what advice would you give on somebody looking to start their first business, buying a business, an acquisition?

Aneury (20:02.59)
Yeah, I would say there’s definitely a lot of places where you can go out and find these businesses. Just like you can go and buy a house on villovilcho.com, there’s websites like BuyBizell where you can see businesses that are for sale and where they’ll give you a lot of information that you may want to see in terms of revenues, expenses, and just the overall nature of the business.

for you to start to have conversations. And that’s the big thing is having those conversations. Just how you can see a lot of homes online that may be overpriced, that may not make sense for an investor because they’re at a price or a rate that just doesn’t return. Same thing for businesses. There’s a ton of businesses out there that are for sale. Even more that are just overpriced, that don’t make sense.

And that’s the reason why they’re being sold because they just don’t make sense. But going through the exercise of just being exposed to those, starting to just browse through what’s available, you’ll start to see instances of small finds here and there that do stand out, that compared to the rest, do start to make sense. And then you’ll start to see the

individuals and the brokers that are assigned to those businesses that you can start talking to and start to make those connections. And like you said before, it’s those connections that will lead you to find the ones that are actually profitable, that will actually make a return. None of the ones that we bought so far have we bought online. We bought these businesses having looked online. They made a connection.

with somebody that led to a second individual introducing us to somebody else on the line. And through those connections, just hopping around, learning who’s who, who’s in the space, we’ve been able to find off-market deals. And that’s where most of the good contracts will be found, is off-market through these connections. Most brokers, like I mentioned, once they know that you’re serious, once they realize that you’re actually in the game,

Aneury (22:22.549)
they’ll bring you deals that are not yet listed because they want a quick closing. And that’s not something that’s possible when it comes to business closings. You can close, you know, whatever it is, depending on the industry that they buy in. But it all goes down to the connections. You know, if you make good connections, if you make and nurture those connections over time, they’ll be stopping a lot of just positivity.

Christian (22:49.167)
100%, you’ll be fed for life, right? Continue to nurture. That’s amazing, man. I appreciate you sharing a lot of that, because I do feel like, again, there are people that want to do that, right? Because there might be the person that’s working the nine to five, or maybe they’re just at a point, no matter what they’re doing, they want to make that transition and they want to do it. And I think it’s a great vehicle to get yourself involved in, obviously, if you know and you’re doing it the right way, right? But always lead with integrity, always lead with building relationships, and that’s the best start for anybody.

Aneury (22:52.277)
I’m sorry. Yeah.

Christian (23:18.511)
You’re right, awesome, man. So where can people find you? How can people work with you? Where do they need to go to connect with you?

Aneury (23:26.773)
Yeah, you can find me on any of those social platforms at itsanody, Instagram, Facebook, wherever. More than happy to answer questions or if you just want to reach out for anything I can help with in terms of either real estate, property management, business acquisitions. Always happy to answer questions and add value wherever I can.

Christian (23:46.487)
Awesome, well man, you definitely dropped a lot of value and million dollar worth of game on this show. So I definitely got a lot of value. I know the audiences as well. I appreciate you taking the time out of your day to really share that with all of us and man, just wishing you nothing but the best in your future endeavors and everything you have going on. You’re definitely a true operator. So looking forward to seeing what you do next.

Aneury (24:09.453)
Awesome. And again, I appreciate being on the podcast today. It’s been fun and hoping to do it again sometime.

Christian (24:15.735)
Of course, absolutely. I wish we had more time because there’s a lot more stuff I want to tap into as far as know, spirituality, know, mindset, things like that. So we’ll talk about that. So stay tuned guys. We might have them on the podcast here soon again. Awesome. Awesome, man. Well, I appreciate you jumping on again, my friend. I hope everyone enjoyed today’s show. I know I did. I know I got a lot of value like I was just saying before, but guys, we will see you on the next episode. As always, take care everybody.