5 Key Lessons from a Handyman Turned Real Estate Entrepreneur

Dylan Silver (00:00.908)
Hey folks, welcome back to the show. I’m your host, Dylan Silver. Today on the show, I have Mike Balezine out of Trenton, New Jersey. Mike began as a handyman for a property manager and then realized that there is a lot more to it. He’s also licensed agent. Mike, welcome to the show.

Mike (00:25.42)
Glad to be here.

Dylan Silver (00:28.022)
I always like to start off at the top by asking folks how they got into the real estate space.

Mike (00:35.31)
I was working my nine to five and I needed some extra cash on the side. So I decided to start doing some handyman work. And my wife at that time was, she was helping out a property manager with some day-to-day tasks.

came across a couple of houses that needed to be done and her normal handyman couldn’t handle so I stepped in and I just took some evening some little evening jobs that I can do paint here fix there and little by little I got into it and that’s

Dylan Silver (01:13.496)
At what point in time did you realize that this would be an opportunity for you to operate as a property manager and potentially a real estate investor?

Mike (01:27.278)
I saw that there was money to be made. I saw what my clients were doing. I saw how unit turns were working. I saw how much rent was coming in and I began listening to audio books. went on to bigger pockets to see what else is out there. And I thought I could do this. And a lot of my clients asked me to pick up rent here and there. And I started.

you i decided to do it legally i went and got my real estate license and at the same time i saw how much money there was to be made being an agent and all of the pieces kinda came together

Dylan Silver (02:07.904)
And so I think a lot of people can resonate with the idea of looking at something from the outside, looking in and wanting to get in. You really dove in head first. Was there any level of hesitation when you were doing this or was it like, hey, let me just start and see what happens.

Mike (02:29.678)
I figured it was the best time to start. I didn’t have kids back then. We just got married. I figured, you know, I can work this nine to five job forever, but I needed something else. And I had this little transition period where I did both at the same time, but then, you know, this free enterprise kind of took over.

Dylan Silver (02:47.448)
Mm-hmm.

Dylan Silver (02:55.074)
So let’s talk about that first deal on your own and let’s talk about the steps leading up to it time period. What was the relationships that you had to make the deal itself. What was your first deal like as an investor.

Mike (03:08.942)
The first deal was with my father-in-law. He had the capital and at that time I already gained some knowledge. I already had my real estate license and our first deal was a flip. And then there was the second… The first flip we did within two to three months. It was very quick and it was a very successful flip. So that kind of showed us that, you know, we can do this.

Dylan Silver (03:34.456)
Hmm.

Dylan Silver (03:38.56)
And so do you come from a family of carpenters? How did you learn to do this?

Mike (03:44.622)
Um, when I, when I came to America at the age of 14, I, we couldn’t afford to go to college. So right out of high school, I went to work construction because that was the easiest thing to get into. And little by little, I learned a couple of trades here and there, but I had a, I had a period where I didn’t work construction, but that’s how I got into being a handyman. I knew, I knew all of these little tricks that I could apply.

Dylan Silver (04:12.802)
Huge, huge. You don’t have to go find a contractor if you’re your own contractor. So you have the flip with your father-in-law, it’s successful. Which area of New Jersey was that? And I know you’re based out of Trenton. Which area of New Jersey was

Mike (04:24.716)
Yeah, that’s also in Mercer County that was Ewing, New Jersey.

Dylan Silver (04:30.474)
I’m from New Jersey originally, so I’ve heard a lot about the East Coast and I’m in Texas now, maybe a little bit more difficult to do fix and flips based on just the price point and the market out there. at that point in time when you were looking for deals, you mentioned the first deal and then a second deal. Was there a specific buy box or area that you were targeting?

Mike (04:56.366)
Back then it was just whatever was on the market. It was MLS. It was pre-COVID. There were some decent prices back then. We were able to pick up our first deal for 90 grand and put in 60 in it and sell it for 249. And that was a new one. We did value add. We added the bathroom. We added that we removed some walls to make it open space concept.

Dylan Silver (05:15.959)
Wow.

Mike (05:25.59)
but that’s what sold the property.

Dylan Silver (05:28.534)
So let’s go through those numbers again. How much did you acquire that property for?

Mike (05:32.447)
We got it, I believe, for $95,000.

Dylan Silver (05:35.328)
and then you put in how much into it?

Mike (05:38.102)
around 60.

Dylan Silver (05:39.692)
and you sold it for…

Mike (05:41.742)
249.

Dylan Silver (05:43.04)
Wow. Now of course since then the real estate market in that area has increased that you might not be able to acquire a deal for that same amount. But generally speaking those are good numbers even out here. So I think a lot of listeners may be surprised to hear that you can find deals like that out there in New Jersey.

Mike (06:02.478)
Oh, that was some time ago. I checked today that that particular house is valued at 350 today.

Dylan Silver (06:10.006)
Yeah, it’s a different time. So second deal, was it with your father-in-law as well as a partner?

Mike (06:17.228)
Yes, yes, we learned how to use private capital. We learned how, we started from scratch. I didn’t even know what hard money was back then. We learned as we went. So we got into that. We found some lenders. I had some experience with doing complete renovations for other people who would flip houses. So I was able to put that on my experience list for the lenders to see.

Dylan Silver (06:28.024)
Yeah.

Dylan Silver (06:46.752)
Wow, okay, so at this point you’re a contractor for other people, you’ve done your own two deals, so now when you’re going to get these hard money loans, you’re really flying through with colors, because they’re saying, okay, you’ve got all this experience and you’ve done two deals on your own.

Mike (07:03.01)
Yeah, yeah, and that’s that that was that’s pretty common.

Dylan Silver (07:08.886)
Yeah, pre-COVID was a different time. So then COVID hits, what happens?

Mike (07:13.122)
Well, COVID hit, we sold our second deal during COVID. We were afraid that the prices would go down. Nobody knew what was gonna happen. But surprisingly, it sold well too. It brought back about the same numbers as the first one. But then we had a little pause because the market got weird. There were mortgage forbearances and things like that. So there were no short sales, there were no foreclosures.

Dylan Silver (07:40.877)
Yeah.

Mike (07:41.902)
It was hard to find deals. So that’s when I focused on property management.

Dylan Silver (07:49.332)
Okay, so you at that point in time moved to the property management side of things. While you were doing those two flips, were you also very active as a real estate agent yourself personally?

Mike (08:03.468)
Yes, yes, I was active. still had clients. I still had clients from my handyman days and they needed their properties looked after. So I was slowly getting into property management while I was doing the flips. So the rent collections, dealing with tenants, I was learning all of that as I was doing the flips.

Dylan Silver (08:12.171)
Mm-hmm.

Dylan Silver (08:21.184)
Okay.

Dylan Silver (08:27.702)
Very interesting. think a lot of people who are realtors and people who are not realtors and thinking about real estate as a profession often think, well, listing homes and opening doors is really all that I’m to be doing. I don’t know if that’s for me, but there’s of course so many different avenues. You talk about property management and specifically for your business, especially at that time with the two flips and then you had contracting work for other people and property management.

It was really all going hand in hand. was like one big real estate education.

Mike (09:02.093)
yeah, yeah, was all, you know, pieces of one, little pieces of one big puzzle.

Dylan Silver (09:09.654)
When I think about the typical journey of a real estate entrepreneur I tend to think and this is coming from my vantage point as a wholesaler and a realtor in Dallas I tend to think you’re on the outside looking in your networking trying to figure out how to get in. You might do a couple deals in the wholesale space. You might partner up with somebody like you were able to do do a flip short term rental midterm long term. Then you might go into hard money. So catch us up to speed.

Once COVID hits, now we’re outside of COVID. Did the business change? Did you stay with the property management?

Mike (09:47.682)
Yes. So that’s, I, I stepped away from contractor business a little bit. I’m still doing it. I still have a team, but I’m not picking up as many jobs as I used to. I’m concentrated. I’m using my team on unit turns now as I’m doing more property management. You know, people move in, people move out there. There’s plenty of that. So.

I turned my contractor business into maintenance and it’s been working out. At the same time, I will do a flip here and there if the right deal comes along. But right now, yeah, I’m focusing on property management and acquiring more long-term rentals for myself. And, you know, I have a couple of partners too.

Dylan Silver (10:31.128)
How many doors is your business at? And is it out there in New Jersey or is it across state lines as well?

Mike (10:37.39)
Right now it’s all in Mercer County, all in New Jersey. I have a little over 80 doors, a couple of commercial properties, a couple of seven to eight unit buildings, but totaling around a little over 80 doors.

Dylan Silver (10:40.12)
Okay.

Dylan Silver (10:55.148)
So let’s talk about scaling a business in the property management space. For someone who may not otherwise have thought of this as an option, it does sound like a pretty great gig, right? So you’re able to participate in real estate. You’re also an investor in real estate, but not every property manager necessarily has to be right. You can manage other people’s property partake in.

the real estate game without without owning the property and then build up a nest egg that way. What would your advice might be to folks who are starting out maybe they are getting a real estate license or thinking about it and they want to maybe explore property management as an option.

Mike (11:38.702)
I would say you have to own a couple of properties on your own to understand what it’s like being an investor because your primary client is an investor who wants best for their property. But at the same time, you have to understand the tenants point of view because the property manager is always in the middle between the tenant and the investor. And if you have your own rentals, you’ll know

Dylan Silver (11:46.379)
Okay.

Mike (12:08.91)
kind of what it feels like.

Dylan Silver (12:12.097)
Sure.

Mike (12:12.684)
that will help you provide better service.

Dylan Silver (12:16.191)
Are all of these that you manage, they all year long leases? Are any of them shorter term rentals or corporate housing?

Mike (12:24.878)
No, they’re all long term. Long term leases, no short term, no corporate. We do a lot of programs. We do Catholic charities, work with them a little bit. A couple of Section 8 tenants, but all of them, yes, year long leases.

Dylan Silver (12:45.076)
And so in scaling your business, what has been your approach to finding additional clients? I’m trying to think how people would find property managers. And I don’t often see, although I’m sure they exist, lots of advertisements for property managers. And there probably is a lot of people who have lots and lots of doors. So as someone starting out like yourself, was it very organic, the growth? And how did you find new clients?

Mike (13:13.578)
All of my clients came from the word of mouth. Somebody knew somebody. I don’t have a single client that came from the outside so far. So my main focus in grow is growing their portfolios as opposed to me going out looking for new clients. I will take on new clients, but I’m not advertising as much.

As a property management business, I’m trying to get more properties for my existing clients, which brings me more business.

Dylan Silver (13:46.732)
let’s talk a little bit about the relationship between a property manager and the investor who you work with who owns these properties are you at all or do any property managers ever provided feedback

in maybe a joint venture capacity to some of these investors as a way where maybe they could do certain things to improve their property or even if there’s other opportunities that you see to potentially expand their portfolio, you bring these opportunities to them. Is that something that happens in this space?

Mike (14:20.45)
Well, in my case, I was able to partner up with one of my clients and it’s been working out great so far. We’ve done a couple of flips together with, we’re actually looking into building now. It’s a completely new business venture for us, but we are aggressively looking into that, acquiring land and building.

Dylan Silver (14:42.476)
Sure, new builds I think are huge. New builds right now, especially with, can speak for DFW, it’s the margins are slimmer in Dallas on fix and flip deals, right? And I think maybe everywhere. And new builds seem to have at least a better outlook in many cases.

Let’s pivot a bit here, Mike, and let’s talk about being able to adapt as a real estate entrepreneur. I’ve seen this many, many times, and it’s actually shocking to me now that I’ve done so many of these podcasts. The biggest commonality that I’ve seen between real estate entrepreneurs is they are great at meeting new people and building new relationships. They have a knack for problem solving and very difficult

sometimes even frightening problems they’re able to work through and then they also have this ability to adapt right so you went from handyman to fix and flipper to then property manager and really expanded that What has been your your approach to to? adapting and then to to moving with the ebbs and flows of markets

Mike (16:00.876)
I would say open-mindedness. I’m not afraid to try new things, new approaches. Especially if it feels like you’re getting stuck, then you should try other ways to do it. For example, when the flips slow down a little bit, when COVID hit, we didn’t know what to do, where to get deals. So I focused on the existing properties. I focused on what…

I was managing and together with my investor clients, we did value adds on their existing properties. We renovated the kitchen here and there. We renovated the bathroom here and there, which drove the rents up a little bit. And then during COVID surprisingly, there were good rates. So as we did value adds on the existing rentals, we could refinance.

Dylan Silver (16:46.444)
Yeah, that’s huge.

Mike (16:58.336)
and my investor clients were able to refinance and get some capital ready for new deals.

Dylan Silver (17:05.322)
So while you’re going through these changes in your business and you’re mentioning a strategy where you did value adds to existing properties, are you kind of consciously looking for new ways to adapt your business? And is this like an act of brainstorming that you’re doing? Or is this more like an organic, almost stumbling upon these different ways to add value to other people?

Mike (17:32.686)
I always talk to my clients and all of them, know, it’s that they have different opinions, different ideas, different approaches to situations. So I get a little bit of information from everywhere and I’m able to put it together and share the same information with my other clients and maybe get them to do something different. And it all kinds of kind of works out together.

So we have this big brainstorming situation.

Dylan Silver (18:08.726)
I’m really curious to see what the future of property management is like because right now of course we have AI which is popping off like crazy and I think a lot of people who previously maybe had, let’s say if you have certainly hundreds and hundreds of doors at a large apartment complex, how are you managing all of these?

maintenance requests and in and out of tenants and vacancies, damage, so on and so forth, right? So with AI being able to automate a lot of these processes, I’m wondering if we’re gonna see…

some impact on the cost of rents, because maybe this may reduce in some cases the amount of overhead that people will have. But also, are we going to see new ways where people who may be living at some of these larger apartment complexes will be able to have some of their needs addressed in a very, very timely manner and almost instantaneous, right? If I submit a maintenance request at a certain period in time and it immediately gets communicated to

and then I’m able to follow up with them and rather than kind of me be upset with like the front desk or whoever I’m talking with, hey this thing isn’t working, I’m talking with you know an AI. I think this is may sound like very far in the future but I think we’re only a handful of months away from something like this.

Mike (19:36.174)
Well, AI has already become irreplaceable in the world of property management, but one of the first things it replaced is paralegals. Now you don’t have to pay attorneys to draft notices, letters, and things like that. It does it pretty well. But when it comes to maintenance requests, yes, it will help address maintenance requests in a timely manner, but you still need human touch there.

Dylan Silver (19:54.413)
Yeah.

Mike (20:05.87)
Not all tenants are tech savvy. There are older tenants that still don’t use text messaging. They’d rather make a call and have a person schedule an appointment or explain the situation. You have to hear them out because when you’re a property manager, your client is not only the investor, it’s also the tenant. have to make them happy as well.

Dylan Silver (20:11.351)
Yep.

Mike (20:31.182)
So you still need a little bit of a human touch there. There still has to be a person behind that screen. Most of the tasks will be replaced, but you use the, and every situation is unique. For example, you have to charge a tenant for something or something is a wear and tear. I don’t think AI is there yet, know, differentiating between those.

Dylan Silver (20:38.057)
Absolutely.

Dylan Silver (20:56.312)
That’s a good point. I think if you would have told me two years ago where I would be today I would not have absolutely believed you. It’s just incredible. It’s incredible So who honestly I have no idea what it’ll look like in two years, but I think the voice The voice which is not there yet. You can’t get on a phone and it sounds super realistic There’s a lot of lag who knows where that’ll be but Mike we are coming up on time here. Where can folks go to get a hold of you?

Mike (21:03.968)
it’s also true.

Mike (21:24.462)
Well, I have a website lionpawmanagement.com or my email lion.paw.mgt at gmail.com. That would be the best way to get in touch with me. I am local in Trenton, New Jersey, working in Mercer County, property management, flips or real estate transactions.

Dylan Silver (21:45.432)
Once again for our listeners that’s lionlion.paw.mgt at gmail.com. Mike, thank you for coming on the show here today.

Mike (21:58.914)
Thank you, Dylan.