Land Investing & Credit Hacks for Real Estate Success | Ricardo Giles Interview

Ricardo Giles (00:00)
have a good credit score. Just if you don’t got no money, have a good credit score. That’s, it just costs a lot in this space. I’m not going to sit here and sugarcoat nothing. Either you got a lot of money or you got access to somebody with a lot of money. Them going to be your only two choices in this space. Or unfortunately, you’re going to drown. So you can start by at least,

getting a high credit score. And if you got things that’s on your credit, it’s fine. And it’s going to take some time to get it off. Just do the work to get it clear because I promise you that’s going to be the cornerstone that you use to take you to that level. If you don’t have a lot of money, but you got a regular W-2 job and you’re making 50, 60 grand and you got a 750 credit score, you can easily go get a $25,000 credit card or

$50,000 line of credit using your W-2 income to get you started in this game. So if you don’t got nobody that can get the money, you’re going to have to figure out a way to get it yourself and getting your credit right, having some type of verifiable income, that right there will get you in the door to really get to the point where you can possibly close your first deal.

Quentin (01:09)
love it, No, that’s good advice. And I love it. Thank you for sharing, man. think people needed to hear that, Listen.

Welcome to the Real Estate Pros podcast. I’m your host, Q Edmonds. And y’all probably can say it with me by now, I’m excited, right? I’m excited to be here, man. Excited to be alive, but I’m always excited to bring y’all out, the guests that we have. mean, you’ve seen that people have come through with their unique lens, their perspective, their experience. And today ain’t gonna be no different, right? I have somebody here who is diligent at what he does. He’s a man of his word.

He’s very consistent. I’m so excited for y’all to get a chance to peek into, know, see things through his lens, peek into his world. I’m excited for him to bring us into his world, him to tell us about what he does. So listen, I want y’all just to introduce you y’all, you know, Mr. Ricardo Giles. How you doing, sir?

Ricardo Giles (03:34)
Hey, how you doing, evade? How you doing, man? Excited to be here today to talk about all the pros and the cons, you know?

Quentin (03:42)
Yes, sir. Yes, sir. Absolutely. Well, man, I’m excited for you to join us. Like, again, man, I love when we get a chance to have our listeners peek through a different lens, right? And I’ve been talking to you, And so I’m just, I’m excited, man, for you to tell people what you do. So if you don’t mind, man, you know, kind of bring us into your world. Give us a short version or a version, don’t have to be short, but just a version of what your main focus is these days.

Ricardo Giles (03:51)
Mm-hmm, mm-hmm. Correct, correct.

Okay.

Quentin (04:08)
And then also tell us what market you’re operating in.

Ricardo Giles (04:11)
Okay. My name is Ricardo Giles, better known as Revenue Rick. I operate out here in Charleston, South Carolina. And, you know, my main thing that I do is land and mobile home packages. It’s a little bit different from what people typically do, but my focus is mainly that and, ⁓ purchased in large tracts of land and understanding the zoning and the residential density and subdividing it to make more opportunities.

each particular parcel. I operate particularly in my home market, which is Charleston, South Carolina, and another market outside of here, probably like an hour or two away, Columbia, South Carolina. So those are my two main markets where I operate in. I’m focused primarily on land, not houses.

Quentin (05:42)
Yeah. Now, man, I know, you know, in this market, sometimes, you know, the climate is not always easy, right? Like, you know, sometimes, you know, we got to, you know, force ourselves to be disciplined, to stay consistent. So let me ask you, what’s been the key to keeping your machine running smoothly, man?

Ricardo Giles (05:49)
Mm-hmm.

The key to keeping the machine running smoothly is constantly looking for deals, constantly searching, constantly keeping your ears to the street, constantly at all the events, just understanding your market at all times and know what’s going on and what everybody else is doing. So that’s been helping me to stay ahead of the game and also, you know, make sure every deal dealing with land flow through my pipeline. If it ain’t come through me.

It probably ain’t a good deal.

Quentin (06:25)
I love

it, man. love it. Now, man, talking to you for a little bit, you sound like a man, it ain’t going to be deterred, right? Interest rates ain’t going to stop you because you’ve seen a way to keep pushing forward with that. Certain entities ain’t going to stop you. We going to pop it through that, right?

Ricardo Giles (06:31)
Correct.

No, no, no, no. We got to

focus on what we can control and what we can change. All that other stuff, you you beating a dead dog sitting there worrying about all the naysayers. You gonna get this money or you not? Because everybody else doing it. So the choice is yours, you know? The choice is yours.

Quentin (06:59)
There you go. There you go,

man. And I love it, man. I love that perspective that you bring. And I love that. think our listeners, you know, we got different listeners, you know, that are different journeys, right? And I know sometimes whatever journey you are, eventually you probably gonna hit a snag in the road, right? And so to know that you can persevere and push through is one of the biggest things to success. And so if you’re on my mind, I know every operator has a moment when things get real.

Ricardo Giles (07:16)
Correct,

Quentin (07:25)
maybe like a deal go sideways or maybe the time that they had to pivot fast. And so, Mr. Ricardo, you mind sharing a story like that, a time where maybe you had to pivot or you had to kind of work around something?

Ricardo Giles (07:37)
⁓ man, I got a hundred of them, man. I can’t tell y’all all, but let me just, ⁓ when I first just starting in, in this understanding, coming down the real estate journey and trying to pick the particular niche that you want to be involved with. Because I talked to a lot of people in there like, Hey, I want to get in real estate. I want to do this. I want to do that. They don’t understand in real estate. There’s like 1000 things you can do. You can develop land. You can clear land. You can build houses. You can be a electrician. You can be a.

an AC tech guy, there’s like a thousand things. So trying to niche down and to understand what you want to do in this business been the toughest thing for me. When I first started, I started with, I was flipping houses, I was flipping mobile homes. I was trying to develop new mobile homes and I finally got to a spot to realize, hey, I was making majority of the money from dealing with mobile homes. And I also noticed that everybody was still frowning upon mobile homes at the time.

And they didn’t realize that, you know, it’s different from back in the day that it’s the same as, you know, having any other house. So that’s how I ended up really picking my niche. And I went through a lot of things dealing with the houses, know, flipping the houses, bad contractors, taking the money, not understanding holding costs, you know, just a nuance of things that I learned in the beginning that caused a lot of hiccups before I finally get.

to understanding this game to where I’m at right now today.

Quentin (09:34)
Absolutely, And I appreciate you saying that because that’s one of the things that we’ve kind of are doing kind of differently here with the podcast. know, we were very heavy investor leaning. But now, you know, we have people that’s coming at real estate from all different angles, like you said. And so that’s a good thing for people to know is that you can approach real estate from so many different angles, being a service provider, shots, a designer, photographer, agriculture, like.

There is different ways for you to get into this real estate game. And like you said, niche down, find a way for you to do what you do to the best of your ability. And so, man, I appreciate you saying that. That’s a good word for it’s a wisdom. And I love that because that’s kind of what separates people from dabbling to people that’s in the game long-term when you find out what your niche is. How can you serve the market? And so I love that you said that, I love that. So let me ask you this,

what are you next focused on solving or scaling next? Hey Ricardo, what’s your next real goal, man?

Ricardo Giles (10:30)
In real estate, right? Yeah.

Quentin (10:32)
Yes, sir.

What’s up, semi real estate in life, I’ll take them both. I’ll take them both, bro.

Ricardo Giles (10:36)
Well,

in a real estate, I want to I love the real estate and I’m going to continue doing it because I already understand it. But one of the big things I want to do is I want to get more of a service business that’s kind of maybe a branded service business that I can tie into the real estate business as well. So I can.

You know, I mean, have some better cash flow because if you don’t understand real estate, you know, sometimes you don’t get paid three to six months. So even if it’s a plumbing company, a AC company, roofing company, something where I can get paid 24, not 24 seven, but you know, at least once every week or once every two weeks. And I can build a brand and maybe skyrocket that a little bit higher because what I do now is kind of hard to actually build a company behind it.

because I’m more like a developer slash investor and the capital cost is just so high in order to scale this to the next level to really, really make a lot of money.

Quentin (11:33)
No, I love that man. And of course, you know, the next move, it could either compound things or create total chaos depending on how you play it. And so I definitely hear you, man. And I love that approach. And so I’m going ask you this. know, like we know, like I said, we’ve got people, they’re listening to either early in their journey or they’re looking to level up. And I think that benefit here in this would be like when it comes to building relationships and growing your network.

What’s made the biggest difference for you,

Ricardo Giles (12:03)
That’s going to be key in this thing altogether, the growing the relationships and building the network when you’re in this business. There’s a step one and a step two that I think is big inside this real estate game. And that’s pretty much step two, because you’re going to have to build a strong network and some strong relationships because you’re going to have to figure out a way to get access to capital if you want to scale and keep moving in this game.

So, like I say, being in the right rooms and being at the real estate events, commenting in the different local real estate groups, just showing your face and talking to some of everybody because eventually you’re gonna need them if they’re a key player in that space.

Quentin (12:45)
Absolutely, man. You can’t fake that relationships are everything in this space. And so I love how you tell me, hey, get active, get active in the groups, go, go where the deals are, go where people, where the people are talking, where the people are trying to make the deals. So I definitely hear you. Listen, man, I love your perspective. love your lens. And I like to open the floor up to you, man. I know I come with these questions, but is there anything kind of on your heart, man, that

Maybe you can inspire people with or encourage people with or like anything from your perspective. I like to open the floor up to you to see if there’s anything you feel like you want to, you know, the listeners may or the viewers may need to hear, man, from your perspective.

Ricardo Giles (13:19)
Okay.

I mean, I’m going, first things first, if you want to be in this space,

have a good credit score. Just if you don’t got no money, have a good credit score. That’s, it just costs a lot in this space. I’m not going to sit here and sugarcoat nothing. Either you got a lot of money or you got access to somebody with a lot of money. Them going to be your only two choices in this space. Or unfortunately, you’re going to drown. So you can start by at least,

getting a high credit score. And if you got things that’s on your credit, it’s fine. And it’s going to take some time to get it off. Just do the work to get it clear because I promise you that’s going to be the cornerstone that you use to take you to that level. If you don’t have a lot of money, but you got a regular W-2 job and you’re making 50, 60 grand and you got a 750 credit score, you can easily go get a $25,000 credit card or

$50,000 line of credit using your W-2 income to get you started in this game. So if you don’t got nobody that can get the money, you’re going to have to figure out a way to get it yourself and getting your credit right, having some type of verifiable income, that right there will get you in the door to really get to the point where you can possibly close your first deal.

Quentin (15:19)
love it, No, that’s good advice. And I love it. Thank you for sharing, man. think people needed to hear that, Listen.

Ricardo Giles (15:26)
Yeah,

just a three credit, you know, three number, three number, three digit number of three bureaus. You get it right. You know, I lived off of it and I’m thankful for me understanding credit at such a young age. And, you know, I’m teaching my son now and just letting them know, you know, that’s the key, you know, because it’s just going to be the key, you know, to see the bank.

pull a score and approve me for a hundred thousand dollar unsecured line of credit is virtually unbelievable to me. you know, getting the money and knowing what to do with the money is two different things. But at least, you know, you got to start. You got to start with something, you know, because you’re going to need cash. You’re going to need something. Even if you get a property and you want to do hard money on it, they they still don’t tell you. You still got debt service on that deal. You know, you still might have to put 20 percent down on that deal.

And you also got monthly payments. So you’re still going to need some type of money to bridge the gap while you’re either flipping that money, flipping that deal, or you’re trying to find a seller. I mean, a buyer once you, you know, got the deal locked up. So it just takes some type of money. And the fastest way to get it is using your credit score. And it’s all up to the races then.

Quentin (16:37)
Absolutely. That’s Ricardo dropping gems, man. I appreciate you, brother. I told you, I knew I was going to love him from your perspective. And I know this is going to be valuable for our viewers. So thank you, man. I appreciate you. So listen, man, listen. Absolutely. So listen, man, before we wrap, if someone wanted to reach out to you, connect with you, maybe collaborate with you, learn more about what you’re doing, what’s the best way for them to reach out to you,

Ricardo Giles (16:49)
Appreciate it, appreciate it.

The best is IG, I think it’s, I’m getting kind of old now, I’m forgetting stuff. Revenue underscore rick.com, or you can hit me up at www.revenuerick.com. You can also email me if you want to reach out to me, ricardo at S-E-L-L-T-O-P-A-L-M-C-O-A-S-T.com. Ricardo at selltopalmacoast.com.

can look at me on Facebook as well. I drop a lot of gems as well. Ricardo Giles. whatever I can do to help you, any questions you got, you can hit me on the DM and I’m glad to answer.

Quentin (17:35)
Absolutely. Well, there he is, man. Mr. Ricardo, I thank you, sir. I thank you for your time. I thank you for your perspective. I thank you for your story. Listen, we need more people in this space that’s doing it the right way, man. So I appreciate you. Man, I thank you for the color wave, too, man. We look good side by side. I appreciate the color wave, man. Absolutely. Absolutely. So listen, for those that are tuning in,

Ricardo Giles (17:48)
No problem.

That’s all I have to say, appreciate you man.

Quentin (18:02)
You know what I like to say, and I like to say it slowly, make sure you are subscribed. You do not want to miss out on these amazing conversations that we are having. So everyone is tuning in. We’ll see you next time. And again, Ms. Ricardo, I appreciate you, sir. You have a great one, all right, All right, bud. Absolutely.

Ricardo Giles (18:15)
Thank you. Appreciate it.