How Michael Fernandes Uses Tokenization to Raise Capital & Create Liquidity

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In this episode of the Real Estate Pros Podcast, Michelle Kesil interviews Michael Fernandes about the growing role of real estate tokenization in modern investing. Michael explains how tokenization platforms allow investors to purchase fractional ownership of real estate using blockchain technology, providing greater accessibility, liquidity, and transparency. He also shares insights into his broader real estate strategy, including multifamily investments, co-living models, and international development projects.

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Investor Fuel Show Transcript:

Michael (00:00)
Like real estate, if you, if you think about it, when you get involved in a real estate deal, you have to be in it until you either get cashed out, which most people will refinance and get cashed out or until the project sells. Right? So with, with tokenization, you don’t have to stay in it that long. You could buy your tokens tomorrow or buy your ownership tomorrow.

Michelle Kesil (01:35)
Hey everybody, welcome to the Real Estate Pros podcast. I’m your host, Michelle Kesil. Today I’m joined by someone I’m looking forward to chatting with, Michael Fernandes, who is a real estate investor and owns a real estate tokenization platform. So excited to have you here today, Michael.

Michael (01:55)
Thank you for having me.

I think this is a second time that we spoke. I think it’s the second time we spoke, right? Or is this the first?

Michelle Kesil (02:00)
Awesome, yeah.

Yeah,

you’ve been

this show before, I believe in November.

Michael (02:08)
Yeah.

Yeah. Okay, got it. I was making sure it wasn’t crazy.

Michelle Kesil (02:16)
Yeah, awesome. So glad to have you back here. For those that are not familiar with you and your work yet, can you share what your main focus is now?

Michael (02:28)
yeah. So our main focus in the real estate space, cause we’re, have multiple, different businesses that we own or we’re by, but in the real estate space, we’re focusing on our platform. Our, ⁓ our real estate tokenization platform, which is a lending platform, ⁓ that allows us to raise capital either for projects that we’re doing or.

projects for other investors that come to us that are looking for dollars. So that’s been our main focus since we launched back in November actually.

Michelle Kesil (03:17)
Awesome. And can you expand on what that platform looks like and what it’s for?

Michael (03:22)
Yeah, yeah. So the tokenization, it’s fairly new. I it’s been around for about five years now, but in essence, it takes ⁓ real estate and breaks it up into fractional ⁓ pieces. And those fractional pieces are owned by a multitude of investors.

You can own, you can buy one share for anywhere between a hundred to a thousand dollars, depending on the project, or you can own a thousand shares. When you acquire those shares and you own that and you own a portion of that project, your ownership is represented in what they call a stable coin. People ⁓ associated with crypto, but

Little different than crypto because it’s backed by the actual actual assets backed by the real estate the brick. So it actually the coin actually has value unlike Bitcoin, which is really just market driven value and demand. ⁓ These coins are are.

actually backed by something tangible, right?

Michael (04:45)
Like real estate, if you, if you think about it, when you get involved in a real estate deal, you have to be in it until you either get cashed out, which most people will refinance and get cashed out or until the project sells. Right? So

with, with tokenization, you don’t have to stay in it that long. You could buy your tokens tomorrow or buy your ownership tomorrow.

And then in.

six months decide you want to sell and you can liquidate your tokens on the open market just like you would with a stock or ⁓ Bitcoin or any security like that you ⁓ can get in and out fairly quickly so it provides real ⁓ liquidity for investors you’re not stuck in a deal anymore.

⁓ Which is good because you can take that capital and do other things with it rather than just being stuck in a deal for five, six, seven years. So it gives a lot of flexibility and then it also provides a lot of security because all the transactions, so when you buy ⁓ the tokens or ownership into the project or invest it to the project.

Everything is recorded on the blockchain. Right. So you can go and look up and see who bought X amount of ⁓ ownership when they did it, how much they paid for it. So it’s very hard to, to steal or do anything nefarious with, ⁓ with it, because if you don’t, if you can’t prove that you did that,

transaction on the blockchain, well then you don’t own it. ⁓ Where now somebody can go and you know, sign a deed over or forge a deed and you can end up with somebody’s property. So it’s very different. It provides a lot of security as well. all around it’s really, it’s really changing the face of real estate for those reasons mainly, but there’s other reasons as well.

⁓ And then you see a lot of the bigger groups that are also getting involved and you see BlackRock, Templeton I mean Grant Cardone just just launched a tokenization platform. So it’s ⁓ It’s ⁓ it’s growing it’s still new we’re still educating people but it ⁓ It’s definitely growing into into something that’s going to be huge. It’s not going anywhere. Let’s put it that way. It’s only expanding

Michelle Kesil (08:24)
Yeah, absolutely. And if someone maybe is more old school and doesn’t have any background in this type of technology, how would they be able to get involved? Or what would they need to kind of like learn or any barriers that they need to overcome?

Michael (08:48)
Yeah, so we put out a lot of content as far as ⁓ education wise ⁓ online, on our our on our platform. If you go to the investors pool dot com, there is a ton of ⁓ information that that we have out. We actually put together an e-book as well that takes

a person that has interest and has zero knowledge of it and takes them through everything step by step and really explains ⁓ what tokenization is, how it works, how the platform works, ⁓ how the investments work, so on and so forth. ⁓ And then ⁓ once there’s a comfortability, typically we’ll set up a

⁓ a call with new investors, answer any questions that they may have. ⁓

you know, give them a complete understanding of what they’re getting involved with and what they’re about to invest into.

Pluses and minuses, right, because everything has pros and cons. We lay everything out for them. And then from there, they can make a decision whether the investment is for them or not. A lot of folks, you know,

usually pull the trigger because ⁓ they’ll start out with a smaller investment because like I said you can get in for on some of these deals you can get in for like 150 bucks right so ⁓ it it’s not a huge investment you can test it out and see how it works and see how the returns work see how the rental income works because you get

With tokenization you get all the same benefits as legacy real estate, right? You get the tax benefits, you get the appreciation, you get the depreciation, you get the rental income. So

Michael (11:43)
⁓ on the FAQ page or the ⁓

the education page on the platform, they’ll be able to get all the pretty much the main questions that they would have. They can get them all answered right then and there.

Michelle Kesil (12:08)
Awesome. And so what are you most

on besides this platform when it comes to real estate investing?

Michael (12:19)
our other main focus right now is acquiring, ⁓ additional, ⁓ properties, multifamily type stuff, ⁓ outside of New York. We have, ⁓ a couple of projects we’re working on with other people inside of New York. It’s their projects, but, ⁓ us personally, we’re not, we’re not buying in New York right now.

political climate is too crazy and the…

upcoming legislation with some of the things we want to do to ⁓ property owners and landlords is way too crazy. So we’re kind of staying outside of ⁓ New York City, but actually New York State as a whole. But we are buying multifamily ⁓ and ⁓ mobile home parks throughout the country, Texas, Ohio, Florida.

places like that that we’re targeting. ⁓ we’re typically looking for 24 units and above. ⁓ We have some of our partners that are also looking for stuff ⁓ in other markets. So we’re trying to fill our need as well as help them with theirs. But the main focus that

for us and them has been on multi-family right now. We’re actually doing a ⁓ lot of co-living ⁓ with our apartment units and with our single family. So a big focus has been on that with… ⁓

with pertaining to tenants and the rental units. So that’s pretty much where we are on the buy and hold side and on the rental side. ⁓ we are also doing a little bit of development, not a ton right now, but a little bit. ⁓ Two of my partners have one of the largest

⁓ construction companies in New York and probably on the East Coast right now. So

we’re doing a little development with them and then we’re also working on some ⁓ stuff overseas, believe it or not. In Romania, we’re working on a project with Dracula’s Castle. So we’re looking to

to develop that into a resort ⁓ and starting off with the hotel and then there’s an airport project that we’re ⁓ doing. It’s about 20 minutes from where Dracula’s Castle is in Romania. So ⁓ we have those going on. And the last thing that we’re…

doing that’s outside of the tokenization is

Michael (16:35)
focusing on obviously US market and a couple things in Romania. But because the platform allows us to ⁓ accept dollars from around the world, it kind of opens up things that we can do, right? Which also

stretches across into into our regular real estate ⁓ stuff as well. So it’s it’s a benefit, but it’s pretty cool because, you know, we’re we’re we’re we’re doing some things that I never thought I would do. I think, you know, being involved in Dracula’s Castle was kind of a little far fetched for me. But, you know, once I kind of heard the story behind like the real story behind it. ⁓

It sounded like a pretty cool thing to do. you know, we’re doing that project and we’re working with the family that owns the actual castle. The one that everybody knows about in Bram Stoker’s story or whatever about Dracula’s castle. So we’re doing a development with that. So that’s pretty cool. But yeah, mean, overall,

You know, the real estate, that’s where the focus is. And then our other businesses, you know, that mix of real estate and business is keeping us more than busy, to say the least.

Michelle Kesil (18:19)
Yeah, absolutely amazing. And so as far as the tokenization platform, is that something that you’re ⁓ like marketing and kind of broadcasting out to investors to join?

Michael (18:37)
Yeah, we just did a ⁓ national ⁓ marketing campaign with the platform, with the Investor School, and ⁓ there’s an ongoing ⁓

I guess you could say campaign. It’s basically an educational campaign to, you know, ⁓ get people familiar with not just the platform, but tokenization as a whole. And ⁓ it’s an ongoing thing. So we’re constantly ⁓ bringing in different, ⁓ different and new investors to the platform, be it whether they’re accredited or non accredited.

We have institutional people involved as well. So we got a pretty good mix, but it’s an ongoing thing, right? It’s a living, breathing thing that’s always evolving every single day. And we’re constantly ⁓ meeting and ⁓ joining with new people that seem to help push the platform forward, right? ⁓

different fund managers to private equity guys to you name it. So it’s been it’s been pretty cool. It’s been pretty exciting. Always meeting ⁓ new people and people that you know, you never think that you would kind of rub elbows with so to speak, especially for me. I’m a ⁓ I wasn’t raised wealthy by any means we were we were pretty poor. So ⁓

to be.

with this level of society ⁓ is something I didn’t see myself ⁓ doing years ago, right? So it’s pretty cool when you look back and now you look forward to kind of see where things come full circle. So it’s been pretty exciting up until this point.

Michelle Kesil (20:48)
Yeah, that’s exciting and amazing. Michael. Thanks for sharing all of that. before we wrap up here, if someone wants to reach out, connect, learn more, where can people find you and connect with you?

Michael (20:54)
Uh-huh.

They could go to the platform theinvestorspool.com They can find me on Instagram @theinvestorspool ⁓ And then also Facebook and LinkedIn there they’re all the same thing theinvestorspool so Any one of those platforms I can be I can be contacted We’re pretty regularly on them. So the turnaround time is not

is not too long. but yeah, any one of those we can be, we can be reached.

Michelle Kesil (21:39)
Well, appreciate your time and your story. Thank you for being here.

Michael (21:44)
Thank you for having me, I appreciate it.

Michelle Kesil (21:48)
For the listeners tuning in, if you got value, make sure you’ve subscribed. We’ve got more conversations with operators like Michael who are building real businesses. We’ll see you on our next episode.