Austin Investor–Agent Chris Cabiya on Finding Real Value, Creative Finance, and Beating Fear

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In this episode of the Real Estate Pros podcast, Chris Cabiya shares his journey from a blue-collar background to becoming a successful realtor and investor in the Austin metro area. He discusses the entrepreneurial mindset required to navigate challenges, the current state of the Austin real estate market, and offers valuable advice for aspiring real estate professionals. Chris emphasizes the importance of adaptability, risk-taking, and the belief that success is achievable for anyone willing to put in the work.

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Chris Cabiya (00:00)
you know, and then you’re like, I don’t want to come across as desperate, you know, and like, I guess the advice would be just to relax and just do the work, do what you know you need to do. And if you’ve done that and you still find yourself, you know, worried about money or whatever it is, just know that you’ve done the work and it’s gonna eventually come and you just have to keep your head above water. You just have to tread water long enough. So you can get to that next point where you’re like, okay, now I’m good for like,

Kristen (00:24)
Yeah. ⁓

Chris Cabiya (00:29)
you know, I finally closed on a house. Now I’m good for another like two months.

Kristen (02:05)
Welcome back to the Real Estate Pros podcast. I’m Kristen and I’m here with Chris Cabiya, who is a realtor out of the Austin metro area. He’s also an investor and we’re going to get into a lot of great stuff today. Thanks for being here, Chris. So you have, you know, a very interesting background, how you got into this industry. Can you tell us, you know, how you, ended up in real estate?

Chris Cabiya (02:16)
Thanks for having me. I’m glad to be here.

Sure, yeah. I kind of come from the blue collar world. ⁓ Been somewhat of a serial entrepreneur ever since I was a little boy. First business I had was cutting grass and ended up buying a super cool bicycle at the end of the summer. And that kind of has followed me through the rest of my life.

Although I did have a period of about a decade where I went to trade school and got licensed as a journeyman electrician and

⁓ worked in the trades wiring large custom homes out on Lake Travis like you four or five six thousand and above the biggest one I did was believe it or not 30,000 square feet right on the water ⁓ but that was that was kind of my background and then I found I got introduced to jiu-jitsu around 2011 by my brother and It was not near as popular as it is today. Like I had never heard of that didn’t know what it was

and ⁓

that and fell in love with it. And I was already kind of like wanting to get away from the manual labor, from the construction stuff. And the jujitsu just kind of like just totally pushed me off the edge in that direction. So I started trying to figure out how I was going to get out of this, you know, this cycle I was in, you know, is making good money as an electrician. And I decided that I was going to start a company. was going to go back into business for myself again.

And so I started creating, started making natural soap and body care products. I had a company called Zen Soap and ended up opening, know, did farmers markets, had a website and ended up opening up a storefront ⁓ in a little town called Wimberley, a little gift shop. And then COVID came around and, know, freaked everybody out and nobody wanted to come in the store. And I didn’t shut the business down, but everybody was so scared. Nobody wanted to shop. So.

that thing ended up, you know, kind of like going under. And I transitioned to online and just tried doing it online and did that for a little while. Around that period of time, unfortunately, I had a, you know, I had a death in the family. ⁓ My grandmother passed away. May she rest in peace. And they, and my grandfather too, around the same time, may they both rest in peace. And they, ended up selling the house, family did.

And so I got a little bit of money from that and I figured the best way to honor them was to do something wise with it. And I’d always wanted to do real estate. And so I took this, you know, $10,000 that I had

I went and negotiated a seller finance deal on some raw land out in the Hill Country, which I still have today. built a, you know, I built a, then I built a structure out there, a little off grid cabin and.

That was like my introduction into real estate and after seeing how easy it was, you know, I didn’t have a realtor or anything. just found it and did it. And I was like, I’m definitely getting my real estate license after this because I want to invest in real estate and buy more real estate. And I knew realtors got big checks. So I was like, if I just, you know, go all in on this real estate thing, I’ll be like around all the right people. I’ll know where all the good deals are at.

Kristen (06:11)
Bye.

Chris Cabiya (06:31)
I’ll have access to everybody and everything that I need to be successful. I’ll be like an insider, so to speak. And that’s been my plan. That’s how I got into it. So I’m going into my third year this year, going into 2026 and just bought, we just closed on our second investment property, second property ⁓ last Friday. So the plan is working. You know, it takes time to get it going, but ⁓ it’s working.

Kristen (06:58)
Amazing. mean, that’s really cool. You definitely have the entrepreneurial spirit. ⁓ What is that mindset like? Like what’s the mindset that keeps you going even when things get tough?

Chris Cabiya (07:11)
Hard to say ⁓ what it is for other people. ⁓ I can say what it is for me and kind of what I’ve noticed, just my observations of other people that kind of have that same spirit or whatever that thing is that makes you want to go do that. Because it’s not for everybody, right? I know plenty of people that are totally

with having a 9 to 5 job and having the benefits and doing that whole thing.

And that’s, I mean, that’s honorable in itself as well. It’s just a different path. There’s nothing wrong with that. It’s not like one is better than the other. I mean, there’s something to be said for having that stability. ⁓ But I think it’s, I think it’s an individual that is a risk taker for one, because if you’re not okay with taking risk, you’re never going to have the courage to step out there and like even begin the process of starting a business. ⁓

So I would say that’s probably the biggest thing is not being held back by fear or by the fear of like, what’s gonna happen if this doesn’t work out? That’s never really like a thought in my mind with anything I’ve ever done that I’ve committed myself to. It’s never been like, what if it doesn’t work out? It’s like, the mentality is I’m gonna do this, I’m gonna figure it out along the way, and I’m just gonna make it work. So that’s kind of been it.

Kristen (08:31)
Yeah, yeah, and

you have the experience with your soap business where sometimes things don’t always work out and you are still standing on your feet. You were still able to pivot into another career. I think it’s

really good lesson for people that even if it doesn’t work out how you want, life isn’t over.

Chris Cabiya (08:51)
It rarely goes how you think it’s going to go. You know, you have this picture in your mind and it’s almost always never anything like that. ⁓ So yeah, you got to be like able to adapt and kind of like roll with the punches and you know, you just got to, you just got to adjust whenever things happen around you and things change around you. You got to change with them, you know, and look for, look for where the opportunities are because you know, like for example, in,

So use a real estate analogy, in a down market, most people get afraid and they’re like, I’m not gonna buy anything, it’s so expensive, I gotta wait for rates to go down, I gotta wait for prices to go down. Everybody’s freaked out. I see that as an opportunity to capitalize on the down market. And I think it’s just a different mentality altogether.

Kristen (09:42)
Absolutely. ⁓ And speaking of just like the general market, you’re in the Austin area, which had a big boom during COVID. I would love for you to kind of talk about it and see where you guys are at right now.

Chris Cabiya (09:54)
Yeah, so I’m from Austin originally, born and raised in Austin, which is kind of rare these days. Most people that you meet are like

from somewhere else. You they moved here, which is good because it’s ⁓ Austin used to be, you know, it was the quiet little sleepy capital of Texas. Believe it or not, artists and musicians would move here back in the 80s, even in the early 90s before it really saw its boom for cheap rent because they could do their art or chase their music career and afford to live in Austin.

and have cheap rent. It’s not like that anymore. The city’s completely changed. We had big tech move here and then during COVID, we had all the influx of people that came from a lot of the blue states, ⁓ mainly to Texas and Florida. Austin was a big city that a lot of people came to because Austin, it’s been a cool city for a long, long time and not many people knew about it for a long, long time. But the secret got out and everybody came here.

And as a result of that, you know, it brings a lot of positive things with it, like a lot of money that came to the city, businesses, jobs, all of that good stuff. But it also, you know, kind of changed. It changed the city. And there’s some negatives to it. it drove the price of real estate up really, really high, which, depending on which side of that you’re on, could be a good thing or a bad thing. If you own property in Austin for a long time and you sold after it boomed, you probably love it.

⁓ But for all the folks that are like trying to, ⁓ you know, get into a house here right now, just your common man, it was really, really expensive as a result of all that demand and the limited inventory in the city. And, you you fast forward to today and people couldn’t, they can’t really afford to buy anything or they don’t want to, they simply don’t want to spend that much money even if they can’t afford it.

Kristen (12:09)
Right.

Chris Cabiya (12:26)
You know, the price of real estate is super was super inflated. It’s coming down now slowly, but ⁓ it was super inflated. Rates were higher than they were, you know, just a few years before. think people kind of got spoiled by those two and three percent rates. And, you know, insurance, property taxes, all that combined just made it to where you really couldn’t even buy a property and cash flow on it is like an investor unless you did. You know, you you found a really good deal, which are like

hard to find or you did some sort of creative finance strategy. ⁓ You know, it’s hard to hard to cash flow. And anytime you see that happen, where like you can’t, you know, an investor can’t go out and buy a property and turn around and rent it out and at least break even or make even a small, you know, amount every month. ⁓ To me, that’s like that’s an indication that you’re in a bubble and it’s probably going to pop pretty soon. And that’s kind of what’s happening here right now. Prices are

Coming down, I mean, I’ve seen listings that were listed in April of this year at around, you know, the $600,000 mark sell for less than $500. And it’s, you know, it’s neighborhood by neighborhood. Some neighborhoods are like holding on better in terms of value than others, but generally across the city, it’s not that extreme throughout the whole city, but in general, you know.

prices are coming down in Austin right now. So if you’re looking to invest in Austin, you definitely want to be careful and you don’t want to overpay. So you want to look at the data and kind of get an idea of what’s going on so that you don’t get caught, you know, buying something like people did in 2022 and 2023. They bought at the peak of the market. They’re trying to sell today. They’re probably, you’re probably not going to get that money back. You’re going to have to bring money to the closing table unless as a seller.

unless you did something to really like, you know, increase the value of that property.

Kristen (14:23)
Right? Absolutely. It’s so hard to time and there’s really no perfect market. you know, it’s interesting with Austin because it is a very, it’s like a very newly popular hotspot. So just in general, you know, as you’ve been navigating this real estate career, what have been some, you know, when you were starting out, what have been some of the hardships you’ve had to overcome? Like, what can you, what advice can you give to people that are just starting out?

Chris Cabiya (14:52)
I mean, like I’m a good person to speak for like the common man, you know, because I didn’t come from money and I still don’t, you know, I’m still not a millionaire or multimillionaire. You know, I’m

doing the best that I’ve ever done for myself, you know, since I’ve gotten into real estate. So it’s definitely a smart career choice for me. ⁓ Even getting in at like the worst time I probably could have got into the business. ⁓ But, you know,

It seemed, you I thought like a lot of people do that you have to be wealthy or have access to a lot of money to get into real estate. And that is not true at all. You know, I think I mentioned it previously where I did my first deal without an agent, you know, for with 10 grand and just negotiated a seller finance deal. And, ⁓ you know, you can do stuff like that in real estate. So, you know, if you’re.

somebody that is discouraged and thinks that it’s impossible and you’ll never be able to do it, don’t. I mean, that’s not true at all. You can totally do it. And even if you don’t have the 10,000 or whatever, but if you have that spirit of like, hey, I need to make money. I want to go out and make something happen. There’s more money in this world than there are good deals. So if you just go find the deal.

And has to be a deal, you know, everybody says they have a deal and very rarely is it a deal. But if you actually find a true deal, you can find somebody that will finance it. You can find the money. So that would be like my, I guess my main thing, you know, the people that are maybe wanting to get into the business and they see stuff on YouTube that’s like, you can get into real estate for no money. And like, I guess technically that’s true, but we all know that you need to have, you need to have some money to get into real estate.

Kristen (17:07)
Yeah.

Right.

Chris Cabiya (17:24)
⁓

But you can, you know, don’t be discouraged by all that. Like it’s not all BS. You really can get in for very, very little. Or if you need a little bit more, you can go find somebody to partner with. You just have to be, you have to have some skin in the game. You know, nobody’s going to give it to you for free. Everybody’s got to earn it. But if you got skin in the game and you’re bringing something to the table, you can find, you can find a partner that will bring the money. And so it’s a very accessible industry.

In my opinion, there’s lots of ways to make money in this business. You just need to be professional. And even if you don’t have a license, if you’re a wholesaler, just be professional. just be able to bring people value. And if you bring people value and you solve problems, you’ll get paid for it. And that’s how you can get into it.

Kristen (18:15)
Yeah, absolutely. mean the money part, that’s the part that doesn’t require skill. I mean gaining the skills is probably the most important part.

Chris Cabiya (18:25)
Yeah, yeah, that’s how you’re going to separate yourself from everybody else that, you know, wants to be in real estate. mean, being in real estate is like a sexy thing, you know, everybody it’s, you everybody’s seen selling sunset and all those cool shows where they’re selling, you know, multi million dollar properties out in LA. And like there is that side of it too, if you want to work the luxury market, which is actually what I wanted to do when I got into it. And I’m still, you know, like in the area where I can do that.

And a lot of my contacts are, you know, very wealthy people. So I’ll probably end up there eventually, but I kind of just found my path. You know, I’d still work with retail buyers and sellers as well. About half my business is that, but I’ve really kind of like gone heavy into the investment side. And I think it was just a natural pathway for me coming from a background that was in residential construction. I understand how houses are built. I know my way around a house. It’s, know, it’s only all that time.

in the construction business has actually given me an advantage as a realtor and an inspired investor. I’m not a huge big time investor. I don’t want to give that impression. own two properties, but I didn’t own any properties five years ago and I didn’t have a real estate license two years ago. So my life has completely changed just because I made a decision that I was going to go after this thing and I was just going to figure it out and anybody can do that.

Kristen (19:38)
Totally.

Yeah, and I feel like that’s even more like it’s it’s almost better advice. I mean from somebody who’s currently going through it, currently scaling, you know, I think some people who have already built the huge empire sometimes they forget what it was like when you know they’re in the first five years. So I think it’s really valuable for you to kind of share your experience with everyone. I would love, you know, you’ve given some really good advice for people and some insights on the market.

To kind of wrap this up, what would be a piece of advice that you wish you learned at the beginning of your career that you can share with people today?

Chris Cabiya (20:31)
This is a tough one, but because it’s easy to say, but it’s hard to do when you’re in the moment. But really try not to get upset whenever times get tough, especially in the beginning. Because, I mean, there’s been days where I questioned if I made the right decision, you know, and I’ve thought, man, this I don’t know if this is for me. This is super, super tough. You know, where is my next paycheck going to come from?

Kristen (20:45)
Yeah.

Chris Cabiya (20:58)
know, and then you’re like, I don’t want to come across as desperate, you know, and like, I guess the advice would be just to relax and just do the work, do what you know you need to do. And if you’ve done that and you still find yourself, you know, worried about money or whatever it is, just know that you’ve done the work and it’s gonna eventually come and you just have to keep your head above water. You just have to tread water long enough. So you can get to that next point where you’re like, okay, now I’m good for like,

Kristen (21:23)
Yeah. ⁓

Chris Cabiya (21:28)
you know, I finally closed on a house. Now I’m good for another like two months.

right. Now need to go out and find the next deal. You know, and that whole process I think is like, I think you have to go through that in the beginning of anything because it’s like it weeds out everybody. It’s not really cut out for it. And the ones that are left standing are the ones that have really dedicated themselves to the business and to understanding, you know, what it takes to be successful in whatever.

area you’re in. could be real estate, could be anything. But especially like as an entrepreneur, you’ve got to be tough, you know, you got to be mentally and emotionally tough because you’re going to have super hard days. And so my advice would just be, you know, take it easy on yourself. You know, if you’re not doing enough, then yeah, you need to you need to get it into gear because you are going to fail. But if you’re doing everything that you know you’re supposed to do day in and day out and you know, when you get knocked down, you just pick yourself back up.

Don’t worry about it, just keep moving forward. I think if you just do that long enough, success is inevitable.

Kristen (22:34)
Yeah, I think that’s such great advice, such a good great note to end on. Yeah, I think it’s really tough because you know maybe people think they’re the only ones messing up and a lot of people talk about the highlight reel and show the highlight reel but I think it’s important to highlight that everyone goes through the ups and downs and there are times where you have self-doubt and you need to just push through that. So thank you so much for being here. Tell everybody where to find you and how to work with you.

Chris Cabiya (23:02)
Sure, I appreciate you having me also. Thank you. It’s been enjoyable. I’ve enjoyed it. ⁓ And I would love to come back anytime you guys would have me. You can find me. The easiest way to find me is probably going to my website or just even Googling my name, Chris Cabiya, C-A-B-I-Y-A. My website is cabiyarealtygroup.com or the other domain is chriscabiya.realtor.

But if you just punch my name into any search engine, you’ll see a bunch of stuff pop up and I’m easy to find.

Kristen (23:36)
Amazing. Well, thank you so much for being here, Chris. ⁓

Chris Cabiya (23:39)
Yes, thanks again.

Kristen (23:41)
And thank you everybody for watching. I hope you learned a lot, got some inspiration for your own business and we will see you back next time. Bye.

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Investor Fuel

Austin Investor–Agent Chris Cabiya on Finding Real Value, Creative Finance, and Beating Fear

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