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Show Summary
In this conversation, Jhovanny Maxi shares his inspiring journey from a newcomer in the real estate industry to a successful entrepreneur and founder of Maxi Properties. He discusses his early experiences, the challenges he faced, and how he transitioned from residential to multifamily and commercial real estate. Jhovanny highlights the importance of perseverance, networking, and learning from failures, as well as providing valuable advice for aspiring real estate investors.
Resources and Links from this show:
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- Investor Fuel Real Estate Mastermind
- Investor Machine Real Estate Lead Generation
- Mike on Facebook
- Mike on Instagram
- Mike on LinkedIn
- Jhovanny Maxi’s Instagram
- Jhovanny Maxi’s Phone Number: 703-826-4536
Listen to the Audio Version of this Episode
Investor Fuel Show Transcript:
Jhovanny Maxi (00:00)
If you want to become millionaire I will tell you how you see a building or a house that you like go there talk with the owner ask the owner for 30 % owner financing then go to the bankand make sure the property has cash flow
so you can cover the monthly payment
Get you a group of investors,
give them 10 % equity.
and they will help you. It’s not a big deal. Anybody can do this. Anybody can get rich.
Dylan Silver (01:56)
Hey folks, welcome back to the show. Today’s guest is the founder of Maxi Properties with nearly a decade in real estate focused on transforming undervalued and high potential properties into long-term high yield investments. His work spans residential, multi-family and large scale commercial developments including a Fifth Avenue tower repositioning project inWow, look at that deal.
Please welcome Jhovanny Maxi. Jhovanny, welcome to the show.
Jhovanny Maxi (02:28)
Thank you so much for having me today. I’m so happy to be here, Dylan.Dylan Silver (02:32)
I’m happy to have you on here. Kalo K Broder, Fimo Sablondo, we were talking before hopping on here and I told you that I’m in Lo Fraile in Santo Domingo and you said, I’m Dominican. I said this is incredible. This is my first contact, someone on this show from the Dominican. Walk us through, Kalo K, walk us through the story, Jhovanny. How did you get into the real estate space?Jhovanny Maxi (02:50)
Okay.When I first moved to the United States, I met John Homan. So he was the president of Homes and Casos. And he proposed to me to make a company in Spanish. He says, you can do Casas y Castillo. You just do the same one in Spanish. I said, okay, let’s do it. So we was working. He mentored me for a long time. With him, I learned a lot about real estate and a lot of that. Then I moved to Impact Real Estate.
And while I was in impact real estate, I figured out that I could make my own company too and have team moving in my way. So I built Maxi Properties and that’s how we started.
Dylan Silver (03:36)
want to ask you about getting started initially. Were you thinking I’m going to start as an agent? Were you thinking I’m going to start as an investor? Or were you saying, hey, I am brand new to this field. I’m open to whichever avenue I can get involved in.Jhovanny Maxi (03:52)
I didn’t have no expectation. I just wanted to be in real estate helping people rent and buy because when I first moved I didn’t even know how to rent a basement and then I was like, my god, this is so easy. So there might be a lot of people trying to do the same and they don’t know how to do it. So my initial motivation was to help people rent houses and then buy houses.Dylan Silver (04:17)
And a lot of people I think, Jhovanny and I’m sure you can relate to this, will see the end result. They’ll see the 10 years of experience and multifamily large commercial deals, but they won’t necessarily see the journey leading up to that point. Walk me through it. That first year, two years, three years in real estate, what was your scaling process like? Were you thinking about being an investor yourself at that point? What was the day to day like?Jhovanny Maxi (04:46)
But it was, okay, you I’m Dominican, so we do things in a different way. ⁓ My broker used to give me a list of phone number and name to call, but that never workedevery time we went to see the houses, people had an excuse. So I have to build my own way to find clients. So I started driving in the neighborhood.
Jhovanny Maxi (06:20)
sell the house, then they buy another house with me in the same process. So that was my biggest commission. was like $25,000 at the same time. We sell them house for around $400,000 and we bought a new one for, I think it was for $600,000. And that’s how everything started. Once I sold this, changed everything. I bought my first house in Haymarket, Virginia. So I decided to invest in.Dylan Silver (06:49)
I want to ask you about that first deal. mean, it sounds like you were really putting in the man hours going door to door. Yeah, were you going? Were you door knocking at that point?Jhovanny Maxi (07:00)
It was not knocking on the door, but I was waiting for seeing somebody outside and I want to start a conversation. Hey, hi, good morning. How are you doing? Great. Do you know anybody who’s trying to move here? No, I don’t know. What about you? You’re trying to sell or buy a new house? Yes. Oh, sir, you have an amazing house. I can help you sell your house. I don’t want to sell it. Oh, I haven’t tell you the number. And then I build confidence with doing this. Then I started telling people, sir,Dylan Silver (07:05)
Yeah.Jhovanny Maxi (07:29)
Listen, I don’t mind to bother you, but I have somebody really interested in buying you property and I do have an offer for you. Would you be interested to entertain this offer? Most of them would say yes and that’s how I get all my clients.Dylan Silver (07:43)
I like that and I respect it because I came from a similar background. I was really doing distressed real estate and still am but I was a wholesaler and I would be going in many cases to some very heavily distressed properties. Many cases you’d have to knock the neighbor’s door to figure out what’s going on why these people are in a difficult situation and see how you can piece things together. So I definitely understand the grind ofboots on the ground and putting in the effort. Real estate is in so many ways a contact sport. I want to ask you, Jhovanny, about getting into some other asset classes. So as a realtor, you’re helping people, you mentioned that couple sell their home, you’re seeing proof of concept, you’re seeing the commission. At what point in time did you start to look at multifamily? Did you start to look at commercial and how did that come about?
Jhovanny Maxi (08:40)
I met ⁓ a person who was an interior designer and we were talking about real estate. So, you know, we become boyfriends and girlfriends, something like that. then we decide, I was, I was telling her we should buy a house and let’s try to move into the house before we finish the rehab. then after we finish, we just sell it and move to another house. So that’s exactly what we did. But let me tell you a long story short.When the house was 95 % completed, we just have the kitchen to finish the whole project. He took me to court and file for yes, for buying me out. So he, you know, it was, yeah, she, yeah, but God, God is the best. So she took me to court. They have, we bought it for 395,000. Uh, the court appraiser said the court or the house was 500,000. The court said, no, it’s 300. So.
They order her to buy me out for $1,300 after I spent 20,000 just doing the roof, cleaning the front of the house without counting anything inside. So I lost the first house because of that. I let it go. And then after that, I learned more about investors, hard money lenders, who else?
Dylan Silver (09:46)
Mmm.Jhovanny Maxi (10:36)
There is a lot of people who will give you the money to buy it. I have, yeah, I have a friend of mine named Lee.Dylan Silver (10:38)
So many, yeah.Jhovanny Maxi (10:41)
I met Lee through one of my clients who introduced him to me. Lee would call me and be, Jhovanny, I have $500,000 here. Do you want to buy a house? ⁓ What do you want to buy? know, he used to call me all the time. Lee, I bought my second property. So we just bought a house for around, I think, $225,000 to $325,000. We fixed the house. Lee gave me the option to pay him back in two years. So after that, I built like confidence and you know,We just keep going until we ended up with the building in 5th Avenue, New York.
Dylan Silver (11:15)
So I want to ask you about that first deal. Is it with Lee that you got into multifamily? Walk me through that first multifamily deal because as you probably experienced Jovani, it’s not necessarily straightforward to go from being outside to then getting your first deal as a realtor to scaling and then to getting into commercial. So what was that first deal or couple deals like in the commercial space?Jhovanny Maxi (11:40)
⁓My biggest problem was not getting the money or getting the property. My biggest problem has always been the taxes because I have issues with that. I have never understood the taxes. I’m trying now to have a team working with me for it. anyways, was like, know, dealing with people, no, this is breakdown now. You need to fix it.
Then I learned I have like a team who take care of everything, but you have men, I’m going to advise anybody who can to be careful if you want to have one or two property is beautiful. But then you feel in love with the people living in your property and you don’t want to get them out. Even if they’re not paying you most of the time, if you become too friendly with them, they will not pay you. You will have to be changing things in the house all the time. Plumbing. There is too much going on. It’s like.
my God, thank God I stopped doing that. I mean, I don’t mean it that way, but you know, it’s lot of work.
Dylan Silver (12:43)
Yeah.No question. You know, I think about all the different kind of ways where people who are ⁓ getting into a new asset class can really stumble. One of the things that people always talk about is how great it is to have a commercial deal. know, it’s of course more reward, but there’s also more risk. There’s leverage that goes into it. And I just had a gentleman on the show here actually earlier today and his specialty in construction is he does
Defect construction. So basically someone can put a new build right and then it could have all these issues which can effectively make it, you know either ⁓ Unsuitable or or not useful for the space that it was intended and then you have to come in after the fact So anything at scale there’s risk I want to pivot a bit here Jhovanny and ask you about this amazing deal that you have in Manhattan
I heard a couple different areas, right? ⁓ Virginia and then Manhattan. Tell me how you got into this Manhattan deal.
Jhovanny Maxi (13:50)
Oh my God, story short, I was going through Facebook because with the time I learned that Facebook is the best way to find clients for real estate. So I went through, I was going to Facebook and I saw the seller who was selling a farm for $14 million. I said, Hey, I want to go see your farm. said, okay, come tomorrow. So I said, no, today I have two hour off. I would like to go today. He said, okay, come by. So I drove to his farm.And when I got there, it was like too much for me. I had never done a deal in that. you know, it was too big. So I told him, I can sell it. He said, you sure? He said, Jhovanny, I had a big farm with me and they took six months and they never brought me one lead. said, don’t worry. I can sell it. I was not sure if I could, but I have the feeling like I can do this. If I can sell $300,000 house, I can sell anything. So he, uh, I sent him a contract. signed a contract.
before a month passed by, I already had three people ⁓ who went there to see the property. then Ali, I don’t know if I can say the name, but the person who ended up signing the contract to buy the property,
she gave me a book. I have the book here. Give me a second. He gave me this book, the best book anybody can ever have in their life. Yes, sir. So she told me, Jhovanny, read this book and this book is going to change your life. So I started reading The Go-Giver.
Dylan Silver (15:49)
ever.Jhovanny Maxi (15:57)
And I was like, Oh my God, it’s not about me. It’s about helping others. So I was like, I said, what can I do to help you? She was like, I don’t know, Jhovanny, whatever you can. So my commission with Alison was supposed to be $400,000. I didn’t charge her nothing. I let her go. Yes. And then during that process, we helping Alison with the land. What happened was that, like I told you, I went to online looking for property to buy. And I saw a property in Columbia.It was a hotel with casino included. So I was in love with the casino idea. I called the owner, we spoke with two hours. He told me he had two sons and then they don’t want to take over the business. He told me.
Dylan Silver (16:39)
Isthis Columbia? This is Columbia the country?
Jhovanny Maxi (16:42)
Colombia the country Cartagena Colombia Yes, yes, sir. So he told me Jhovanny Are you sure you can buy these I say I can buy anything It’s a okay. Look, I have another property in New York and I have another property in Brazil I have like 1 billion dollars in properties if you want to buy all of them. I’m happy to help you I said if you give me owner financing, I will buy all of them. You say I will give you 40 %Dylan Silver (16:44)
All right, international deals.Jhovanny Maxi (17:11)
in anything you want to buy. So he showed me the property in New York in the Fifth Avenue. I went crazy. I want this one, 26 floors, and I can build on top of it? I want this one. So we talked about it. He sent me an NDA. I signed the NDA. Then ⁓ I talked with Allison. said, Allison, I have this property. I want to buy it, but I don’t know who to court. So Allison connect me with the right lenders. Yes, the right lenders, youth lenders. ⁓Dylan Silver (17:38)
unbelievable.Jhovanny Maxi (17:41)
She sent me the contact, I talked with the lender, I presented the idea. They say yes right away. They say yes, we was looking for something like that in New York. This is amazing to us. Today before I talked to you, I was talking with my lawyers about the property. So we have something beautiful going on. So the team made me sign contract. We signed contract. Everything was perfect. So now we just have everything like, we put everything in place. We have the architect. It’s a whole team.like working and trying to figure out the earth permit if we can build 26 more flooring top because that’s what I want and yes sir we’ve been doing this I said
Dylan Silver (18:19)
Unbelievable.think hearing this growth for anybody is incredible, but especially bootstrapping from the big… Did you have family that was involved in real estate? This was y’all, I mean, truly, my hat goes off to you. Congrats on your success. Selfishly, Jhovanny, I want to do a little bit here in Spanish because I like a…
Jhovanny Maxi (18:31)
No, bye.Thank you,
Dylan Silver (18:45)
in that show in Spanish. Right now I’m afraid to do that. But you have experience in international And through that you found that property in Colombia and then that property in Manhattan. What is your food, your feedback for people who want to a career in root and be in the same place where youJhovanny Maxi (19:35)
it’s una carrera difícil, pero vale la pena. En mi caso particular, yo aprendí inglés leyendothe real estate Yes, I got burned like 12 times. I got for one point, two points. I was reading again, I read, I took pictures, I translated it, and that forced me to learn English. So that enriched my knowledge in terms of what I came from, in terms of a new language. I would advise anyone to have the opportunity to grow, to want to…
a salida delante que la mejor la mejor forma de los bienes raíces no hay otro no hay otra manera no miren para ningún otro lado bienes raíces
Dylan Silver (20:22)
You’re pimp, okay?Yes, is the answer to generational wealth, the
In my case, was searching on the internet how American can generate generational wealth. And that was the answer on Google. Right now I think that young people and people are using as chat GPT. Chat GPT is the answer to generate generational wealth. But Jhovanny, thank you so much for coming on the show here today.
If folks maybe have a deal, maybe it’s in Manhattan, maybe it’s in Virginia, maybe it’s international commercial deal that they’d like you to take a look at, or if they’d like to reach out to you, how can folks get in contact with you?
Jhovanny Maxi (21:08)
They can go to my Instagram, ⁓ Jhovanny Maxi Realtor. That’s J-H-O-V-A-N-N-Y-M-A-X-I Realtor. Or they can text me. I can give you the contact, 703-826-4536. I’m also giving classes online right now to help people do what I did because everybody can get.anybody can do this like I’m not I’m not a super I mean I’m a superstar but I’m a superhuman for what I did you know it’s just like ⁓ it’s easy you just have to learn how okay let me make it simple I know we have to finish this in one minute
you want to become millionaire I will tell you how you see a building or a house that you like go there talk with the owner ask the owner for 30 % owner financing then go to the bank and talk with the bank make sure the property has cash flow
so you can cover the monthly payment ~ the bank. The bank is going to ask you for a down payment. This is the part where a lot of people do not know what to do. I was in Los Angeles and somebody gave me this and I’m giving it to you now. Get you a group of investors, better if like a family group of investors, they’re going to put some money down and you just have ~ give them 10 % equity.
and they will help you. It’s not a big deal. Anybody can do this. Anybody can get rich.
If you like real estate, try to do it big or don’t do it.
Dylan Silver (22:34)
Beager, don’t do it at all. Jhovanny, thank you for coming on the show here today.Jhovanny Maxi (22:38)
Thank you so much, Dylan. Have an amazing day. -
