Building Wealth in Real Estate with Creative Capital & Investor Networking

Steven (00:00)
I think identifying your strengths, most people that I find, the biggest thing they say is, don’t have enough money. So they think in order to, and in order to invest in real estate, I’m gonna go ahead and save up money, then go find a good deal, and then I’m gonna invest in that deal, then I’m gonna run the deal. Versus thinking, to me, when you get into it, you’ll realize it’s actually easier if you find the deal first, it’s much easier to raise that capital.

And is way, way easier than you’ve ever thought. Money is trying to find deals. So my point being, I think we all create these self-limiting beliefs, but raising capital is a really important strategy to learn if you’re going to get started.

Michelle Kesil (02:09)
Hey, everyone. Welcome to the Investor Fuel podcast. I’m your host, Michelle Kesil. And today, I’m joined by someone I’ve been looking forward to chatting with, Steven Seymour, who’s been making serious moves in the real estate and investing space. So really glad to have you here with us, Steven. I think the listeners are really going to take something away from how you’re approaching creative financing, deal structure.

Yeah, just creating a one-stop shop with your business. So let’s dive into all of that.

Steven (02:43)
Awesome, thanks for having me on.

Michelle Kesil (02:45)
Absolutely. So first off for people who may not be familiar with you and your world, can you just give the short version of what your main focus is these days?

Steven (02:56)
Sure, so I run VRA Realty, is an investor-focused real estate brokerage. We’re licensed in Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, New Jersey, and North Carolina.

with over a hundred agents and the probably the biggest differentiating factor with our real estate brokerage is that we are investor focused. Over half of our agents are actually investors themselves and almost every single other agent at our office is intending to become an investor. So we’ve really created that in the agent investor community within a real estate brokerage because they obviously feed each other along with the title company that understands seller finance deals.

how

to do subject to deals. We also have a mortgage company, which is, you know, not your typical, like we do our typical residential loans, USDA, FHA, VA, but we also do all the DSCR loans. do, you know, multifamily. We, we finance churches. could do mobile home parks. So we can basically finance anything. And then on top of that, we did an internal fund, right? So if you think about a big group of agents investing, we actually

started VRA Capital, which is a hard money fund, so versus agents and their clients going out and borrowing money from a hard money, why don’t we create an internal banking system, you know, where agents are able to invest into it, but they’re also able to lend from it, right, or borrow from it. It doesn’t make sense for everyone to have money sitting in their IRAs doing nothing.

And at the same time, we shouldn’t be paying interest to another institution. So we kind of brought it all in house under one roof.

Michelle Kesil (05:18)
Amazing. love that. Yeah, you have so many moving parts in your business. What has been the key to keeping that machine running smoothly?

Steven (05:28)
Well, a few years ago, I did hire an operations person at some point, you you realize as an entrepreneur where you wear so many different hats, you realize that, you know, you can’t handle it all. You know, I’ve always had some employees here and there, but really having a full-time integrator that gets my vision and is able to take that business plan to the ground. That’s probably been the biggest piece. and just running off of a system. we use EOS, entrepreneurial operating system. Actually, I have this book right here.

Traction, I’m sure some people have seen it, but Traction’s a great book if you’re an entrepreneur looking to scale. It’s not real estate focused, but you can apply it to any business, but the long story short is, know, systems, processes, people, vision, data, how to handle issues, having problem solving tracks, how to prioritize. So, you we didn’t want to reinvent the wheel, we just figured we’d follow a system, and I found Traction to be simple enough that I can do it.

Michelle Kesil (06:22)
Amazing. I love that. Yeah, a lot of the listeners here are maybe getting started on their investor journey or they’re looking for skills to level up. So what are some common gaps that you feel that people are missing when it comes to investing?

Steven (06:42)
So, you I actually have my own investor podcast and it’s pretty small scale, but you know, one consistent theme that I’ve found is, you know, almost everyone’s like rich dad, poor dad, right? It’s like, to me, it’s like almost like the whole, it’s like the Bible of real estate investing one-on-one, the very basics. And I think some people are like, that book changed my life. But what I find is so many people don’t take the main message from that book and actually apply it.

So to me the main message in that book is that poor people work for money and rich and wealthy people have money work for them. So what I’ve found is one of the biggest stumbling blocks in investing is people just create another job for themselves.

and they don’t teach themselves how to become a diligent investor. Flipping houses is not, that’s not investing, that you’re just creating a job. Buying a rental and managing it yourself, that’s not investing, that’s creating a job. So how do you learn to leverage capital and create some sort of yield spread off of the money and actually have the money work harder than you do? So that’s a big piece and then with that, I think that the mindset,

I love the book Think and Grow Rich. think it’s such a great book. Like thoughts become things. And if you can actually pay attention to how your thoughts are on the investing, like whatever your stumbling block is, it’s completely self-imposed. So if it’s I don’t have enough deals, I don’t have enough money, I don’t have enough time, all three of those things are thoughts that are basically limiting your investing.

And you have to become aware of that so that you can figure out how to fill in the gaps and have, know, surround yourself with the right mentorship and the right coaches and systems and have the right people to address the things that you’re not great at. Like I know for me, I’m not great at property management. I could be, but I hate it I don’t like it. You know, like it’s, I’m resistant to it. So I don’t do that. You know.

I think identifying your strengths, most people that I find, the biggest thing they say is, don’t have enough money. So they think in order to, and in order to invest in real estate, I’m gonna go ahead and save up money, then go find a good deal, and then I’m gonna invest in that deal, then I’m gonna run the deal. Versus thinking, to me, when you get into it, you’ll realize it’s actually easier if you find the deal first, it’s much easier to raise that capital.

and is way, way easier than you’ve ever thought. Money is trying to find deals. So my point being, I think we all create these self-limiting beliefs, but raising capital is a really important strategy to learn if you’re going to get started.

And it doesn’t have to be overly complex. It could be friends, family. You know, there’s a lot of people with money sitting in their IRAs doing nothing. They don’t even know they can invest that in real estate. They don’t even know that they can, you know, convert that over and have passive income backed by a asset in first position with a mortgage. Right. So you just have to connect the dots and explain that to them.

Michelle Kesil (10:04)
Yeah, that is so valuable. Thank you for sharing that. I really resonate with the mindset stuff. I’ve also read that book. yeah, that’s awesome. So every operator I know had a moment or many moments in business where things got real. Maybe a deal went sideways or you had to make fast pivots. Would you mind sharing one of those moments for you?

Steven (10:30)
Well, I’ve had multiple, I mean, I think we all run into major issues. ⁓ I’ve been extremely fortunate. I’m probably, I’m probably a little too conservative and should have been a little more risk, you know, risk.

should have taken more risks while I was younger, right? But I’m very happy with where I’m at. I would say the biggest things have been making sure that you have enough operating capital to weather the storm. Like real estate over time will almost heal all mistakes. And I don’t want to sound like you could just buy anything anytime. But if you look at anyone that bought real estate 50 years ago and they held it till today,

they’re probably in a great spot, even if they paid double or triple or quadruple what they paid for it, right? So real estate does heal all mistakes. The biggest thing is do you have lines of credit, access to capital, you know, that can weather the ups and downs. So like, here’s one example, you know, this was the week of

was around July of 2022. I have an 11 unit building. We’re about to start renovating the property. We bought it fully occupied, but the tenant base was really low rents, very bad tenant base, and the building needed a lot of work. So got all the tenants out. We get a call from our project manager, and he says, ⁓ hey guys.

someone came in and cut out 11 HVAC systems and they cut out the copper in the whole building and the water has been running for three days because they cut it out over the weekend and we’re just seeing it now. So it was a major, you know, was $500,000 in repairs altogether or something like that, right? And then the biggest fear was, ⁓ crap, it’s vacant. Is it going to get covered? Because once your property goes vacant,

then you don’t have that coverage unless you have the right, you know, and we didn’t, we didn’t even engage in the renovations yet. We just were getting the tenants out. So luckily it wasn’t vacant for more than 30 days, but it was, you know, it all turned out actually for the benefit and you know, the insurance kicked in and it all worked. But at the same time, you know, it was a very fearful moment. And I was also dealing with losing my father at the time he was on hospice and I was trying to take care of him. Lost an assistant, my Airbnb’s weren’t doing well. So it’s really like.

Be aware of what you’re getting yourself into. Have some reserves, but you don’t always have to have as much cash as you think. You can have business credit cards. You can have home equity lines of credit. I think it’s important to have some cash reserves, but as long as you have some reserves to kind of weather the storm, you’ll be okay. You’ll figure it out. You could buy a so-so deal, and with being creative,

and running it really tight, you can turn it into a pretty good deal. You could buy a great deal and run it horrible.

and not pay attention to anything that’s happening and that good deal or that great deal will become a terrible deal over time if you don’t manage it properly. So it’s all like pay attention to what you’re getting yourself into and you know surround yourself with people that will pick you up. Like I’ve always had enough people in my corner that if something like that happens I call them and I’m like hey what do I do? How do I deal with this? You know I wasn’t prepared to write an extra $500,000 check at the time to renovate all that. Could I have sold some other properties or something? Yeah. You know could I have know raised

capital 100 % but I did have some business lines of credit, had some credit cards, I had a couple hundred thousand in cash, maybe not 500 but you always want to make sure you have ways to weather those storms and not get in over your head. I see some people, I don’t think there’s anything wrong with scaling fast but if you’re raising money, even if a deal went south, I’d put my own money in it before I’d lose an investor’s money because it’s all relationships for me and longevity and if I make

made

a mistake, I’m going to fall on the sword and eat that. But luckily, knock on wood, I’ve flipped over 150 houses, I’ve done this for almost 19 years, I’ve only lost money on one deal. And the only reason I lost money on that deal is because I lack control of the operations of it.

⁓ So the one I was just mentioning ended up turning out to be great. We bought it for a million, we put about 700,000 into it. After all the repairs, insurance ended up covering almost like 600,000.

Michelle Kesil (14:55)
Yeah.

Steven (15:07)
That thing appraised for 2.2 million, but we got back 140,000 in Delaware state tax credits. We got back 140,000 in federal tax credits and we got a $90,000 grant. So we got back half of our renovation costs. The insurance paid for the majority of it anyway. We only owe 630,000 on that building. It’s now worth 2.2 million. know, so you create, you know, over a million, million and a half in equity on one deal. But at one point that deal looked really sour.

Michelle Kesil (15:36)
Amazing. Yeah, that’s the stuff people don’t talk about enough. Yeah, super valuable.

Steven (15:40)
It’s really resilience,

not giving up, not throwing in a towel and saying, I can’t handle this. It’s like, no, how can I handle this?

Michelle Kesil (15:43)
Yeah.

Absolutely, that’s so important. What would you say you’re most focused on solving or scaling next?

Steven (15:54)
So, you know, I don’t say this to impress, but I feel like, you know, I’m at that point where obviously, you know, you go through different phases. You’re like doing accumulation, just trying to get started, get some deals under your belt. And then at some point you transition to preservation or, you know, well, let me say this. It’s accumulation, then maximization. And that’s kind of like when you’re starting to scale.

and then preservation. I’m definitely still scaling, but I’m simultaneously being aware of…

asset preservation, protecting, then just becoming more and more passive. So in terms of my portfolio, you know, I’ve been doing more lending, like the hard money lending space for me is a big bucket of what my future looks like. And then also investing in other people’s funds. One of the things that I was short sighted on when I was, you know, over the past decade was if I had a few hundred, 500, whatever, however much you have sitting, if you have a couple hundred thousand dollars sitting, I would let it

sit sometimes because I didn’t have a deal. And that money sitting doesn’t make any sense because I can always raise money for deals.

So me putting money into other people’s funds is a big thing in the future with me. But my current focus right now is building our hard money fund because it’s working well. I see a major value from it from both sides for the investors, but also for the borrowers and the investors, right? They’re borrowing from it. They’re actually both investors. And that just goes along with the vision of my company, which is to empower human potential by providing a pathway to financial freedom with real estate.

investing and because capital happens to be one of the largest stumbling blocks, we’re just trying to solve that problem for as many people as we can.

Michelle Kesil (17:35)
Amazing. Yeah, that’s such a big and powerful goal that, yeah, can also help others. So that’s really beautiful. So a lot of people listening to this show are either earlier in this journey or looking to level up. And I think they could benefit from hearing this. When it comes to building relationships and growing your network, what has made the biggest difference for you?

Steven (17:42)
Yeah.

For sure, local meetups can be great. I’m a huge face-to-face person. We’re doing this virtual and the world has shifted and things have changed so much. My mentor currently, he has over 1.2 billion in his fund. And I have direct access to that brain who built that company. So I met him in a room in a real estate investor meetup 15 years ago.

And that relationship was built from just, can I take you out to lunch? Can I get to know? at the time, he wasn’t where he is now. So I didn’t even realize who I was really. I didn’t know who I was talking to in his future self, right? Like at the time. But now I’m like, wow, I’m so grateful that I groomed that relationship over time because I have access to pick up the phone and call him if I have a question or a major issue or anything.

Can you hear me?

Michelle Kesil (18:42)
Yeah, you cut out for a moment.

Steven (18:43)
Okay, sorry,

it froze for a minute. I don’t know where it cut out, but basically, building that relationship 15 years ago…

is, you know, it’s always been a great thing, but now seeing what he’s built and how much he’s poured into me has helped. so finding the right mentorship and one of the reasons I’m even on this podcast is because we want to grow our community too and help give back for that same reason. you know, we have an investor agent community Facebook page that we just started, and then I have an accredited investor agent training series. And the whole training series is, I’ll give you guys a promo code so it’ll be

be

free for anyone that listens to this. I’ll just shoot you the promo in the comments and you guys can post it when you post it. But it’s gonna be 100 videos. I believe there’s 30 some released so far. And it’s really from taking you from the very beginning stage all the way up to accumulation, maximization, preservation, and what do you need to know and just walk people through it. But I definitely think in terms of networking and building relationships,

Probably the biggest thing with relationship building is just coming from a good place, right? Like we all have a BS radar and yeah, you’re trying to get something out of it, right? Like you guys are having this podcast with me, I’m having it with you. I’m sure you have some agenda behind it. have like, have my own agenda behind it. That’s okay, right? But don’t be one-sided. Realize that you can find win-wins in everything you do. And people that come from an abundance mindset, they see that as well. Those are the people that are going to want to grab it.

towards some of the wealthiest people.

they’re gonna share the most amount of information. You’d be surprised. It’s not like, oh, I’m gonna hoard these secrets. It’s like, no, this has helped me. I wanna help you do it. And that’s one thing that it’s just people are afraid to ask. So don’t be afraid to ask someone out to lunch. Don’t be afraid to pay someone. I don’t mind paying. I’m paying $2,000 a month for one coach and my other coach is $1,000 an hour. it’s like…

It’s worth paying for the right knowledge and to have someone financially vested in your success. And that’s what I would say to that. But you don’t always have to pay for mentorship. It could be as simple as just building friendships and how do you add value to them? Maybe they’re doing it because they want to give back an impact, but maybe they have a business that you can help feed as well.

Michelle Kesil (21:01)
Yeah, that is so valuable. Thank you for sharing those tips because relationships are everything in this space and yeah, more people should focus on that value add. So I appreciate that. Well, before we wrap up here, if someone wants to connect with you, reach out, collaborate, learn more about what you’re doing, what’s the best way for them to reach you?

Steven (21:15)
worth.

Well, you could find me on social media. It’s Steve Seymour. You’ll see a picture of me. I’m out on Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram. If you’re interested in the video training series, it’s accreditedinvestoragent.com.

And we also have the investor agents Facebook community. So that’s a Facebook community. We’ll be doing a live once a month. I actually have one coming up on August 21st. And then if you’re in any of the markets that we operate in, which is PA Delaware, Maryland, New Jersey, North Carolina, and you’re interested in either investing passively in our fund, in our hard money fund, you can learn more about that at VRA capital. So it’s VRA capital.com. those are, those are

the top three links to get to me, but we have the brokerage, the title company, a whole slew more. So if you reach out, I’m happy to share with you my link tree and send you all our links with the affiliated businesses.

Michelle Kesil (22:21)
Perfect. Well, listen, I appreciate your time, your story and perspective. We need more people in this space who are doing things in this right way. So thank you again for being here.

Steven (22:31)
Yeah, thank you, Michelle. Appreciate you having me on.

Michelle Kesil (22:33)
Absolutely. And for those that are tuning in, if you’ve got value from this, make sure you’ve subscribed. We have more conversations coming with operators just like Stephen who are out here building real businesses. And we’ll see you all on the next episode.