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Faith, Discipline, and Cashflow: How Gustavo Serpa Built Freedom with Rentals and Fixed Rates

By October 31, 2025Real Estate Pros Show


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Show Summary

In this episode of the Real Estate Pros podcast, host Q Edmonds interviews Gustavo Serpa, a trilingual real estate broker with a compelling journey from humble beginnings in Peru to becoming a successful investor and educator in the real estate market. Gustavo shares his personal experiences, lessons learned, and insights into the importance of discipline, education, and faith in achieving success in real estate. He emphasizes the significance of building equity, understanding market trends, and the value of empowering others through knowledge. The conversation also touches on Gustavo’s future goals and strategies for investment, as well as the critical understanding of when one truly loses in real estate.

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    Investor Fuel Show Transcript:

    Gustavo Serpa (00:00)
    I’m gonna get I gotta ask you this question Quentin because I want to ask everyone everyone if everyone could put your answers When do you lose in real estate? When do you lose a race? I’m gonna help you guys out. I’m gonna give you multiple choice number one a when you don’t buy B when you buy at the wrong time or C when you sell at the wrong time or D or the above it’s only one answer

    Quentin (01:59)
    Hello everyone. Welcome to the Real Estate Pros podcast. I am your host Q Edmonds. And if you follow me, you know I’m excited to be here. Excited about my guests. Listen, this gentleman is trilingual. He speaks Spanish, English, and Italian. Look, the only language I can speak, I’m having trouble speaking, right? But he speaks Spanish, English, and Italian. This gentleman is a broker and listen, he loves to educate.

    his clients. And I cannot wait. He’s been asking me this question. I can’t wait for him to ask y’all, when do you actually lose in real estate? Right? I can’t wait for him to ask you. And we’re going to get the answer to this question. But I’m super excited to introduce you to Mr. Gustavo Serpa. Mr. Gustavo, how are doing today,

    Gustavo Serpa (02:32)
    Ha

    I am doing better than I deserve.

    Quentin (02:47)
    Ha ha, ooh, ooh, ooh, man. man, bro, that’s so loaded. That’s some loaded language right there. And I love it because I know exactly what you mean. And I think I probably can say the exact same thing. But listen, man, I’m excited to have you here. I’m excited for our viewers to get a chance to see things through your perspective. And so I’ll be honest, man, I just want to dive in. I want you to tell the people what is it that you’re mainly focused on these days.

    If you want to tell them a little bit of how you got into real estate, like the story, I think we would love to hear that as well. And then tell them what markets you’re operating in. But the floor is yours,

    Gustavo Serpa (03:26)
    I appreciate it, thank you so much. So my name is Gustavo Serpa. Technically, my official name is Walter Gustavo Serpa. I was born in Peru. And when I was six, I came to New York City, grew up in New York City with a single mom and my sister. Went to high school and college out in Utah, met my wife my freshman year at a drive dance club. And that’s another story. Long story short, ⁓ in 2000, we got married in 1999.

    My first, my father-in-law taught me my first lesson in real estate. He said, Gustavo, do you want to throw your money away or you want to build equity? I said, I want to build equity. And back then I was working at Deutsche Bank and my wife was working for her dad. had a knitting factory and he said, all right, Gustavo, once you marry my daughter, you can live in my home and you don’t have to pay me anything. So that’s lesson number one that I learned. said, okay. ⁓

    And by the way, my wife is German, sir. My father-in-law said, Reinhardt, I appreciate this opportunity. Now, one thing I’ve learned about life, if you’re not disciplined, you’re going to struggle. So my wife and I, said, OK, we’re going to take all our money and put it directly to the bank. I could have bought another. I could have bought a brand new car for myself, a brand new car for my wife. We said, no, we’re going to stick with the car that we have and we’re going to put the money directly to the bank. I didn’t have to pay a penny for anything.

    to live in that house once I married his daughter. Okay, we’re old school. We got married before we lived together. It took us six months. In six months, we saved up enough money to buy a house. And that was my dream home. This was my dream, right? I’m living in an American dream. I’m from Peru, grew up in New York City, Spanish Harlem to be exactly. With a single mom and I’m the first one to buy a house. I bought the house for 159,000.

    Now, there’s another story, but I’ll continue going. I bought it for 159,000. Six years later, it took us six years to have our first child. And that’s another lesson, another lesson that I’ve learned in life. God would always answer your prayers, not in your time and his time. So it takes patience. So in 2006, Kaylee was born. And when I first held her in my arms, it’s like God slapped me around and said, Gustavo, this is what life is all about.

    And if you think about it, guys, I know we’re gonna talk about real estate, we’re gonna talk about making money and all that, but at the end of the day, life is about procreating and us being able to make another human being and then be able to us to share our experience and teach that individual our principles on morals, our standards, and then how to progress in life, right? And that was my lesson that I’ve learned when I Caitlin for the first time. Then Caitlin was born and then…

    But so when Katie was born, it totally changed my mindset. It was not about my wife and I. Now it’s about the newborn, a new child that I was able to, that God has given me the ability to procreate and to be able to trust to raise one of his children. And that’s when I said, you know what? I don’t want to live here in New Jersey no more. And don’t get me wrong, New Jersey is nice and everything, but taxes started going up to Wazoo, ⁓ traffic, everything.

    that we decided to move to Florida. So we moved to Florida. And here, here’s another lesson in real estate. That was my forever home, right? That’s what I thought. My home, I got my dream home. I even put the white picket fence. I even did that. And but six years later, in 2006, we made a decision to leave. Now my question for everyone here, I don’t know if you were following the market, how was the market in 2006? Was it up? Was it down? And if you don’t know,

    That’s something you need to start educating yourself. Google it. But in 2006, the market was up. The market was up. So guess what? And so I bought it in 2000. Six years later, I sold that house for over $350,000. Remember, I paid $159,000. So I doubled my money in six years. Talk about, wow. Talk about making an investment. But for me, it was my forever home.

    because of that investment, because of my father-in-law, because he taught me, do you want to throw your money away or want to build equity? I was able to do that purchase. From there, I bought this house here in Florida. Then Caitlin was born in the Sophia. And by then I worked at a company called Verizon. You might’ve heard of Verizon, right? Life is going good. And by the way, my wife and I, we sat down and we said, we’re going to do everything. I’m going to do everything that you need to do to be, for her to be a stay home mom. It was a mutual decision.

    Right? And I’m going to do whatever I have to do. And then Caitlin was born and Sophia was born. And life is going good. Right? And then Frontier comes along and buys Verizon for $2 billion. And guess what? In 2016, get, they laid off a thousand people and I’m one of them. So I went from making 90,000 to zero. When my wife was a stay home mom and three children, I swear to you, I said, when

    Quentin (09:15)
    Thank

    Mm.

    Gustavo Serpa (09:34)
    They came to me when HR came to me and said, look, we have to lay you off. My first thought was, hold on Heavenly Father. go, God, call him Heavenly Father. Heavenly Father, I’m going to church. I’m paying tithing. I’m trying to be a good father. I’m trying to be a good ⁓ husband, a good civilian. What’s going on here? Why are you doing this to me? What have I done? I got five people to feed including myself. It took me two days to reflect. And then the light bulb came on.

    Quentin (09:43)
    Thank

    Thank

    Gustavo Serpa (10:38)
    And I said to my wife, her name is Dagmar. I call her Googie. Everybody calls her Daggy. I said, Googie, I need three months. Let me do real estate. If in three months I cannot make the money that we need to make to survive, I’ll go find another corporate job. Now, I don’t know about you fellas, if you’re married, but my wife has the three S’s. Number one, she’s very sexy. That’s why I married her. Number two, she’s very sophisticated.

    That’s why she married me. And number three, she’s very supportive. And I know I was joking. The last one is what I needed. I needed her support and Heavenly Father’s support to get me through this. And then I started real estate in November of 2016. Long story short, I’ve been doing this now for nine years. I bought six investment properties because I didn’t want to go through that crisis again.

    Quentin (11:12)
    Mmm.

    Yeah.

    Gustavo Serpa (11:36)
    See one thing that you have to learn about when

    you go through experiences, learn from it and say, okay, what do I need to gain from this experience? And what should I, how should I prepare? So I’m not in this experience again. And that’s what I did. I said, you know what? I’m going to buy investment properties. I’m going to build cashflow. So God forbid the market crashes. I’m disciplined enough that my cashflow will pay all my expenses and I still have a cushion. And that’s what I’ve been able to do. And I honestly,

    I was able to create that in five years, not in nine years, in five years. My first investment, I’m gonna share this, my first investment, it’s amazing how God blesses you. I had a couple from Puerto Rico. They were buying a $75,000 home. But would you believe it? They could not afford the mortgage. They could not get the loan. When I looked at the numbers, taxes, insurance, and the mortgage, it was only $550 if you put down 20%.

    Now the reason you want to do put down 20 % I’m gonna throw you some nuggets is because you don’t pay no it’s called PMI principle mortgage insurance. See what happens is the bank is gonna loan you let’s say you get a $200,000 loan and the bank is gonna loan you 6 % right? You think that’s all you’re paying 6 % no no no the bank has that PMI which is I call it like interest on top of interest it’s like a penalty because you don’t have 20 % the bank is gonna

    Quentin (12:47)
    Thank you. ⁓

    Gustavo Serpa (13:04)
    charge you more money on top of your 6%. And guess what? That’s the reinsurance that they’re gonna make more money off of you. Right? So that’s PMI. So if you don’t put down 20%, which is okay by the way, and I’ll share why okay later on, but in my situation, if they didn’t put down 20%, you would pay interest. And I’m not, I don’t know about you guys, but I don’t like to throw my money away. Why am I gonna hustle and then be like, okay, here, bank, take my money. So I wanted to put down 20%.

    So I made a deal with the Puerto Rican couple. said, look guys, I know your credit is not good and I know you want to buy this house. Let’s do this. Let me become your bank. I’m going to buy the house under my name and you’re going to pay me instead of paying me the 550, which is a mortgage, you’re going to pay me a $300 more. You’re going to pay me eight 50 because I’m going to become your bank. You’re going to use my credit for you to purchase the house. Now,

    The caveat here, I said, okay, and then you’re gonna pay me $300 extra. Now you have a year to refinance, meaning get your credit right, get the loan from the bank, and then I’ll sell you the home. And I was not gonna be greedy, I’m just gonna, I’m gonna sell you the home what the market is. If the market goes crazy high, I’m gonna go just $5,000. I didn’t wanna make a lot of money off of them, right? So they said, we shook on it, they agreed on it. Now here’s another lesson, the day of closing. So by the way,

    Quentin (14:14)
    Thank

    Gustavo Serpa (14:34)
    They didn’t put any money down. I put all the money. I put down the 20%. And the day of closing, I’m thinking they’re gonna show up. It’s 11 o’clock and nobody’s there. And I have the title company with me. So let me make some phone calls. Let me text. Text and boom, nothing, nothing. You know what? They might be driving. They might wanna pick up their phone. Let’s wait at least a half an hour. Technically we waited an hour. They never showed up. So you know what? Okay.

    Guess what? I’m going to buy this house. Now I bought the house. I knew the numbers. An optimistic person would be like, I’m pessimistic. I’m sorry. Man, I just bought a house. I don’t even know what I’m going to do with this house. I just spent $15,000 to put down the 20 % and I got to pay the mortgage. Right? That’s a pessimistic person. You’d see the negative of everything. You never look at the bright side. Optimistic person, which I am, anything I do, I always look at the bright side.

    Quentin (15:06)
    Mmm.

    Gustavo Serpa (15:33)
    no matter what it is.

    Gustavo Serpa (16:15)
    I said, all right, you know what? I’m buying this property. Boom. Long story short, I rented the property for $800. I have it eight years. It’s paid off. Now the mortgage, $1,900. Okay. So you always got to look at the price side. So that was the first investment. I made other investment. So why am I saying this? Because I bought enough investment properties.

    Quentin (16:25)
    Hmm. Hmm. Hmm.

    Gustavo Serpa (16:38)
    I have six in total. I only have two mortgages. So do the math. I have six, two mortgage. So I only, have four investment properties that are paid off. So if the market crashes, the surfer family is okay. Cause I have enough cushion because of discipline. So sorry about the long thin, but that’s how I got into real estate. That’s how I got into investment. That’s your first investment. Long story short, now I’m a broker. I have an office in downtown Tampa, but now I’m all about educating others.

    Empowering others and sharing I don’t mind sharing everything that I went through and giving you all my nuggets and everything and people say why why do do that? Because I know there’s a scene For much is given much is expected I’ve been blessed a lot. So now I got a pass pay it forward and that’s what I’m doing And that’s why I don’t mind having these type of podcasts to educate others and to show others Doesn’t matter where you come from. It doesn’t matter your background as long as you have

    I call it faith, patience, and discipline. You could become whatever you want to become in real estate. And in real estate, it would open so many other doors for you. But Quentin, I’m sorry, I can keep going, but I’m going to stop right there for my intro.

    Quentin (17:53)
    Man, I love it. Thank

    you, Thank you for taking us down the journey. Dagmar, how you make Dagmar, talking about your kids, Katie and Caitlin. I love the story, man. I love, and when you started talking about discipline, mean, hey, listen, you brought God into this. And so I’m just going to go in and quote the scripture. And I’ve quoted it on this podcast before, but there’s a scripture that says, no discipline feels good in the moment.

    But once discipline is finished and it produces, it will produce a life of righteousness and peace. And like you just said, you said, listen, if something happens, the market crashes again, because I got my six investment properties, two mortgages, you have produced a life of righteousness and peace, and peace. And so I thank you for talking about discipline. You and I, share, you know, so much of just putting God first, trusting in God. And it’s a part of who we are, right?

    It’s a part of your business. It’s a part of you as an entrepreneur, as a person. We can’t separate the two. And so I love when we talk about business, but talking about our faith at the same time, because you just can’t separate them. It’s who we are, you know?

    Gustavo Serpa (18:53)
    definitely, definitely.

    You know what,

    Quentin, you know what, corporate America wants you to separate it. And I understood that when I was in corporate America, but once I became an entrepreneur, I said, no way, I’m gonna put God first, no matter, and if somebody’s not feel comfortable, it’s okay, you have that prerogative to walk away. So the lesson I’ll share this too, I’m gonna testify, but I’m also gonna challenge everyone out there. And also you that struggling might think I’m crazy, but I’m gonna,

    throw this out there. I’m going to not this challenge, but I’m going to suggest give 10 % of whatever income you’re coming into your own and do it and say to heavenly father, I’m going to give you 10 % for no one, but here’s what I need from you. And I promised you, he would answer your prayers, not in your time, but in his time. And I’m living proof. I’ve been doing this for 30 years now. It took my wife to meet my wife.

    to put that to practice. And in 30 years I’ve been doing that. When the thins were down, when thins were up or down, and I have not stopped doing that. And it’s funny, every time it happens, I’m blessed. And I’m not talking about financially. I’m talking about your health, about your peace of mind. ⁓ You gotta look at the whole picture. Everybody just focuses on the money side of it, but he blesses you different ways. But let me go inside, because I got my pool guy coming in.

    I’m outside but I’m going to inside. You know what, he can still work. Let’s go ahead. Go ahead, Quentin. Como estamos?

    Quentin (20:32)
    Got you.

    I love it, man. But no, man, you’re absolutely on

    it. That 10 % is an investment, right? Like it’s an investment that you know you’re going to get an amazing return on. And it’s just, you know what to invest in, right? You know where to put your seed, what ground to put it in so that you can reap what you sow. So I get it, But ⁓ listen, I want to ask you this. What are you most focused on or solving next? Like what’s the next real goal for your business?

    Gustavo Serpa (21:03)
    My next goal is to duplicate what I’ve done. I have six. I want to have six more. Cause I don’t know about you guys, but my ultimate goal was always in life. I always wanted to make 15 to 20,000 clean. So I make 15 to 20,000. I am more than comfortable. Meaning I can leave the country for a month on vacation. And last, ⁓

    Couple of years ago we did it. Two years ago, three years ago we went to Italy for a whole month. Okay? We’ve been going on vacation with the family. With all three kids by the way. I didn’t wait till my kids got older. We started going on vacation. Goes back to discipline. One thing I’ll share with you everyone. If you’re not putting down, writing down how much money’s coming in and how much money’s going out, you’re living paycheck to paycheck. You have no idea where your money’s going. But when you put it on paper, or if you do Excel spreadsheet, right?

    It’s much easier, whatever, whatever, however you could see. And by the way, you got to do this as a family. And I’m not talking just adults. If you have kids, kids need to see numbers. You guys a lot think that the kids are not, they’re not ⁓ bright enough. No, they understand numbers. Numbers don’t lie. But if you put down paper and how much money is coming in, how much money now, you’ll be able to say, okay, or family, you guys want to do this? Okay, we’re going to cut here so we could do this. Right.

    Quentin (22:17)
    yeah.

    Gustavo Serpa (22:30)
    So my goal right now, I want to buy five, six investment properties more. And then I’ll be at that 15, 20, without doing anything that I could play, go play pickleball for six hours, eight hours and do whatever or help whoever needs help. And I’m not worrying about, okay, where’s my money coming from? So that’s my goal. But in that journey, I want to take other individuals, those that want to learn about investing, those that want to

    change their way of life, maybe one become a homeowner for the first time in your life. And by the way, becoming a homeowner, you’re investing in yourself, not only in yourself, but in your family because it’s generation. ⁓ You want to build, in my case, I want to build multiple wealth. I’m going to teach my girls. My oldest Kaylee is in college now. When she’s done with college, I’m going to make her first investment under her name. I’m going to teach her and I’m going to say, look, we could either do a fix and flip or you could

    cash flow this and by the way, let me share this when she buys her first investment, it’s either going to be a fix and flip or she’s going to buy a quadplex, maybe a duplex. The reason I want to buy a quadplex. Here’s why. And I wish I would have learned this. My father would have taught me this. Someone would have taught me this because I would have done this back then. Right. When you’re single or you just dating and you don’t have too many responsibilities, this is when you got to take the most risk. So buying a quadplex, you buy one, right?

    Quentin (23:52)
    Thank

    Gustavo Serpa (23:56)
    Let’s say you buy one for $400,000. Well, guess what? The first two is going to pay the mortgage. The third one is going to pay your car, is going to pay your lifestyle and you’re living for free. You do that for one year. You live in there for one year because that’s the rule. You got to be there one year. And after one year you walk away and then all you have another mortgage, another tenant. So now you’ve got four tenants. Now you go buy yourself another property with that tenants money. Not all of it, but most of it. Right.

    Quentin (24:12)
    Yeah, yeah, yeah.

    Gustavo Serpa (24:26)
    That’s called leveraging. That’s called using OPM, other people’s money, OPE, other people’s efforts. So for those investors out there, if you’re single, if you don’t have too many responsibilities, you got to convince the girlfriend, you got to convince the wife, right, to do this, especially if you don’t have no kids, buy yourself a quadplex, make that first investment. And I promise you, you’re going to be better off than buying a single family home. But that’s just food for thought. But that’s my goal is to duplicate what I’ve done.

    Quentin (24:56)
    I love it, man. Listen, time has went super, super fast. We are already up on time. But listen, man, I love everything you said. I think you have given some amazing gems. I think you have given exactly what God wanted you to give to the people, And so listen, man, before we wrap, Gustavo, if someone wanted to reach out to you, collaborate with you, connect with you, what’s the best way for them to reach out to you,

    Gustavo Serpa (25:20)
    I’m gonna get I gotta ask you this question Quentin because I want to ask everyone everyone if everyone could put your answers When do you lose in real estate? When do you lose a race? I’m gonna help you guys out. I’m gonna give you multiple choice number one a when you don’t buy B when you buy at the wrong time or C when you sell at the wrong time or D or the above it’s only one answer What’s the answer?

    Quentin (25:47)
    I say, A man,

    Gustavo Serpa (25:48)
    A?

    Quentin (25:48)
    I say, A

    That’s what I said.

    Gustavo Serpa (25:50)
    All

    right, do I take a couple of minutes? A, when you don’t buy, I’m sorry, Quentin, that’s wrong. If I never bought this Gatorade, how do I know the value of it? How do know if the value went down or up? So when you don’t buy, it doesn’t matter, because you don’t know the value, right? And a lot of people say, oh, when you buy at the wrong time, that’s a bunch of baloney. In 2006, right, the market was up.

    I bought the house in 2006. What happened 2008? Good, if you don’t follow the market. 2008, the market crashed, right? My house, paid $335,000 for it. In 2008, might have been worth $200,000. Guess what? I love when there’s a crisis. I call them chihuahuas. All these chihuahuas, all these experts come out and start talking, right? And people freak out and they start listening. Oh, why are you paying for that mortgage? It’s not even worth it. You’re just paying the bank. You’re throwing your money away.

    In my case, was like, so what? Yeah, my house is only worth $200,000. I’m upside down, but I still got a job. I could pay my mortgage. Why am I freaking out? But too many people freaked out, right? And by the way, the biggest discipline in 2008, you never ever, ever want to buy a house, an investment property with a floating rate. They call it a floating rate. They call it adjustable rate. They call it arm rate. It’s funny.

    How in the US we have like three different words that means the same thing. Variable rate, four words, right? That means the interest rate is not the same. You never wanna buy investment property. It has to be a fixed income. If it does not say fixed income, do not buy that property. Do not buy. There’s an exception, but it’s minimum. Everyone else, you need to buy a fixed interest rate, okay? So now in 2008, the market crashed. My house was not worth, I stayed there, right?

    Quentin (27:22)
    Yeah.

    Gustavo Serpa (27:46)
    Now, why am I saying this? If I bought at the wrong time, if I would have freaked out like everyone else and sold the house, I would have lost my money. I would have lost all that capital. Guess what? I stayed on. And now I’ve been here 19 years. Now my house is worth probably half a million dollars or even more. So you only lose in real estate when you sell at the wrong time. That’s it. And there’s one word. You got to be disciplined. You got to study the market and say, you know what? Now is not the time to sell. I got to hold on to it.

    And the same thing applies with the stock market. But the stock market is different because if a business goes upside down, there’s nothing you could do compared to real estate. You could always hold on to it anyways. But I wanted to share that. But to answer your question, if you want to follow me, just look up Gustavo Serpa at Facebook or Gustavo Serpa on Instagram. And then my phone number is 813-440-7852. You can reach out to me. I’m here in Florida, but I’m willing to help anyone in States or in the world.

    ⁓ But yeah, that’s how you can follow me.

    Quentin (28:48)
    Awesome. Listen, man, I appreciate you so much. I thank you for your time, for your stories, for your perspective. I know that our viewers will get so much value out of this conversation. So Mr. Gustavo, thank you so much again, man. I appreciate you coming through.

    Gustavo Serpa (29:02)
    My pleasure and to finish it off, let me close with this. Never ever worry while people think or say about you. Worry about pleasing God and everyone will fall into place. God bless, best of luck to you guys.

    Quentin (29:16)
    Absolutely. Well, there he is. Listen, you’ve got the value. You know, we’re going to continue to bring up amazing people. Go ahead and hit that subscribe button that way you can come back in and continue to get this amazing content. Mr. Gustavo, thank you so much again and everyone else. We’ll see you on the next time.

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