From Construction Worker to Real Estate Investor | Orlando Marrero’s South Florida Strategy

Orlando Marrero (00:00)
For the single guys, don’t be afraid to take risk, not stupid risk, but risk that sometimes takes you out of your comfort zone. For you guys who have children, be careful not to overextend yourself. Remember, your family is tied into your investments. They can be hurt by them. There was a moment that I made a bad deal and it could have hurt my family if I wouldn’t have, if that was one of my only options. I definitely caution those things. Integrity, don’t cover it up.

Scott Bursey (01:59)
Welcome back to the Real Estate Pros podcast, powered by Investor Field. I’m your host, Scott Bursey. Glad you’re with us. Today we’re joined by Orlando Marrero, the founder of Star Homes. Orlando manages a portfolio of residential and commercial property assets across South Florida. As a skilled contractor who actively rehabs properties, he brings a unique boots on the ground perspective to the table. Listeners, you can expect to learn how to bridge the gap between heavy construction and long-term asset management to scale your portfolios. Orlando, welcome to the show.

Orlando Marrero (02:32)
Well, first, thank you for having me. That’s really a delight. I really appreciate this. Thank you.

Scott Bursey (02:36)
It is our pleasure having you here. And to get our listeners up to speed, please give us the ninety second highlight reel of how your career began and where you’re pouring your fuel now.

Orlando Marrero (02:47)
Wow. Hello to everybody, first of all, that’s listening. Thank you for tuning in. And I’m excited to share my story with you. I come from—I was actually born in Puerto Rico, raised in New York City. I moved to South Florida because I came on vacation for one week, and that one week turned out to be a lifetime now. That’s where I started. I started in construction, doing labor, sweeping floors, and sanding drywall for somebody at six dollars an hour. And that was definitely some hard work and some difficult times, sitting in the back of the pickup truck driving throughout South Florida. I remember those days clearly. After that, I went into the sprinkler business, started digging holes when there was no buildings around. I was digging holes for sprinkler systems, and that was very difficult because South Florida’s sun kills you. That was about six dollars an hour. I saw that these things wasn’t gonna work.

I started to try to level up a little bit by helping more around the construction sites, people giving me opportunities to learn to paint and all those type of things. Once I got my hands on the opportunity to learn, I kept scaling from six dollars to eight dollars to ten to twelve to fifteen to twenty-five to thirty. I got so good at one time when I was working for this one company, and he’s like—it was an Italian guy from New York. If you don’t mind me sharing about him, ’cause it’s a pretty important guy. ‘Cause he shifted the course of my life. And he said to me, “Kid, I’m paying you too much. You’re at $35 an hour, you’re one of the highest paid here, you’re really good at what you do. You’re fired, go start your own company.” That’s what he told me. That was on a Friday. He gave me my money, and Monday I was unemployed. I started looking for jobs. And I landed a painting job for somebody’s small apartment, and that was a referral, another referral.

I started my construction company, and by the time I knew what I was doing, I saw a very ugly house on the corner on the next street from my sister’s house that was just abandoned and ugly with no windows, a hole in the roof, and all these things. And I was brave enough to say, “I’ll take it.” I had to gather $7,000 by working construction during the day, restaurants at nighttime. And I got the house, I put the deposit down, I moved in. Little by little, I started renovating the house. I bought it at $75,000, sold it seven years later for the highest sale in the community at the time, a big whopping $210,000. I made really good money. And my eyes looked at the property next door after that, after being a great neighbor for so many years. So guys out there, be nice to your neighbors. You never know if they’ll sell you the property. My neighbor, I was nice, he sold me the property. Moved in, I renovated, sold it five years later for a really nice chunk of change, and that started my portfolio.

Scott Bursey (06:13)
Wow, what a wild ride, Orlando. That’s incredible, man. What really caught my attention about you was the way you’ve been able to combine the high level strategy of commercial property acquisition with the gritty day to day execution of a contractor. Building on that, given your dual role as both investor and contractor, what is the biggest advantage this gives you in a competitive market like South Florida?

Orlando Marrero (06:40)
I think the biggest advantage I have is that every job is a resume for your next job. It doesn’t matter no matter what job I take, I usually make money. It’s very rare that I don’t. But if I so happen to lose money, I commit to finishing no matter what. And that’s been the biggest difference in South Florida. People here, I don’t know what’s going on, they don’t want to come back and finish the details. They start ghosting the customers. And I hear this all the time, and it’s so not cool. For me, I always took on a position that no matter what job I take, I will finish it. Whether I win or lose, I will still finish it. And that has kept me busy forever. And I actually have to turn down projects simply because of that rule.

Scott Bursey (07:22)
That’s a good rule. We could actually say that’s the golden rule.

Orlando Marrero (07:25)
Well, good.

Scott Bursey (07:27)
Orlando, managing rehabs and holding assets at the same time is a complex operation. What is your biggest bottleneck right now?

Orlando Marrero (07:36)
Biggest bottleneck that I face? There’s two things. We don’t know right now. I literally just yesterday, literally—and this is a big bottleneck because I got the Broward County tax assessment in the mail, and it was $3,500 more than last year. That’s on one property. This uncertainty of what the cities are doing and what’s next, and insurance, it’s just so uncertain. You don’t know who’s gonna hit you with a bill any second. And that’s a big bottleneck. That’s a big problem that I just yesterday—two properties that I opened, they both were assessed way more in taxes. Now I have to figure out what’s going on with the numbers.

Scott Bursey (08:16)
You bet, those question marks. Yeah, it can be frustrating. Interested to hear your thoughts on this: Florida real estate is shifting rapidly. Where do you see the biggest opportunity in growth right now for your portfolio?

Orlando Marrero (09:09)
I believe that as people continue moving more north from Miami and Broward, people want space. Those are opportunities. But at the same time, South Florida, Broward County, Miami-Dade is growing and growing and growing. For me, I think I could stick around and continue to pick up the broken pieces here and benefit from that. I think there’s opportunity no matter where you go. In South Florida, the one thing is that you have to be hands-on in this market. It’s really rare that you can find some competent people that will actually care enough for your money like they care for theirs.

Scott Bursey (09:43)
Are you leaning more into commercial or residential spaces at this moment?

Orlando Marrero (09:48)
I would like to lean more into special commercial, meaning they have to be properties that are in areas that for sure people want to be there, not just a random commercial property that’s somewhere that you have to guess if it’s going to have enough traffic. I’m in the midst of—I have two commercial properties and they’re within one traffic light from each other. And this is Oakland Park Boulevard and you cannot drive through here without sitting in your car for a while. That’s definitely a need. People wanna be here. I think that’s important.

Scott Bursey (10:20)
It most certainly is. Thank you for sharing that perspective. And wondering about this, Orlando: material cost and labor volatility impact everyone in the game. How are you currently mitigating those risks in your rehabs?

Orlando Marrero (10:34)
I happen to be very lucky in the sense that I have a company called Bath Trends. We sell everything from bathroom vanities, tile, plumbing fixtures, and all that stuff. I actually have wholesaling price to play with, so that’s an advantage. And I know what’s happening and trending in the market, which is really, really important. When somebody’s doing a renovation, they’re doing yesterday’s renovation. I’m already in tomorrow’s renovation. That separates me a little bit from other people, which I think is very unique.

Scott Bursey (11:03)
Very unique. Bath Trends in addition to Star Homes.

Orlando Marrero (11:07)
Yes, that is correct. Bath Trends is—I actually just grew it from a 4,000-square-foot store to a 9,000-square-foot store. And we have all the best bathroom fixtures, vanities, like over a hundred on display, and all the smart toilets and plumbing fixtures and all—you can design your whole house in my store. It’s really that cool.

Scott Bursey (11:28)
Yeah, that is. That’s cool. Looking at this from your angle, Orlando, when you’re scaling your assets, what is the most important factor that determines your go or no-go on a deal?

Orlando Marrero (11:40)
Before, I used to go with my gut that I can do anything, right? I can take on any project. I’m not afraid of it, right? I wasn’t. I can jump in any property no matter how ugly it is. But now I think more about how big the project is, how long it’s gonna take, and what the building department is, what roadblocks they’re gonna put before me because they’re the killers in this whole thing. You can find a deal with a nice little cushion, but the building department can kill that cushion right away because they just don’t make it easy. And shoutout to those building departments that want to make it easier. I hope that you all can talk to each other and make it easier for the whole state or whatever, the country, just to get rid of the red tape. Because it would be great if we can have the building department on our side to try to help us navigate and push permits out. That would be amazing.

Scott Bursey (12:29)
Do you tend to focus more on immediate cash flow or the long-term equity play?

Orlando Marrero (12:34)
Right now, I’m more in the long-term equity play because those days that you’re buying properties for really cheap, you just have to have an insight in order to get that done. I look at properties more for long term at this minute.

Scott Bursey (12:49)
And if you could take us down this road, Orlando, what does your professional network look like or what kind of value have you found being in the correct rooms over your career? How has that benefited your operation?

Orlando Marrero (13:04)
In my career, two great people that I met was one, Christian, the gentleman who introduced me to the whole Bath Trends concept, because that made a huge difference in all my renovations and in my flips and all that stuff. And then I met Logan, who actually is a broker, good friend of mine, and he really taught me a lot about real estate—just a lot. I have the passion, the eye, and all that stuff, but the numbers is where the business is. He definitely opened my—this is before ChatGPT. Logan was a ChatGPT for me with financing, because I was limited on all these—everybody has different talents, right? My talents is hands-on and the eye to see a property that’s ugly and I already see it amazing. But he can just tell you the numbers, which that’s where it’s at the end of the day. I had a Logan in my pocket.

Scott Bursey (13:55)
That’s teamwork at its finest.

Orlando Marrero (13:58)
And he was a friend and didn’t charge me for it, which is great.

Scott Bursey (14:01)
And Orlando, thinking about your experience, what is the most critical lesson you’ve learned when scaling a rehab-to-rental portfolio that most people might just overlook?

Orlando Marrero (14:12)
Rehab-to-rental portfolio that most people overlook… I think that most people overlook when it comes to rental portfolios—I think that a lot of times people are afraid to enter. A lot of people overlook having the advantage of properties nearby. Because when you can keep your eye on a property yourself, that’s a huge, huge advantage. And a lot of times I think people overlook this: properties in their own community. And they start looking outside of their communities and then they stretch themselves in ways that it can hurt. That’s been an experience for me. I would say that’s something that people overlook.

Scott Bursey (14:49)
That’s some very good advice, and you like to keep things in one specific region. Are you thinking about continuing to do that or perhaps expanding into other markets?

Orlando Marrero (14:59)
Yeah, for right now, I’m definitely staying in this area. I do like the way the state is moving. It is in favor of homeowners, even with the proposals of taxes and stuff like that. I like common-sense policies. I do appreciate that about Florida, that there’s a lot of common-sense policies. Not perfect, and far from perfect, but there’s at least things that we can work with. So for now, I’m sticking around here. Yeah.

Scott Bursey (15:24)
Thank you for that insight. And Orlando, you have given us a lot of really good insight on the Southern Florida market here today. But is there any other additional words of wisdom or a golden nugget or two you could leave with our listeners?

Orlando Marrero (15:38)
For the single guys, don’t be afraid to take risk, not stupid risk, but risk that sometimes takes you out of your comfort zone. For you guys who have children, be careful not to overextend yourself. Remember, your family is tied into your investments. They can be hurt by them. There was a moment that I made a bad deal and it could have hurt my family if I wouldn’t have—if that was one of my only options. I definitely caution those things. Integrity, don’t cover it up. If it’s wrong, fix it. Like don’t hide it underneath the carpet, fix the property, do the right thing. If you have to charge more for it or take a loss sometimes, it is what it is. But covering things up, it just carries bad karma. I recommend people stay away from that.

Scott Bursey (16:22)
That is powerful. Thank you for sharing that, Orlando. And for those of our listeners that want to keep this conversation moving, stay in your lane, or collaborate with you possibly on future deals, what’s the best way for them to reach you?

Orlando Marrero (16:34)
They definitely could reach me on my Instagram, Orlando Marrero @ studio nine five four (@studio954), which is basically kind of a little bit of a lot of the things that I’m talking about. And definitely you can reach me through Bath Trends here in Fort Lauderdale. It’s a good way. If you need my services, you just mention this podcast. I would definitely help you as much as I can. That would be amazing. Yeah.

Scott Bursey (16:58)
Orlando, thank you so much for joining us today on the Real Estate Pros podcast.

Orlando Marrero (17:02)
Yeah, thank you for having me. I really, really appreciate it and I appreciate your work. Thank you for sharing your wisdom also.

Scott Bursey (17:08)
It’s been a pleasure speaking with you. And to our listeners, we appreciate you. If you received value from today’s episode, please subscribe. We’ll be filling your tanks with a lineup of elite guests, just like Orlando, who are accelerating and setting the pace for the rest of the industry. Until next time, keep your standards high and your vision clear. See you in the next episode, everyone.