From Marine Raider to Real Estate Developer|How Avery Washington developed 113 Townhome Community in NC

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Show Summary

In this conversation, Avery Washington, a former Marine Raider turned real estate developer, shares his journey into the real estate market in North Carolina. He discusses the booming real estate environment in the Carolinas, his transition from being a broker to a developer, and the intricacies of raising capital and navigating municipal regulations. Avery emphasizes the importance of understanding different roles in development and shares insights on acquisition strategies for real estate projects.

Resources and Links from this show:

• • • Investor Fuel Real Estate Mastermind
    • Investor Machine Real Estate Lead Generation
    • Mike on Facebook
    • Mike on Instagram
    • Mike on LinkedIn
    • Avery Washington’s Email: [email protected]
    • Avery Washington’s Phone Number: (910) 787-0877
    • Continental Ground Inc. on Instagram
    • Continental-Ground’s Website
    • Continental-Ground on Facebook
    • Continental-Ground on Youtube

  Listen to the Audio Version of this Episode

  Investor Fuel Show Transcript:

  Avery Washington (00:00)
  very intentional, leading me to happenstance and divine intervention. So when everybody had all the time in the world sitting in their house throughout 2020, during this year specifically, for some reason, I just knew money would not be super inexpensive forever. And there would be a tipping point where the average person buying a home, their mortgage would be more than the average rent for the same product.

  Dylan Silver (00:05)
  Okay.

  Avery Washington (00:29)
  I don’t know why I understood that, but I did. And I also knew, well, if I make four homes a year, I’ll make the same amount as if I sold 40 homes in a year. So that was where it began.

  Dylan Silver (02:13)
  Hey folks, welcome back to the show. Today’s guest Avery Washington is a former Marine Raider turned real estate developer based out of Jacksonville, North Carolina. You can find them online at continental-ground.com. Avery, thanks for taking the time today.

  Avery Washington (02:29)
  Thank you for having me, I appreciate it.

  Dylan Silver (02:32)
  Now we were talking before hopping on North Carolina. The Carolinas in general seem to be right now really hot area for real estate investors and really for folks who are moving to the Carolinas as well. It seems like just a great place to be for everyone who’s involved in real estate.

  Avery Washington (02:50)
  Absolutely. I would say the government, both state and in the local municipalities, they’ve done a great job of drawing job creators to the state. And then the cost of living and the weather has helped keep people.

  Dylan Silver (03:06)
  No question about that, right? mean, there’s so much that the Carolinas have to offer. You’re in the development space. One of the things that I’ve noticed specifically about the Carolinas is it seems to have a little bit of everything, right? It’s literally physically East Coast, but a lot of times culturally you might associate the Carolinas more culturally with being part of some of the southern US, right? And you’ll have country music and you’ll also have more open land than you would say in the tri-state area.

  Avery Washington (03:14)
  Mm-hmm.

  Dylan Silver (03:36)
  When we talk about development specifically, I think that that bodes well for folks who are doing that in the Carolinas. How did you get into the development side?

  Avery Washington (03:44)
  So I initially I was a broker after being an investor for some time that started 2013. And then for some reason, I just came to the realization that I needed to start creating inventory versus as a broker helping people either buy other people’s inventory or sell their inventory. And it started with curiosity, having to cross paths with someone who worked for a large scale development firm.

  and they shared some insights with me that led to me partnering with them on a project as a broker, essentially finding a site, placing it under contract, had the opportunity to learn while doing. And I just kept running from there as I picked things up and started to understand them better.

  Dylan Silver (04:33)
  Let me actually back up here a little bit. So you’re a real estate broker before you were a developer.

  Avery Washington (04:39)
  Correct.

  Dylan Silver (04:40)
  Now, ⁓ as a broker, was your focus working with investors or were you, you what most brokers are doing, which is the single family space.

  Avery Washington (04:50)
  Honestly, it was a bit of all the above. I started investing about six years before I got my license as a broker. Initially, I thought that that would be my niche where I would just work with investors. But honestly, what I found challenging was as someone who had some experience, you’d find these home run deals, you’d put them in front of people and you would hear the, I don’t.

  talk to somebody and that’s super frustrating as someone who’s operating just watching all some opportunities pass by. So I ended up backing away from that a little bit unless I already had a really good relationship and just focusing on traditional brokerage more or less until I started doing development.

  Dylan Silver (05:39)
  Now, getting into development, you mentioned one deal that you had. Walk us through that. Was this very intentional? Were you thinking, I’m going to become a developer? Or was this a little bit of happenstance and a little bit of divine intervention helping you get into the development space?

  Avery Washington (06:44)
  very intentional, leading me to happenstance and divine intervention. So when everybody had all the time in the world sitting in their house throughout 2020, during this year specifically, for some reason, I just knew money would not be super inexpensive forever. And there would be a tipping point where the average person buying a home, their mortgage would be more than the average rent for the same product.

  Dylan Silver (06:49)
  Okay.

  Avery Washington (07:13)
  I don’t know why I understood that, but I did. And I also knew, well, if I make four homes a year, I’ll make the same amount as if I sold 40 homes in a year. So that was where it began.

  And so I watched everything on YouTube I could find about development and I didn’t understand it at all. It may as well have been just doing magic tricks as far as I was concerned. And I ended up going to a networking event.

  It was a veterans networking event. And one of the guys there worked for a large scale development firm that was local to the area. And he said, we just closed on this property. If you want, I’ll meet you on site. We’re about to start breaking ground to do the civil construction. If you want, we can walk through the site. I’ll talk to you about what we’re doing. So I took him up on that. And a part of that was when he said what he did, I took the time to introduce myself.

  And I said almost exactly what I just told you. said, look, man, I’ve been trying to learn how to do this via YouTube university for about 10 months. And I used to be a diver when I was in the Marines. And it’s like, you might as well be explaining to me how the inside of our rebreather works. The diving rig that doesn’t emit any bubbles. The older one, it was like a leather bag and kitty litter in a canister. It’s like, may as well be magic, right?

  So he took me up on walking the site. So we went down there. I walked the site with him. It was a few hundred acres. It was a sod farm and they hadn’t even started clearing. It was just grass and ditches and trees. And he starts going through what I now understand to be the construction drawings or yeah, construction drawings. And for some reason it just like clicked. And so from that meeting, I was able to understand enough to find sites and start evaluating them.

  And that led to him presenting those sites to builders. And then he ended up finding a capital partner that I was able to participate in a project with that we ended up exiting at this point in late 2024. Ended up being 113 townhome site and two commercial out parcels in Holly Ridge, North Carolina. Ironically, right across from

  the drop zone where I used to do jump operations all the time. So it’s pretty cool. It’s a good full circle moment.

  Dylan Silver (09:40)
  That’s right, big military

  presence in the Carolinas, from what I understand. Is it Fort Bragg that’s out there? Is that right?

  Avery Washington (09:44)
  Absolutely. ⁓

  No, so Fort Bragg is in Fayetteville, Camp Lejeune is in the Jacksonville, Onzell County area.

  Dylan Silver (09:57)
  Okay, okay. So still still a big presence out there. I want to pivot to the development portion of it and ask you some granular questions about the lifecycle of these deals. So when we’re talking about, you you’re talking, you know, 100 plus, I think it was townhomes that you said mentioned, right? This is something that’s going to require a lot of capital. I’m imagining you’re working with investors as well through this time period.

  Was this was that something that was new to you as well? You know, working with investors and then also to, you know, raising capital.

  Avery Washington (11:04)
  Absolutely. So short answer is yes. I still consider myself to be learning about raising capital because as I progress in what I’m doing, the scale is changing, the complexity is changing. So there are details that I’m wrapping my head around how to go about certain things that I’ve never had to before. And as an investor, I had raised capital before.

  But in this instance with that project, was the first time I had a capital partner where that was their role, essentially was to make sure everything made sense on the economic side and to foot the bill. That was a pretty sweet deal. So that’s not an everyday thing. I didn’t even get a second go around at that. They realized it was a little bit too sweet of a deal, but I still partner with those folks now on projects as well. It’s just not the same roles as we previously had.

  Dylan Silver (12:00)
  I’d like to get a little bit granular and talk about, know, for folks who are looking to get into development, let’s say, you know, wherever they are in the country, I know it’s going to be different based on where they are regionally. Should they have to come in with an understanding of raising capital or can they focus on, I’m going to partner with someone who understands that very well, and I’m going to focus on the acquisitions and on managing the crews and on putting up, you know, ground up construction.

  Avery Washington (12:27)
  I don’t think if they’re trying to make their way in, then no. And a part of the reason I say that is because I think it’s important to figure out what role within the process you are most capable of contributing to. So even now, as someone with a few exits behind them, I don’t think I am the best at raising capital. So now I even look for people who I think are better at networking than me.

  Marketing, you know the natural marketer where they they’re like, hey, I know a guy you got to meet this guy That’s the person who’s good at raising money. They just know people everywhere for no reason doing everything I’m not that person at all Right. So I recognize that and I find a way to partner with them in their specific role the way they can contribute So you you need to learn about the process?

  Dylan Silver (13:09)
  Yeah.

  Avery Washington (13:22)
  try to dip your toe into the different roles to figure out what you have the highest aptitude for, and then find someone who will allow that to be your contribution so that you can gain experience because this is definitely the difference between reading about swim, swimming, and then getting in a pool, right? It’s like you think you know everything to your waist deep and walking forward. So absolutely. So yeah.

  Dylan Silver (13:42)
  Yeah.

  That’s right. You better be able to float. Now, I do

  want to ask you about working with municipalities and getting permits for these deals. And then as well, I’ve heard kind of a mixed bag from developers when it comes to access to capital in general. I know that this isn’t, you mentioned like your forte. This isn’t what you’re focused on 100 % of the time. But I’ve heard developers say you’re never going to get

  money from the local government to develop a project. And then I’ve heard developers say, you know, there is occasions where there’s actually funds set aside for projects. And if you can tap into that, then you can really have a successful business because there’s only a handful of people that, you know, would even be able to ⁓ have that type of partnership. And you also may need some additional accreditations for that as well. What’s been your experience working with, you know, local government bodies and permits and the like?

  Avery Washington (14:39)
  Mm-hmm.

  Absolutely. So one, it definitely depends on the municipality, right? There are different levels of efficiency, software, technology, processes that you’re dealing with. That’s one part of it. The other part of it is, in my experience, I’ve never gotten money from a municipality, but I’ve definitely seen on more than one occasion on large scale and small scale projects where it is available, where they’re doing

  an affordable housing initiative where local builders are building individual single family homes. And there’s essentially a structure where let’s say if it doesn’t sell in a certain period of time, the city will buy it and then sell the property later. Or where there are developers doing a large scale project and they’re coordinating directly with the city to get a certain amount of grant money because the city wants a certain percentage of affordable housing or a museum or a library.

  things that nature. So I’m definitely observing it. It’s just, you also have to be honest about what is going on in whatever market you’re in, right? You can’t just try to impose your will to get taxpayer dollars. You have to recognize, hey, there’s a demand in this place. So if I want to get these things, this is where I need to go to get my hands on them. But out here in the middle of wherever, no one’s given any money up.

  So I need to either be creative or get good at capital raising or fund out of pocket.

  Dylan Silver (17:02)
  Where are these acquisitions coming from? Are you finding open land on market? I’ve even heard people purchasing land from the government in some cases. I’ve heard people knowing a seller directly and saying, hey, I know that you have this land out here. Could we develop on it, ⁓ equity share potentially, or just buy the land outright?

  Avery Washington (17:26)
  Mm-hmm. A little bit of everywhere. I’ve acquired sites from wholesalers, for sale by owners, the MLS, cold calling, literally all the above. ⁓ All the above. Yep.

  Dylan Silver (17:38)
  Okay, okay. guess there’s a fair spread, right? It’s not one source.

  It’s everything. ⁓ We actually are coming up on on time here though, Avery, any new projects that you’re working on and then as well, what’s the best way for folks to get in contact with you or your team?

  Avery Washington (17:53)
  Absolutely, I would say the easiest way to get in contact with me is just shooting me a text 910-787-0877 or if you go to the website and input your contact info at the bottom of it I’ll get that via email as well and the email address is realestate at continental-ground.com

  Dylan Silver (18:21)
  Avery, thank you so much for taking the time today. Thanks for coming on the show.

  Avery Washington (18:25)
  Likewise, thank you, I appreciate it.