From Subprime to Success: Bo Belmont’s Real Estate Journey Revealed

Dylan Silver (00:00.809)
Hey folks, welcome back to another episode of the Real Estate Pros podcast by Investor Fuel, the nation’s premier real estate mastermind. I’m your host, Dylan Silver, and today on the show we have Bo Belmont, who is the founder of Bellwood Investments, an app that makes luxury fractional real estate investing available to everyone, and he’s out there in sunny Newport Beach, California. Beau, welcome to the show.

Bo Belmont (00:26.562)
Dylan, hey, so pleased to be a part of this. Thank you for the invite. Really looking forward to it. Thank you.

Dylan Silver (00:32.309)
Absolutely, and before we hopped on here, the first thing that I said is look at that view. We were talking about boats. I was confused initially which area of the country that you were in because I was getting my coasts confused, but you were telling me that you’ve been out there for three years now, so congrats on your success and that beautiful view behind you.

Bo Belmont (00:51.316)
I know, yeah, it’s not a prop. Those are definitely boats back there. You may see a rowing team cruise by every now and then, but that’s the perks of Newport Beach.

Dylan Silver (01:02.357)
Before we hopped on the podcast here, we were talking about your entry point into the real estate space. I like to ask folks, because everyone sees the end of the journey, it’s not an overnight success at all. I don’t think that is ever the case in real estate. You were talking about fix and flip, lending. How did you get into the real estate space?

Bo Belmont (01:25.006)
Sure. So in the early 2000s, I was recruited by AmeriQuest Mortgage Company and in a subprime lending sector of that business and also portfolio retention and was quite successful at that, became a branch manager and then segue into a couple other brokerages. But in 2007, the market started to crash and I needed to pivot to something else because

subprime lending was just not a thing anymore and that’s when I discovered fixing and flipping homes which wasn’t as popular as it is today.

Dylan Silver (02:05.097)
No, and I think for a lot of folks who are on the outside looking in, you’re flooded with all these different ways to get into real estate. I know I was, you know, and I’m at the point where I’m blessed enough to where I passed my real estate exam yesterday, so now I can go sell homes on the MLS, but before that I was in the wholesale space, and I was doing wholesale because that’s what I saw everywhere, and so it was like everyone’s doing wholesale.

But five, 10 years ago, that wasn’t the case. So when you were doing fix and flip, and even before that, what was the education that you were able to seek out? How did you go about doing it without so much really information as there is today?

Bo Belmont (02:55.086)
Yeah, so great question. I studied, I had a bit of a mentor. There was a gentleman, it was actually my neighbor, quite successful and he had been doing this for many years. He was buying distressed properties, renovating them and selling them. And he actually took me under his wing for a little bit and showed me what to look for, what to stay away from. And I combined that with just jumping in head first into the deep end. I I read books.

I was on YouTube, I was using all of the resources that were at my disposal. I could get my hands on. But it wasn’t anything like today. Today you have so many courses you can get your hands on and be a part of. But to tell you the truth, it was a brutal battle for me to learn it on my own. But I did it, I did it. was successful at it and it gained a lot of attention from my friends.

Dylan Silver (03:51.605)
When you were in that space, mentioned, I believe you mentioned a neighbor. How did that come about? Was it divine intervention? Was it, were you having a conversation one day? Or did you always know that he was involved and said, hey neighbor, know, I’m actually looking to do this myself.

Bo Belmont (04:08.29)
Great question. So, so his name is Dan and Dan and I were friends and are still are. He moved away, but what I was doing, I was lending. So there was always communication regarding real estate and what I was doing and what he was doing at the time when I was lending, I was, I was doing so well that I didn’t even care what he was doing. I just said, okay, cool. That, that sounds fun. I’m not in construction, so it really didn’t cross my mind.

But what happened was when the market crashed, I saw some of the homes that I was lending to that were now one third of the cost. My first flip actually was right down the street. I just lent $500,000 on this home in Sacramento and now is for sale for 175,000.

Dylan Silver (04:59.698)
my gosh.

Bo Belmont (05:00.94)
and I saw an opportunity there, even in a declining market, to say, you know what, I’m able to pick this up for a relatively low, low price, put some money into it like what Dan is doing, and then sell it for an affordable price compared to what they were going for just a couple months prior to that. So I reached out to Dan and I said,

I said, this house, it’s really affordable. You know, what type of costs are associated with, with making this thing beautiful again, because it’s got a hole in the roof. It’s got squatters in there. It’s got all the gross things that you can imagine on a entry level fix and flip home. And he walked me through it and he said, you know, Hey, this one is a great, great property. doesn’t have any foundation issues. you’re to have some pest work. You definitely have to do all the finish work. But at the end of the day, he,

really guided me through that first property. And then I just coupled that with some of the things I was reading online and I was at Barnes and Noble literally looking up construction. But I did it myself, Dylan. I did all of the work myself just so I could learn.

what it costs and the time associated with this project. That way, the next project I could hire people and everybody knows that contractors, there’s no fixed price associated with certain trades. So if you don’t know how much time and cost are associated with a trade, then how are you able to hold a contractor accountable to stay within your budget?

Dylan Silver (06:32.757)
Yeah, I mean, there’s so much there and you dove in head first. That first flip, do you remember it well? Do you remember kind of the issues that came up and were you swinging a hammer physically or was there a crew out there with you?

Bo Belmont (06:37.698)
Yeah.

Bo Belmont (06:46.854)
You know, I was swinging the hammer. I did the roof. I did the stucco. I did the cabinetry. I did the flooring. I even did some electrical work. I learned about red tags. I learned about, you know, getting all the permits in line prior to starting construction. But, you know, it’s surprising. Back then it was a little bit different. The inspectors wanted to work with me because I just told them, I said, this is my first project. I really don’t know what I’m doing. I’m learning.

and they actually helped me quite a bit. Sometimes the inspectors are for you, sometimes they’re against you, and this time they were for me. So they guided me through it. The house, when you turned on some lights, there was some buzzing noises, but it still passed inspection, and I was able to exit that one successfully.

Dylan Silver (07:35.797)
You know, I don’t have any deeds in my name yet, but hopefully soon here, God willing. the idea of swinging a hammer for me was totally like, I have no idea what I’m doing, you know? But I’ve gone now, just to seek out opportunity, I’ve gone to Fix and Flips, and I have a mentor here in the DFW Metro who’s let me participate in some of the demos before the flip. So some of these are wild, like.

Bo Belmont (07:58.679)
Yeah.

Dylan Silver (08:03.699)
you know, foaming the foundation to raise it up and like I didn’t even know you could do something like you just tear down a wall and then you’re seeing more issues and more. And so I can’t even imagine going through that process that first time, you know, on your before everything is where it is today. I’m I’m sure you ran into issues which were like confounding, but you just knew through your mentor, Dan, I believe you said his name was and through, you know, sheer will you were going to get through it.

Bo Belmont (08:34.178)
Well, you know what I looked at Dylan was I looked at the contractors and spoke with the contractors and they didn’t have any crazy skillset that that I wasn’t able to deploy. They didn’t have a doctorate degree. They didn’t have a master’s. They, you know, were just a hardworking human. And with the tools that I was using, not physical tools, but just like learning online and reading, I realized that it wasn’t super

complicated and then as far as physical tools there was a tool for everything and To make that job easier. So from going to drywall, you know installing insulation You know roofing and coil guns and framing nail nailers I mean, there’s a perfect tool for that job and If you dive in headfirst you realize that it’s not overly complicated there is

there’s a method to everything. You just have to do it. Every journey begins with one step. And so I just took that step and did it myself. But it was that education. It was the hands-on that really gave me a solid footing to where I was able to scale from there. I was able to now hold contractors accountable. There was no more contractors coming to me and say, well, we tore down that wall and boy, you wouldn’t believe it. There was XYZ.

behind there and but with my education now after learning I can say no no no I know what’s behind that wall there’s some insulation there’s some Romex wire there may be some copper you know plumbing but

Other than that, I don’t see why this would cost me an extra $5,000. And so you deal with contractors that are always trying, not all of them, but a lot of them, are always trying to up the ante a little bit. And if you don’t have that expertise or that experience, then it could eat all of the profit out of that project really quickly.

Dylan Silver (10:41.205)
100%, you know, my mentor in this space, I’m like, how do you know how to do this? Because he’s not swinging a hammer. I’m like, well, you know, he came from a finance background. I’m like, how? He was like, well, when I was 19, I worked on a roofing crew. And I just kind of figured it out when I did my first flip, much like you. And so I’m like, dude, you’re so good at this. You could be a general contractor, like working for others. Like your flips are beautiful. And you just taught yourself this, much like you, Beau. And so…

you know, that growth is really impressive. And I think it’s a testament to that. If you seek the information, if you’re willing to put in the man hours and you you can figure it out, which leads me to my next question here for you, Bo. The growth from fixing, you go from the mortgage industry to fixing and flipping, and then, you know, to today where that you have luxury fractional real estate investing app. I know we’re talking about lots of time here, but connect the dots for us. How did you go from

fixing and flipping to where you are today.

Bo Belmont (11:42.83)
Yeah, great question. So at the time, in 2000, 2007, 2008, there were no HGTV channels talking about, you know, fix and flip zombie house, you know, nightmare house. There was none of that.

But when I got into it and I actually flipped my first house, it really gained the attention of a lot of my friends and they said, Hey, Bo, man, what you’re doing is amazing. You just made an extra 100 grand in six months. I want to do that. And I told them, you know, quite frankly, said, well, then you’re going to need to quit your job. You’re going to need to cash in your 401k, roll the dice and best of luck to you. You’re going to need to study a little bit. And of course their answer was absolutely not. I,

I need my career, I have a family to support, but I do have some capital I can disperse. So how can we do this together? And so at the time, I was doing several flips on my own and I was able to partner with some of my friends. And I told them back then, said, okay, I’m getting a hard money loan to pay for half the purchase price. I have to come up with the other half of the purchase price plus all the construction costs and

carrying costs. I’ll get the hard money loan, you get the rest of the money.

We’ll do a joint venture. We’ll do this together. We’ll sell it. We’ll split the profits evenly. Everybody’s happy. So that worked out tremendously and that gained more attention from more friends and more family members. And it really blossomed into what we have now, which is a fractional real estate investment platform with over 6,000 friends, if you will, that all enjoy the

Bo Belmont (13:34.548)
aspects of flipping homes but just don’t have the time, money, or resources. And the app was created, Dylan, to streamline the entire process because as I started flipping homes with friends and family and loved ones and even associates of them,

There needed to be constant communication. There needed to be updates. They wanted to know what’s going on with the house. When is it closing? Is there a new roof being put on? There needed to be transparency. And in this market, in investing in real estate, the transparency is one of the most critical parts, but there was a huge lack of that. that’s, you know, fast forward 2018 when I started Bellwood and really focused on fractional real

state investing through our platform, I was able to not only showcase the homes that we were potentially buying to provide an opportunity for them to invest, but then once we closed on those properties to provide updates to our investors.

showing them exactly what’s going on. So there wasn’t constant emails coming to me and our departments and our teams asking what’s going on. We were ahead of the curve saying, Hey, next week there’s going to be a new roof and next week we’re going to market. Next week we close escrow. Next week funds are dispersed from escrow and congratulations. Every step of the way we were able to and are able to update our investors as to what’s going on with the project.

project.

Dylan Silver (15:10.741)
So when you decide, mean, there’s pretty incredible to have this type of platform. Really, it sounds like an organic growth, because you just had so many people who saw what you were doing. You didn’t have that necessarily. You figured it out on your own, but you’re there to make sure that people have someone to shadow when they’re doing their flips effectively. And then I’m imagining, maybe it wasn’t this straightforward, but I’m sure it wasn’t probably, but you saw that there is people who don’t necessarily

want to be swinging a hammer, but they love the idea of partaking in this process. How can I facilitate that? What is there out there? You probably looked at the landscape and like, there’s really not any, I mean, you could send money to someone’s bank account, but how trustworthy do they feel like that is, you know, you could Venmo them, but like, then what happens, right? And so was, are these thoughts thoughts that you were having? Like what, what, what tools are out there for this?

Bo Belmont (16:08.406)
Exactly. Great point there, Dylan. So what we did was we took it a step further because that is one of the biggest concerns with real estate investing, especially joint ventures or partnering with somebody is, what’s this, how is my money going to be secured? How do we know that this investment company or this contractor or whomever is involved with this transaction isn’t going to take the money and run, isn’t going to perform their duties to really take that home to the finish line.

So we wanted again to stay ahead of the curve and give people the opportunity to stay abreast every step of the way. as far as securing their funds, right, instead of Venmoing me money, instead of, you know, cash in hand or anything like that, what we wanted to do is securitize it. So instead of investors sending us their money, they actually send it to an escrow company and then their funds are secured with a deed of trust on

that property. What that does is it eliminates us from being able to, or any other investment company if they were to deploy this type of security measure, from just taking their funds and buying a Ferrari or buying a boat, you know, which happens. I hear so many horror stories and I wanted our investors to never have to feel that. So when we find a property and an investor wants to participate in it, there’s no sending us cash.

It goes directly to an escrow company. It’s secured with a deed of trust and we secure multiple deeds of trust on our Malibu property. We have over 500 deeds of trust on that specific property, all securing their investment. And that is a unique and proprietary thing to Bellwood. are no other companies in the world that do what we do.

Dylan Silver (18:00.007)
Now, you talked about 500 deeds of trust. So these are 500 individual investors and they are, they have an interest in this Malibu property. Is that correct?

Bo Belmont (18:11.628)
Yes, absolutely.

Dylan Silver (18:13.237)
Okay, and then from there, are all of the projects that they’re investing in, are these projects that you and your team are overseeing the flipping of, or are there a number of folks who are part of that flipping process?

Bo Belmont (18:31.052)
So, so what we do is, is we actually manage general contractors. So we’re not a construction company. We don’t want to be a construction company, but in the early 2000s and 2007, 2008, it really gave me the basis to be able to identify the costs associated with, with a project. But now that we’ve come so far and we have hundreds of projects and, and, and they’re ultra luxury, it really demands the quality and consistency of a

top general contractor. So here at Bellwood, we have a team of construction managers that just manage these GCs, holding them accountable to timeframes, holding them accountable to budgets. And this is what allows us to continue to scale. We’re also partnered with Home Depot, which is a unique relationship where we have access to their general contractors. So for instance, if you go into Home Depot and you see the flooring and it says,

install it for you or the hot water heater, we’ll install it for you. These are general contractors in that area of that Home Depot that have been vetted and have been proven to be quality contractors in that area. So what we have access is to those folks. So wherever you see a Home Depot is where Bellwood can scale to.

Dylan Silver (19:54.239)
Help me connect some of the dots here, Beau, because this is so new to me and to our audience that I think most people just aren’t aware that they have this as an investment tool. I’ve heard of fractional shares of stock, right? I’ve never heard of fractional real estate investing. It’s super cool. So your company, Bellwood Investments, will manage the contractors, making sure that there’s no unscrupulous actors and that they’re on time and on budget.

They’re also facilitating the investment from the investors themselves. And like you mentioned, Malibu property, 500 deeds of trust, 500 investors. Are you also finding the properties and how are the properties getting onto the platform?

Bo Belmont (20:39.83)
Another great question. So we actually work with realtors nationwide who provide us inventory. And we have another app called the Bellwood agent app. We have two apps, the Bellwood investor app and the Bellwood agent app. The Bellwood agent app allows agents around the United States to source real estate investments, submit them through our application. They go through our underwriting process. And if the purchase price is approved, the agent that submitted that property is able to represent

Bellwood as our agent and collect the commission associated with that transaction. But it doesn’t just end there. We actually finish that property and we give it right back to that agent to sell again. agents that work with us make a minimum of two commissions on their properties. you know, for agents right now, last year I believe it was 47 % of agents didn’t sell a property, but our agents were really consistent and not only were they consistent, but they doubled

Dylan Silver (21:22.89)
Wow.

Bo Belmont (21:39.716)
their income. So as you can imagine we have a lot of hungry agents out there that really utilize this platform and send us inventory consistently. So that’s how we find our properties and we’re able to take those properties once they’re vetted and then put them on our investor app, the Bellwood Investor app, where our investors are able to go on there explore which opportunities they would like to invest and then put an offer in and move forward.

Dylan Silver (22:07.977)
Bo, you said a couple of things that piqued my interest there. The agents, you raise a good point with agents who aren’t necessarily, are not producing at all, really. I just sat for my real estate license exam yesterday, passed, thank God. But thank you, thank you. We’ll see me out here hopefully selling some homes here in the DFW Metro. But to your point, there’s a lot of agents who…

Bo Belmont (22:25.496)
Congratulations.

Dylan Silver (22:36.543)
probably stay away from kind of the distressed area. Where I would imagine that’s kind of where folks can make their money is in the distressed property in a good area that no one wants to touch. Well, here we can pool 500 people together and make a utility out of this where otherwise people are not touching it.

Bo Belmont (23:03.594)
Exactly. You hit the nail on the head. So we’re all about restoring communities. you know, there’s a significant impact on the environment with new construction and also there’s a lack of inventory, but what people seem to want and which is fairly common is the, is what I call the new car smell, right? They want a new car rather than buying a used car. And that just goes the same way as, as real estate. However, what we’re able to do is identify

homes in mature neighborhoods, know, quarter acre lots with fruit trees and neighbors that have been there consistently, houses that aren’t stacked up next to each other. And we’re able to take that product and improve it to where it does have that new car smell. So we’re not only improving the communities, but we’re also empowering these communities to invest in themselves. Right? So Bellwood should be and will be a household name for all neighborhoods.

when let’s say there’s a home down the street and it’s overgrown and then all the neighbors know who lives there and and they know that they’re in trouble and they can’t afford the home or they need to go to Assisted living. I mean we hear about it all the time. There’s death in the family There’s you know tragedy that happens. Sometimes people just need to exit that property because they can’t afford it Well now the community Utilizing Bellwood can invest in their own community

improve it, bring up the values and make an ROI rather than let’s say BlackRock or Blackstone coming in, buying it and renting it out. This is an opportunity for the community to get together, improve their own and make money at it.

Dylan Silver (24:50.377)
You know, Bo, this is such a new thing. I’m smiling over here because I’m thinking, can I call my friends and say, hey, let’s invest together through Bellwood. Without giving away all the game here, Bo, what’s the minimum investment that people can make on these fractional properties?

Bo Belmont (25:10.444)
Yeah, great question. So the, the Malibu house, which is, was formerly owned by Kanye West. We actually set that minimum investment at $1,000. We had again, over 500 people, some at over a million and a lot at a thousand dollars. So our whole goal Dylan is to democratize luxury real estate investing, bringing it to everybody, not just the top 0.01%. Right? These are attractive products for the world. There’s a reason.

why there are 30 different HGTV channels talking about the same thing, just packaging it differently. But the access to these things, this market, is so limited. You have to have a lot of money, a lot of experience, and so we wanted to fully democratize that opportunity.

Dylan Silver (25:59.241)
can almost hear in the background people saying almost like this is like in effect a Robin Hood in a way because

Bo Belmont (26:08.756)
Exactly what we call ourselves. We are the Robin Hood of real estate. Yep.

Dylan Silver (26:12.981)
I’m glad that you feel that same way. I didn’t want to come off the wrong way because people really I know a lot of people, know, millennials, Gen Z really feel like, know, with everything, how am I supposed to partake in this while I’m young? You know, I love to have a homestead. But beyond that, like I want to partake in real estate now. How can I do that? I’ve heard a lot of people in Texas talking about land and mobile homes. I didn’t even know that there was a vehicle for fractional. This is the first time I’ve heard that.

fractional real estate investing. I’m in Texas. Can I fractionally invest in something in California through your platform?

Bo Belmont (26:51.264)
Absolutely, we have investors from all over the world and as a matter of fact, we are global. We have properties in Greece. We have investors from Canada. We have investors from Australia. We have investors from everywhere. All of them want or have an urge to invest in real estate. So when we have a product in Beverly Hills, which we have several, this is a very popular name around the world. It’s not just popular in California. People understand Beverly Hills. They understand

Hollywood they understand Malibu but could you imagine being in let’s just say Greece and you know having an opportunity to invest in a product that you only see on TV that you only see on selling sunset or selling OC these are the products that we’re able to bring to the world and it doesn’t matter your location and as a matter of fact people are actually able to use cryptocurrency with Bellwood investments as well

Dylan Silver (27:48.405)
This is so, I mean, I’m smiling from ear to ear, because I have a buddy, Matt, who’s my good buddy. I’m in DFW, he’s in San Antonio. I moved out to Dallas last September, really, to pursue a real estate career, because I know that this is the, by far, this is the hottest market in Texas. And so, my buddy who’s in San Antonio, I said, you gotta go get your license too, so that we can talk shop, and he actually is going. So he went to Champion School in San Antonio yesterday for the first time.

Bo Belmont (28:04.813)
Nice.

Dylan Silver (28:16.309)
As soon as I get off here, I’m gonna tell him, I know that we’re both saving money. Did you know we can fractionally invest in real estate in California like now? You know, with as little as $1,000. I think he’s gonna be blown away by that. But Bo, we are coming up on time here. Where can folks go to get a hold of you?

Bo Belmont (28:37.24)
Sure, yeah, you can reach out to us via our Bellwood Investor app. It’s in the Google and Apple store and it’s free. There’s no cost associated with that. If you’re an agent and you want to submit properties, it’s the Bellwood Agent app. But for most folks who want to, like you and your friend, invest in luxury real estate, the Bellwood Agent app is going to be your ticket and that’s Bellwood with one L. And then of course, you can reach

out to me personally via email and my email is Bo Bo at the big co.org Bo at the big co.org I would love to hear from you guys

Dylan Silver (29:19.679)
Well folks, I think if you’re listening to this and your ears are perking up like me and you’re realizing I can fractionally invest in real estate and your light bulbs are going off, you’re thinking maybe I should call my friend just like I’m thinking about my buddy Matt. Check out the Bellwood Investor and Bellwood Agent apps for those agents out there and you can fractionally invest in luxury real estate throughout the country and the world even if you’re outside of the country. That’s an amazing tool.

to have Bo. Thank you for coming on the show. And until next time, guys, this has been the Real Estate Pros podcast by Investor Fuel and thank you for tuning in.

Bo Belmont (30:01.048)
Thank you Dylan, it’s been a pleasure. You take care.