From Tech to Real Estate: Building Rentals, New Construction, and a Plumbing Business

Steve (00:00)
So it’s funny, I tell all my people, embrace the chaos.

Quentin (00:05)
Yeah.

Steve (00:07)
There has never been a moment I can think of that there wasn’t chaos. You you listen to a lot of podcasts and a lot of videos and people will tell you, okay, it’s a straight line from here to here and it’s going to go smoothly. Well, I’m here to tell you, if you don’t have sleepless nights, you’re doing something wrong. You know, it’s a sad statement, but you know, if everything’s going right, you probably need to be doing something more different.

Quentin (02:09)
Hello everyone. Welcome to the Real Estate Pros podcast. I am your host, Q Edmonds. And you know, I always got a smile on my face, but you can see my smile is probably a little bit wider today. You probably know why. Because when I got people from my neck of the woods, that’s when I really light up. And so I’ll let him talk more about it, but this gentleman is from my neck of the woods and I appreciate him being here. And listen, we’re going to learn a lot.

We’re going to learn a lot today. This gentleman is multifaceted. And so, you know, I ask questions and allow him to answer the way he wants. But I’m interested to see the journey that he’s going to take us in. And one thing I know for sure that we’re going to learn from his experience. And so I’m so excited to introduce you all to Mr. Steve Mandelbaum Mandelbaum Mandelbaum. How did I do that? Did I correct it? Did I correct that autocorrect?

Steve (02:59)
Yeah

Yeah, you recovered. You recovered.

You’re good.

Quentin (03:08)
Appreciate that. Mr. Steve, sir, how you doing today, Good, good, man. Listen, I’m so glad you’re here. Mr. Steve, I am the type. I do like to dive right in. And so I would love for you to tell the people what’s your main focus these days. If you don’t mind, give us a little bit of an origin story, kind of how you got into the space that you’re in.

Steve (03:11)
I am well, thank you.

Quentin (03:31)
And then man, tell them what part of the world you’re in. People love to know where people are geographically. so, Steve, sir, you have the floor, my friend.

Steve (03:38)
All right, thank you. appreciate you having me on today. So my path is not a straight one. I have kind of been in a lot of different places and it’s my story, right? And I’m sticking to it. So briefly, I started in New York, went to the University of Maryland, lived in Maryland, down the street, right? For about 20 years. And then for a number of reasons, migrated south, moved to Jacksonville, Florida. Just a quick side note.

Quentin (03:58)
Yeah.

Steve (04:08)
Jacksonville is terrific, but you wouldn’t like it, don’t come. Right. It’s, it’s a hidden gem is really what it is specific to the real estate market. It’s really interesting. We regularly show up in all kinds of lists of this and that. So in the same quarter last year, we got a best city for first time home buyers. And about three months later, you know, it became, one of the worst real estate markets in the country. You know,

Quentin (04:11)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Steve (04:38)
So anyway, I do live in Jacksonville now, particularly like it, but how did I get here? So after I finished school, ⁓ I went into tech. I was working for big tech and it was a lot of fun. It was good. And I did it for a pretty long time. And then it stopped being as much fun as it was. So I kind of migrated over and started doing real estate work. bought some, the wife and I bought a couple of properties.

and started renting them and I was still kind of working in tech. But it became clear to me that some of the challenges that we were having was finding qualified contractors and people to do the work. So it was a case of I couldn’t find it, so I built it myself. So I got a State of Florida license for building. And then three years later, I got a State of Florida plumbing license for the same reason. So we were doing

Quentin (05:24)
Yeah.

Steve (05:36)
fix and flips, rentals, just about anything you can think of. And the market spoke to us and told us that things were changing. So we pivoted to start building new construction. And that was a lot of fun, very fulfilling. ⁓ But as the market started to tell us, you need to rethink what you were doing in terms of, we were doing spec houses. We were building small houses that would either go build for rent,

or would be sold off to end users. And again, interest rates went up. I’m not telling anybody anything new. And it became a lot more difficult. But one of the things that we did, again, we built it ourselves, was we started a plumbing business to support the new construction. And that was a real challenge for us. And here we are years later. We’re still building. And we still have the plumbing business. And they balance each other well.

You know, there’s a lot of interesting commingling between the two in terms of new construction obviously has a plumbing element or Renault does or any of those other things. So it’s been, you know, it’s been a really good mix between the two. And over time, you know, we’ve done a lot of work for the plumbing for other people and for ourselves. And it has been just a really solid performer ⁓ in a lot of different ways.

Quentin (07:27)
Yeah.

Steve (07:46)
So the name of the business is We Are the Grateful Plumber, which I think is kind of a fun name.

Quentin (07:52)
you

Steve (07:53)
So my focus is on new construction and it seems as though we’re heading towards multifamily. We were doing spec homes, but now we’re getting towards new construction for spec homes. Seems like the market is a little more robust. There’s a lot of build for rent going on. There’s a lot of multifamily being constructed around Jacksonville and around the country. So that’s been a direction that we’ve gone.

Quentin (08:00)
Okay.

Steve (08:21)
One of the things that I think we’ve been very strong with is if the market tells us we need to go in a new direction, we do. We’re not going to fight the trend, the trend’s your friend. If that’s where you should go, that’s where you should go. And that’s happened a number of times in our career because it’s been a very dynamic, call it 15 or 20 years, right? Going back to the crash of 9, 10.

coming out of that, things were solid. We had some really low interest, which allowed us to pick up about 20 properties that we currently own and rent. And being a landlord is part of the whole portfolio in terms of what we do. And the landlording, that’s tough. It’s a really, really tough thing to do. And we had talked and looked into

Quentin (08:59)
Yeah.

Steve (09:14)
Should we develop our own property management company? ⁓ Ultimately, we decided not to because it is such a difficult area to be successful in.

Quentin (09:25)
Yeah.

Mr. Steve, sir, Thank you, sir. Man, thank you for taking me through the journey, laying everything out. Like, I love stories, man, and I love a good storyteller. You’re a great storyteller, man. And so, and I know you’re just sharing your life, but I see our lives as stories, man, waiting unfold. And so I want to give you a brief summary, right, of what you told me. I’m an active listener. writing. I’m listening. So I want to get a brief summary because I want to make a statement to ask you a question. And so, you you started out in New York.

Steve (09:34)
the

Well, thank you.

Quentin (09:54)
You went to Maryland, University of Maryland for school. You wound up in Jacksonville and then you went into tech from school. And then it kind of like stopped being fun. And so you and your wife, your boy property and you had problems finding good contractors. So he was like, hey, let me do it myself. If I can’t find it, let me do it myself. And so you got your plumbing license and you got into new construction. You started a plumbing business to kind of balance out the construction.

And now, you you kind of found your niche. You see yourself fitting towards multi-family and you got, you know, a lot of things, lot of arms in the fire right now. And so, as we know, you just gave that beautiful recap of your story within maybe like five or six minutes, but we know life unfolds over years, right? That story unfolded over years, right? And so, Mr. Steve, I have a saying where I say destiny has no wasted.

moments. Destiny has no wasted moments. Meaning as we are going through life, we’re borrowing from the lessons, from the failures, from the success. We’re refining our strategies. We’re refining our niches. And so I would love to know, sir, throughout the journey, throughout the journey, throughout the momentum, what has the moments taught you about yourself?

Has it taught you discipline, resilience? Has it humbled you? Has it changed your outlook on innovation? Like what has the moments taught you about you, Mr. Steve?

Steve (11:58)
So it’s funny, I tell all my people, embrace the chaos.

Quentin (12:02)
Yeah.

Steve (12:03)
There has never been a moment I can think of that there wasn’t chaos. You you listen to a lot of podcasts and a lot of videos and people will tell you, okay, it’s a straight line from here to here and it’s going to go smoothly. Well, I’m here to tell you, if you don’t have sleepless nights, you’re doing something wrong. You know, it’s a sad statement, but you know, if everything’s going right, you probably need to be doing something more different.

and pursue it, right? I mean, if you have a W-2 income, you know, with a large stable company and you do something they can’t get rid of you for, you know, then yeah, you could be that way. But if you’re out there hustling, grinding it out, it’s chaos, right? And the more you can control it mentally, the better it’s gonna go for you. ⁓ That’s the hard part, right?

Quentin (12:50)
Yeah, yeah.

Steve (13:01)
getting it straight and keeping it straight in your head. ⁓ One of the things I think I’m particularly good is thinking it through and creating, you know, how do we do this? How do we solve this problem? Which, you know, is very important as part of how do you manage the chaos? How can you be successful working through that? Right? Because if you’re going off into a field that maybe you know a little bit about, or maybe you don’t,

Quentin (13:04)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Steve (13:31)
How do you do that? How do you get started? And then ultimately, how do you make sure it doesn’t eat your lunch? Which is a big problem. And you talk about you’ve got some newer investors and then you’ve got some more seasoned people. I think that’s a universal statement. Even if you’ve been doing this a while, something new is gonna come and may in fact make it a lot more difficult. The higher interest rates.

Quentin (13:57)
Yeah.

Steve (13:59)
you fuel it for all those in fifty cents which now affects a lot of people who buy the stuff i sell and provide a lot of my tenants they’re struggling so again being able to manage and think through the chaos right that’s such a big part of it

Quentin (14:15)
Yeah, No, embracing the chaos. As soon as you said it, I wrote it down. And so it makes total sense to me, embracing the chaos. beauty comes from the chaos. If you look at it, it may seem chaotic, but within it is a beautiful picture. You can just craft it out, start to make sense of different things. There’s a beautiful picture. And so I heard somebody say, people that sculpt things, a sculptor. If I can get that right.

Steve (14:43)
Mm-hmm.

Quentin (14:43)
Some people, look and all they see is a big ass stone, right? They just see this stone, but a sculptor looks at the stone and they immediately starts to see the picture that’s within the stone that’s hidden within it. so, you know, crafting your skill sets and really understanding yourself helps you to see the picture differently. And so that’s why I love your reflective answer on that question. And that’s often why I ask it, because I want the business owner to realize we are in the middle, to use your word, chaos.

But remember how you got there. Remember the strengths that you pulled on to get you where you are. There will be the same strength that allow you to see the picture and what you’re doing. And so I absolutely love your name, the Grateful Plumber. That word grateful means a lot to me. So my wife and I, we have something that we call the gratitude jar. And we write down periodically things that we’re grateful for. And then what we do at the

beginning of the year, you when New Year, you know, you’re going from the new year that you flipping over the time. We bring it in reading all the things we’ve been grateful for over the year. And as a reminder to put us in the spot of we’re grateful for the things that was behind us and we’re grateful for the things that’s in front of us. so Grateful Plumber, I absolutely love that name. I would love to know what’s next for you guys. Like what’s the next real goal? What are you looking to solve a scale next, Mr. Steve?

Steve (16:49)
No, think everything I have is what I need to scale. Systems and people need to be better. I’m very clear about, we need to get better. I’m not looking for the next project or anything else in terms of the next build. I’ve got the construction looking to do bigger more. ⁓ I’ve got some…

properties and some projects in the hopper. But again, time and that dirty thing called money is what slows me down. As far as the plumbing business, you know, just need to continue to scale, get the name out, branding and just awareness. And you know, we talk about grandma being our perfect customer, right? I need to get in grandma’s house. I need more of my guys at that at grandma’s house.

Quentin (17:23)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Steve (17:45)
You know, so those are really the focus. It’s really very simple, more of the same, you know, and there’s a lot that I can’t control, right? I’d like all my tenants to pay their rent on time, but you know, things being what they are. And we have bought houses across the spectrum, right? We have some, you know, beach properties and we have some, you know, less desirable areas. you know, and the thing is when we bought a lot of the

less desirable areas. is kind of the quick tip. They looked great. They were amazing. You can make money in a good economy on the lesser areas. Now when the economy turns and things get a little harder, you give back what you’ve earned or gained. So they’re even more cyclical than let’s say the better properties. know, so we have some of each. ⁓ largely it balances itself out, but

you know, lessons learned if I had to do again, I probably wouldn’t go into some of these neighborhoods ⁓ knowing what would happen when the economy turned.

Quentin (18:51)
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Mr. Steve, I love it. I love your mindset. love the way you think. And so I’m going to love getting your perspective on this word. I know I ask everybody that comes on their perspective, their kind of mindset when it comes to this word. So, Mr. Steve, when you hear the word relationship, when you hear that word, what comes to mind to you,

Steve (19:15)
A lot of things, right? I think it is a critical part of the human experience, right? And that goes well beyond what you do for a living. You know, and the second part of it I would add to is character. I don’t mean Bugs Bunny or a character, but having character. I think that’s really important. think people have really lost that sense of, you know, there needs to be some sort of compass.

the way you treat others, the things that you’re prepared to do or not prepared to do to others. And maybe there is a bigger opportunity and it’s sort of an ongoing thought for me. When you see a lot of these billion dollar CEOs and then later in life, the messages and the stories come out about them, that they were just miserable human beings, but they were so particularly successful. So I sort of often wonder what is that like?

in terms of do you need to be some sort of, you know, inhuman person who you don’t want relationships, you just want production and, you know, people are just a means to an end. So, you know, when I think about relationship, I think it’s very important both professionally and personally. And, you know, I want to like the people I work with. I spend an awful lot of time with them.

and that’s what happens and you’re not gonna like everybody and every relationship isn’t going to be good but that’s something that I want I want to get up in the morning and I want to feel like you know excited for the day and know that there are people I will see today that you know are of like mind and and we have a similar goal there’s an awful lot of people out there who you know just kind of strut through the day and don’t particularly care about much of anything you know so

relationships are very important to me. But the other part of it is character, right? That you are someone I want to be around.

Quentin (21:16)
Yeah. Yeah. Mrs. Steve, I love it. I love the way you think, sir. This is why I want to make sure you can get, you know, kind of one final last word. And so is there a topic that I have not talked about that you would like to talk about and or is there any other word of inspiration, education, motivation? Like maybe you came in with a thought that you wanted our viewers to know. I kind of want to open up the floor so you can land that message. If it’s something like that.

Steve (21:43)
Mm-hmm. Yeah, I think, you know, one of the things that I think a lot of people are challenged with is anxiety for doing things. ⁓ You know, fortunately, I don’t experience necessarily anxiety, but rather stress. You know, if I know I’ve got an important project or something to get done and I can’t get it done,

Quentin (22:03)
Hmm.

Steve (22:10)
I feel that, I don’t necessarily worry about what will interest rates look like a year from now. I can’t focus on that. So really it’s about how do I manage and keep an eye on my energy and what are the most important things. My lists have lists ⁓ and there are things I will never get to.

Quentin (22:30)
you

Steve (22:37)
You know, so on any given day, what’s the most important things that you can get done? You know, and I have this experience often where, you you start in the morning and before you know it, it’s four o’clock and you’re like, did I do anything today? Lose days of the week. you know, the conventional wisdom is that, you know, you can systematize and easily find the right people and then you can go live in, you know.

the beach and drink pina coladas and never worry about anything and money’s just gonna roll in. There’s an awful lot of work to get there. know, you know, 20 years to an overnight success, right? That’s all it takes. You know, so I’m still deep in that, you know, how do I build out? How do I develop? You know, specific to the plumbing, it’s a very high touch world, right? It’s a service.

And there’s some complication there in delivering it because there’s also an element of product and you need trucks and you need people and on and on it goes and you need awareness, you know, and, know, private equity has certainly changed what everything looks like in terms of, you know, small to midsize businesses. there are some things I think they do particularly well, but I do also think there’s a day of reckoning coming, you know, where

There’s a lot of talk about private capital and private debt. And I think, you know, in the words of Warren Buffett, when the tide goes out, we’ll know who’s not wearing a bathing suit. I think a lot of that’s coming. You know, I think a lot of these private equities bought companies and, you know, ran up debt and paid themselves dividends and so on. And now these companies are not going to be viable, right? That they’re going to run into all kinds of problems.

And that’s across all industries, including plumbing and the other trades.

Quentin (24:27)
Yeah. Sir, man, I appreciate you. I think you are spot on. I appreciate everything that you said.

I truly appreciate you being here. I appreciate you sharing. If someone wanted to reach out to you, Mr. Steve, connect with you, collaborate with you, learn more about what you’re doing, how can they get in contact with you,

Steve (24:46)
I’d say the best way is through the office, through the plumbing business. That’s probably the easiest path. My cell phone is tough. get lots and lots of spam risk and unknown callers and wholesalers who want to offer me 30 cents on the dollar for a property. So the best way to reach me is 904-643-3946. And my email, and this is my personal email.

⁓ It’s build, B-U-I-L-D-J-A-X at gmail.com, [email protected]

Quentin (25:22)
Mrs. Steve, sir, let me say three things to you sincerely. One, thank you for your time. You’ve talked about time and energy a lot. so time is to me is our most precious commodity. And so I thank you for your time. I thank you for giving us the gift of that today. I really do. Thank you for your story, sir. Thank you for you come and plant planting seeds. You know, I think our narratives, our stories, they have a way of planting seeds in people.

We may not see the growth, but the seed is still there and that can grow at any given time. thank you for the gift of vulnerability, transparency and authenticity. Thank you so much for sharing. And lastly, Mr. Steve, thank you for your mindset, sir. Thank you for the way you think and bringing that mindset to this platform. I greatly appreciate you coming on today,

Steve (26:10)
Well, thank you for having me. This was a lot of fun.

Quentin (26:12)
Yeah, absolutely. Well, listen, y’all heard Mr. Steve. His information is in the show notes. Get in contact with him, but definitely make sure you’re subscribed here because I promise you we’re going to continue to bring up amazing people just like Mr. Steve. So, sir, I say thank you again and everyone else. Y’all have a fantastic day.

Steve (26:27)
Thanks.