From the Dominican Republic to the U.S.: A Contractors Inspiring Story

Stephen Schmidt (00:02.995)
Welcome to the show where we interview the nation’s leading real estate entrepreneurs. I’ve got a Special one in the studio for you here today I’ve got David Castrillon in the house and hopefully I said that last name right he’s gonna correct me here if I didn’t here in about a minute or so, but we David has been in the general contracting space with the focus on the kitchen and bathrooms and how that elevates

David (00:18.574)
Stephen Schmidt (00:27.445)
properties and this is especially important for those of you that are in the real estate investing space because as you know the kitchens in the baths that’s where really a lot of the value of a home is either lost or boosted and so we’re gonna go into maybe some tips tricks and Secrets of the trade as somebody that’s been in the business for the last decade specializing in these he reigns out in the Baltimore area of Maryland and we’re gonna get into a great conversation today But before we do just remember at investor fuel we help real estate

Entrepreneurs service providers and real estate investors 2 to 5x their businesses so they can build the businesses They’ve always wanted in order to live the lives They’ve always dreamed up because that’s what we do this thing for in the first place folks that being said David Welcome to the show

David (01:11.82)
Yeah, thanks for having me. I’m actually really impressed. Most people cannot pronounce my last name. I’m like, we didn’t go over the pronunciation of my last name before the show. How’s he gonna do this? And you didn’t butcher it. So you must have taken a Spanish class once or twice throughout high school or something to know that the two L’s equals a Y in English.

Stephen Schmidt (01:29.503)
So funny enough, it actually comes from, I actually took three, if not four years of Latin, of all things, in high school. And what I found is, you my mom would always tell me like, Steven, this will pay off later. I know nobody speaks Latin, which that was always my biggest thing. Like, why the hell am I learning this dead language? Like, this doesn’t make any sense. But what I found as an adult,

David (01:48.27)
Right.

Stephen Schmidt (01:54.942)
is that every romance language of Italian, Spanish, French, et cetera, because of my Latin background, I not only am able to pronounce words in other languages, but I also have the roots of what they are. And I can almost tell what the word might be just by reading it. So it’s been a very fascinating thing that I never thought was going to turn into actually being one of the biggest benefits linguistically speaking. But that’s another podcast for another time, man.

David (02:21.559)
Yeah!

Stephen Schmidt (02:22.475)
Tell us a little bit about your background. What got you into the construction space? know you and your wife are kind of in tandem. She’s on the real estate side of things. How did you get started and how did you get to where you’re at now today?

David (02:36.11)
Yeah, so a little bit of, hopefully I’m not going too far back here, but a little bit of background on me. actually grew up in the Dominican Republic as a missionary kid. My parents were pastors down there. And so back in the early nineties, yeah, we, packed up, we moved down there. So remodeling building, it’s kind of just always been a thing. used to build, I mean, churches down there, schools, you name it. We always had some sort of building project going. So I got really good with my hands at a really early age.

Stephen Schmidt (02:46.367)
Okay.

David (03:04.642)
you know, saw how people like my parents, you know, really struggled financially. They were missionaries. They kind of went over there, didn’t really have a whole lot of support, didn’t really, you know, have a retirement fund or anything like that. They just packed up. felt like, this is what God wants us to do and moved our family over there. So I grew up seeing them struggle a lot financially. You know, people would offer to give and support them and then it wouldn’t happen. It wouldn’t pan out. You know, this was there in the early nineties. So they didn’t have a credit card.

you know, swiper that they could just get people to donate that way. So that kind of put the motivation in me to become an entrepreneur because I saw good people like my parents, you know, really struggling to try and do good for others. You know, we did so much humanitarian work down there, but not having the resources to do it. So that gave me the money making bug, the entrepreneurship bug. And that’s when I came back to the U.S. and the one

Stephen Schmidt (03:38.219)
Sure.

David (03:58.092)
you know, skill that I had from what I had learned over there and just, you know, being handy with my dad and always was remodeling. So I got into it at an early age, worked for several companies doing it, learning the business, and then ultimately started my wife and I started our company about 10 years ago.

Stephen Schmidt (04:14.367)
Holy cow, man, I didn’t realize I had Jim Elliot Jr. in the house. That’s amazing. That’s super cool. So you grew up abroad pretty much like your entire childhood?

David (04:17.591)
Hahaha!

David (04:27.65)
Yeah, my whole childhood, excuse me. It was wild, man. didn’t, I mean, where we lived, we didn’t have running water in the house. know, so I tell people sometimes I grew up in the Dominican Republic. They’re like, so you lived at a resort? I’m like, no, there’s Punta Cana, know, Port of Lauda, the nice touristic areas. We actually lived on the border with Haiti, a really rural area. Like I said, we didn’t have running water. We grew up in a little hut, like the people that live there.

Stephen Schmidt (04:41.427)
Yeah.

David (04:54.606)
Most of the time we didn’t have electricity in our home, you so it was very very humble beginnings.

Stephen Schmidt (05:01.791)
Now, did you know any different when you were in it or was that just kind of like life for you? Because if I removed my kid from America, this is so perfect for me. He’s going to hate this because I’m going to go home now and I’ve got a personal friend who I’m going to just be like, look, man, I know a guy who grew up without water. Because it’s all perspective at the end of the day. But as a kid, did you kind of know that like

David (05:10.562)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Sir, sir.

David (05:19.374)
Right, right. Yeah.

Stephen Schmidt (05:27.593)
Hey, I’m not living like most of the people where I’m from or was it just kind of like natural everyday life for you?

Stephen Schmidt (05:39.179)
Mmm.

Stephen Schmidt (05:43.242)
Mm.

David (05:45.218)
down there and, you know, started growing up. That’s what she knew. no, I knew because I had a good, good memory of the cushy life that we had here in the US. You know, my dad worked for his father-in-law, you know, as a pastor at their church. he, I mean, housing was provided, you know, there was a partner. So we never really needed, never really lacked, I should say anything here in the US. But once we moved over there, boy, I knew a difference. You know what I mean? We were living in a hut.

Stephen Schmidt (06:09.397)
Mmm.

David (06:10.774)
I mean, gunshots right outside our windows. We were held up at gunpoint multiple times, knife point. all kinds of cra- I could write a book, man. We had some crazy experiences, you know, on the mission field. So I definitely knew, my younger sister didn’t, and then I have two older sisters. So it’s just me and three girls to say an extra prayer for me. But yeah, no, I knew the difference. And you know, the other thing, the other dynamic too is in these Caribbean countries like-

unless you grow up there and you build up the immunities, like dude, don’t ever drink the water. We were sick there like every other week. We had some sort of indigestion or parasite in our intestines, crazy stuff. So I wouldn’t trade it for anything. feel like living that way and seeing how really truly the rest of the world lives. Like, we live this way in the US and in the Western culture in general, but the rest of the world, really most of the world lives the way I grew up, which was just in the sticks,

Stephen Schmidt (07:06.976)
Hmm.

David (07:08.406)
I’m very appreciative. I’ve got four kids of my own now and they’re learning to appreciate, know, as soon as they’re old enough, I’m gonna take them over there where I grew up so they can see how good they have it here, you know? yeah, yeah, definitely.

Stephen Schmidt (07:18.997)
perspective.

Stephen Schmidt (07:23.093)
Man, that’s so crazy. So when you got back to the States, were you an adult at that point or when did you officially move back full-time? So basically an adult.

David (07:31.31)
Yeah, I was 15 or 16. Yep. So was in high school. So yeah, I can’t, lived most of my childhood down there. So yeah, I came back. was about 15 or 16.

Stephen Schmidt (07:41.141)
No kidding. And what was that transition like? Was that like coming to America for you almost?

David (07:46.004)
Yeah, yeah, we came back to visit. did come back to visit while I lived there. We would come back and forth, you know, and all. But coming back to live was culture shock. I had never been in school. You know, I had been homeschooled my whole life. So I’m coming back, you know, I’m a sophomore in high school and that was culture shock. You know, it’s like, whoa, you know, I’m getting invited to parties and I was a good church kid. I had never been exposed to anything like that. You know, I was an athlete bigger than most of the kids in my class. played varsity soccer. So all my friends were

Stephen Schmidt (07:56.365)
Right.

Stephen Schmidt (08:07.628)
Sure.

David (08:13.93)
seniors and juniors, you know, and I’m getting invited to these parties and also, yeah, there was there was definitely a learning curve there. You know, had my rebellious stage and all of that that we all do at one point or another. And, know, but I always held on to my values still due to this day and I’m passing them down to my kids.

Stephen Schmidt (08:24.908)
Yeah.

Stephen Schmidt (08:32.736)
That’s super cool. Now did you meet your wife here in the States or is there any correlation to your background to meeting her?

David (08:40.514)
Yeah, no, we’ve known each other. We were like childhood friends. You know, there’s a picture of us at a wedding when she was three and we were like, was trying to hold her hand and she wasn’t trying to have it. So we go way back. Yeah. Her dad was my dad’s best man. and so, yeah, we, we, we go way back, but we, which, you know, we’ve, we’ve known her family for years and when we would come and visit, you know, she’s a couple of years older than me. And so I was like the little brother, cause you know, my older sister was best friends with her.

I was always shorter than her, so she didn’t want to anything to do with me. You know, I was like the annoying little brother. But then one year I came back, I’m 16 now, I’m taller than her, and she decided to start paying attention to me. we started dating and we got married. So the rest is history.

Stephen Schmidt (09:20.682)
Yvette. Man, that’s real cool. My wife and I have a very similar story. Like to the extent I used to tell people that how I met my wife was I would hit her little brother with a lightsaber when we were five. But, you know, for some crazy reason, it took 20 years post and then we ended up getting together. but yeah, like I remember stories of my wife where she doesn’t even have a memory of it. I remember her accidentally.

David (09:31.628)
Ha! Yeah.

Stephen Schmidt (09:45.293)
smacking a lady in the the face with a pool stick at a YMCA because she didn’t want to leave a birthday party and someone’s trying to take it from her and she’s like I don’t remember that at all. I was like well for whatever reason I remember singing at Claire’s day so uh but um so yeah man that’s a really interesting story because we’ve known each other for about the same time which you know that’s that’s a super cool uh super cool fabric and tapestry that just gets interwoven on a

David (09:49.664)
jeez.

David (09:54.382)
Ha ha ha!

That’s awesome.

David (10:10.935)
yeah.

Stephen Schmidt (10:12.086)
dynamic and spiritual level almost you want to want to fathom I would bet. So let’s let’s transition man. So you’re back. You’re in it. You start your construction company. And was that kind of like I don’t know was that kind of like destiny for you do you think or what was the thought process behind getting into that versus you know going to college and going and working as a business consultant in corporate America like why construction.

David (10:15.886)
Yeah.

Stephen Schmidt (11:43.628)
Right.

Stephen Schmidt (12:10.988)
Wow. So now to last a decade, obviously that’s not an easy feat, especially for any business, but especially in the construction space and all the evolution of material costs rising and COVID halfway through that happening. And what are some of the things that you’ve seen evolve in your own process over the last 10 years of being in business that, you know, now you’re

maybe doing things totally different than when you got started.

Stephen Schmidt (12:52.446)
Mm-hmm.

Stephen Schmidt (13:00.14)
Sure.

Stephen Schmidt (13:16.555)
Right.

Stephen Schmidt (13:44.971)
Hmm.

Stephen Schmidt (15:01.036)
And your wife’s name is Brooke? was just like, I was an educated guess because of David and Brooke. So I was like, hmm, I wonder. That’s super cool. Now, so you also play around in the investing space more passively than actively out looking for deals, but with your expertise in kitchens and bathrooms specifically, those are obviously two of the most important.

places to really focus on during a remodel, a flip, whatever you want to call it. So what are some of the reasons that you started playing in the real estate space in general outside of just, you know what, we’re cutting out doing decks and all this other stuff and whatever. What made you decide to do even any deals in that space versus you?

Stephen Schmidt (16:05.058)
Mmm.

Stephen Schmidt (16:16.983)
Hmm. Right. Cat pee in the floors.

Stephen Schmidt (18:48.353)
What’s been one of the nightmare deals you’ve gotten yourself into, if any?

Stephen Schmidt (20:39.149)
Right.

Stephen Schmidt (20:47.661)
Sure.

Stephen Schmidt (20:54.217)
Sure. Yeah, I mean at the end of the day, it’s all about time value as well. I think that’s the thing most people don’t factor in. And you know, it’s interesting because I was just with a friend of mine who owns a fairly large roofing company in our area here recently. And was talking to him and one of the things he does for his guys is he actually will take his sales guys and he lets them put in money if they want to and they all go buy a property together. And

He pays him 10 % or 10 % return on their money guaranteed whether he makes money on the flip or not. And he goes, but in order to do that, because obviously I’m not going to rip my sales guys off and they’re still going to work for me. And then they didn’t get money. You know, he goes, I have to start with a hundred thousand dollars spread. And he just recently had a deal where he was like guaranteed this house is going to sell for 400 grand and ended up selling for three 90, which there’s 10 grand off the a hundred right there.

Then after concessions and everything, it actually was about 382 was where he was at. Then somebody broke in and stole all the staging furniture two weeks before closing. So he had to replace that at 7,000 after spending three grand for it. And they drug the kitchen across the hardwood floor, kitchen, meaning the stove and the fridge. So then they had to go complete all of the flooring. And so he passively had this deal that he was working on.

But at the end of six months, what was originally $100,000 profit turned into like 15 grand. So it’s all of those things that can happen where you see the shows and it’s like this hunky dory, like, my goodness, we could go and do a flip, make 70 grand and you absolutely can, but you absolutely can also lose that too on a deal and all the time associated, right?

Crazy. So long term, what’s next for you? I know we had talked about where you’ve scaled your business to. You had a benchmark. You’ve hit that. You don’t necessarily want to be a full-time flipper. So like what’s really on the horizon for you? Just 12 to 18 months. What’s the real big goal for you?

Stephen Schmidt (23:17.175)
Right.

especially in Maryland.

Stephen Schmidt (25:33.987)
you got man. Scale it and get your 3 to 5x EBITDA and call it a day. Say sayonara. I love that. I like how you have a goal there too man because I’m a big dude I’m a business junkie man have been for years and I have out of all the things I’ve studied read looked into done myself failed at whatever I’ve come to deduce that people only build businesses for two reasons.

You either build it for the lifestyle that it’s going to produce and that could be generational. It could be the legacy play, whatever. You either build it for the lifestyle or you build it to sell it. Because other than that, it’s kind of stupid to be an entrepreneur. It’s like you said, man, you know, it comes with a little bit of maybe some swallowing of pride going and working for somebody else for a season or some people are just better entrepreneurs and some people they’re just better cut to be employees. They need to be told what to do. And there’s nothing wrong with that.

I think when you’re in the position of being an entrepreneur, you’ve got to be a little bit of a different breed. You’ve to a little bit of a sickness of wanting things to be better and no one else can do it better than you can. So I think there’s a little bit to that at play. But yeah, man, like if there wasn’t a major reward at the end of it, either in the lifestyle or the exit, like there’s no reason for any of us to do it. You know what I mean? With you, man. Well, where can these fine folks connect with you, learn more about what you’re working on, David, and connect with you for more.

Stephen Schmidt (27:11.758)
We’ll go show them some love from the real estate pros and the investor fuel community folks. Appreciate David being here. Thanks so much and we’ll see you all in the next episode.

You bet.