From Trucking to Real Estate: George Otel’s 10-Year Journey Uncovered

Dylan Silver (00:33)
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 George Otel. George is an entrepreneur with over 10 years active in real estate and has lately been active in the commercial lending space, which I’m very interested in talking with him about today on the show. George, welcome to the show.

George Otel (01:00)
Hey Dylan, thanks for having me. I really hope your audience will get a lot of insights and think differently when it comes to real estate and structuring the deals properly to take advantage of the current market.

Dylan Silver (01:17)
I love it, I love it. Before we hopped on here, and I always like to get folks background, you mentioned that you’re familiar actually with where I am. It’s a town called Denton because you were in the trucking business and you drove all over.

George Otel (01:32)
Yeah, starting 2012, I had the trucking company till 2015. Then 2015, I started moving into real estate. And we were doing the real estate on the financing side, more short sale from the banks, buying the houses that were in foreclosure, renegotiating, doing the short sale. Then 2018, I started the…

commercial deals, doing more commercial deals, buildings, buying businesses, financing businesses nationwide. So it’s interesting time to be in a lot of opportunity. There is a lot of risk, but if you have a proper mindset and right tools and network, it converts into opportunities.

Dylan Silver (02:25)
I actually spoke with a woman earlier today who maybe had a similar backstory. She was in the trucking industry but she was out in the East Coast, I believe Maryland and Pennsylvania. And I found it interesting because I didn’t realize but maybe there’s a certain type of person, and you might see this, who goes from trucking into real estate. And that could be a common pathway. I didn’t realize it was there but it makes sense.

George Otel (02:53)
Yes. So for example, in Chicago area, we have multiple deals, the trucking transportation companies, they obviously need space to park the trucks to service them. So they, buy the real estate. Some of the deals, basically it’s 10 % a couple of times we got deals with 100 % financing. If you lease it for 12 months,

I can help you finance a hundred percent financing. So basically after the financing, you’re going to pay less for the mortgage for the loan than you pay for the rent. Yeah, it’s a mind blowing, but it’s, it’s reality. And we have multiple deals going on right now in Chicago for a logistics company, warehouses, shops, parking. And those are good opportunities. I have one deal we financed last year.

It was over four million dollars then My client calling me like hey George what’s going on? So basically the seller calling him say hey, I want to buy a bag I’ll give you a million over but my client hey, I didn’t buy to flip it I buy from my business so that’s he was renting seven years before that so he’s like wow how many opportunity I lost during this

Dylan Silver (04:15)
You’re doing such good business everyone is finding out. Going from trucking to the real estate space and then lending, right? But you started out before you were in the real estate space and you mentioned you did some flips. What was the knowledge that you sought out and how did you make that transition?

George Otel (04:35)
So I like the financing side, the paper side, because I took a step back and I ask questions to myself, better understand my identity. I don’t like doing this rehab stuff and managing people because I don’t like that. But I like the paperwork. I like the negotiation to find out the structure to make it happen. So that was kind of my going towards this line.

A lot of times folks need financing and I help them to get a better deal. know, like, let’s say most of my clients that I work with now, I get them lined up with financing, with everything. And let’s say they’re looking for the property for a couple months. And when something pops up, they ready, they submit all the the offer and the financing. And basically there is five, six offers coming and

Most of the time my clients win it because the seller see that my clients are prepared and solid and serious because they have offered, they have a financing line up and good to go. Imagine, because it’s being prepared, having a team on your back, it’s a game changer.

Dylan Silver (05:53)
So when you were getting into the lending space, did you already have a network of investors that you knew needed capital?

George Otel (06:02)
Just a little bit, but I’ve been working. I have been improving my knowledge. I’ve been going to a lot of conferences. I spent over 250 grand just to improve my skills, my relationship, and I’m still going. I have three conferences in the next 30 days and I have seven podcasts going. So it’s working nonstop.

Dylan Silver (06:26)
It’s really a energizing line of work though because you’re doing what you want to do on your own schedule, right? You’re not sitting in a truck, right? being able to create your own lifestyle, that must have been very appealing.

George Otel (06:41)
Yes, it’s basically, I’m telling myself if I’m not gonna do my best every day, I’ll wake up in a truck. So I don’t wanna wake up in a truck. I wanna make sure I do something. Because it’s tough, trucking is tough. Trucking is tough. Real estate is tough too. Look, I have clients, they lose deals, buildings, and, because they’re not structured right. It’s a lot of things.

Dylan Silver (07:07)
It’s one of those use your

hard type of situations. talk to us going from 2015, you know, when you made the entry into real estate to 2018, when you first got into the commercial lending space, you’re finding your first couple of clients. Talk us through how those first couple of deals went, where you’re finding your first couple of clients to lend money to. What were the projects that they were trying to take down or to make offers on? Walk us through that.

George Otel (07:35)
Yeah, so we did some deals with houses. I was trying to buy and wholesale houses. So I was calling this guy for, he was selling a building, 8 Unique. And I called him and he’s like, hey, I saw my building like six months ago, but I may have some houses. Would you be interested? I said, yes, of course. And that’s how we got it. So we flipped that portfolio.

Then just going to a networking events and start talking with people. LinkedIn, I’m active on LinkedIn. I do a lot of content for people interested in acquiring commercial real estate. it’s content that’s based on my experience, my knowledge, and that’s how they approach me. I have over a thousand lenders, banking partners that can help me solve the deal. Sometimes.

Just today I heard someone got rejected from his bank. He was waiting 30 days. I told him, hey, give me five days. I get you an approval. He didn’t even send me the paper based on him talking to me. I said, I give you an approval, pre-approval in five days.

Dylan Silver (08:46)
So talk to us a bit about the lending space because I’m not in the lending space. I’m a wholesaler. Right. I just got my real estate. I didn’t get the license yet but I passed the exam on Monday. Thank God. And thank you. It’s not not easy. I’ve spoken now to a number of people and the the lending space is interesting because I see a lot of real estate investors go from wholesaling to fixing and flipping to maybe long term holds. Right.

George Otel (08:56)
Good. Congrats.

Nothing’s easy, everybody will do it.

Dylan Silver (09:15)
and then from there they’ll get into lending. So this seems like a common path. Now with you, you’re in the commercial lending space. So how has your growth been? How have you scaled over the years since 2018?

George Otel (09:28)
So it was during the COVID we have like this unpleasant situation. We had multiple deals in pipeline, everything blow up and we start everything from scratch again. So basically last year we did done a couple deals. I was focusing on other projects as well, but I was doing financing most of the time. So basically in the last three months, my pipeline doubled since the deals I was

doing last year because I decided to take it more seriously and

There is a big problem going on right now. A lot of deals were done wrong and they’re going to go belly up basically. So people who have knowledge and access to financing, to the right financing, to good financing, going to take advantage of that. So the idea is like to understand, because let’s say you do a single family. I had a couple loans on a single family. So it was like two, 300,000.

At the same time, was working on two other deals over 3 million each. So basically, I closed those $3 million faster and I made 10 times more commission rather than working on the small ones. So it’s the same thing.

Dylan Silver (10:51)
delve into that here George to your point you know I don’t have any deeds in my name or my company’s name so I’m just at the beginning you can remember what that was like and it seems like it’s almost the same amount of stress dealing with a large deal as it is a smaller deal both are significant but if you’re gonna catch a fish and it’s gonna take six hours you might as well catch a big fish

George Otel (11:00)
Yeah, yeah.

Yes, yes.

Yeah, yeah, I decided myself, instead of doing 30 deals, I’ll do 10 deals, but one is covering the deals. Because it’s the same structure and it’s the same stress, but you want to, when you get like a over six figure check, it’s like, was worth it. You forget the pain, you forgive yourself.

Dylan Silver (11:30)
Yeah. And so go ahead.

Do you remember your first deal of that size? Was it in 2018?

George Otel (11:52)
No, was a couple years ago. Yeah, it was it was a tough one. It was a tough one. But having experience with the singles with the other deals prior, basically this the financing side is a relationship because like most of the bank they know each other. So I am in couple chats with the multiple banks, funds, rates. And basically, if I have a deal and I

The fastest way to find out, I just ask my network. It’s like a couple hundred people that they do millions every day in underwriting. So the idea is like, it’s the same process, but it’s a lot of times it’s easier if you take a step back and just look on the right numbers. There is a lot of industrial, let’s say…

you buy a single family, you lease it every year and you have a tenant, obviously everybody knows the problem. You have an industrial, you do a triple net, so the tenant is responsible for everything and the lease is like five to 10 years. So if you do the right financing, you basically, as I mentioned earlier, the mortgage is lower than the rent. So they’re gonna pay rent.

Dylan Silver (13:15)
cash flow.

George Otel (13:16)
and you’re just going to take care of the roof and the parking everything they take care of everything and just the lease is five ten years and the property goes up and the rent goes up.

Dylan Silver (13:30)
it’s a it’s a when done correctly it’s it’s like the perfect the perfect weather when done incorrectly there’s increased leverage right so talking about your first deal I could hear in your voice and then seen on videos it was I could see there was some some obstacles in that first big deal

George Otel (13:36)
Yes.

Oh yeah, was,

sometimes I just, I’m in the office sitting on the couch for one hour just thinking how to structure this right. So it’s like those small things that make the whole thing happen. So on the first one, basically the seller didn’t want to sell it to my clients, to the borrower, because we were using an SB loan. And I asked the bank what they,

do usually in this situation. So basically the bank knew the seller. The person from the bank, they knew the seller and he called the seller and say, Hey, it’s me. I got this financing lined up and we’re good to go. So we got the deal done because of the relationship. And it’s a small circle. Everybody knows everyone or you know someone that knows the person that I need. It’s a small circle. It’s more community.

Dylan Silver (14:43)
friend of a friend.

George, for myself and folks who may be unfamiliar, when we’re thinking about lending, I’m always thinking about there’s one person, they’ve got the capital, I’ve got the project, I’m connecting myself, the lender, with the person. But in your line of work, there’s a bank, there’s you, and then there’s the person who needs the capital. So explain the relationship between you and the bank.

George Otel (15:06)
borrower.

So basically I process things for the bank and I know what banks does what because I’m on constant update. We talk with a lot of banks on a weekly basis and they tell me, hey, we do this, we’re looking on that. So every week I talk with multiple lenders, new lenders, new connections. And then basically they tell me what deals they do so I kind of have an understanding. So when some of my clients come to me,

I already know where to go. And let’s say you go into the bank, you’re you’re nobody, nobody knows you. And yeah, you just go in the, talking with the first available person. When I go, I talk with the vice president or a partner, they’d say they have like 30, 40 % percentage in the equity in the bank. And I have, let’s say 15, 20 millions with that bank. They’re gonna tell me, hey, Georgia.

I’m doing this deal or if I’m not doing, I’m going to know right away. So that’s the leverage. And there is certain things that the bank is not going to tell you as a borrower, but they tell me and I help you structure things differently to make sure it’s happening. And a lot of time I…

Dylan Silver (16:15)
So when you’re…

George Otel (16:31)
you see things differently and you stress out but I tell hey look I mean it’s normal it’s gonna take a couple days and it’s I take your hold hold your hand all the way from the application to the funding process because it’s bigger numbers but the stress sometimes is bigger because like I mean look people used to buy three four hundred thousand houses but you go to millions it’s a bigger check.

Dylan Silver (16:59)
So again, for myself and for folks who are unfamiliar, so you’re effectively gaining capital from the bank, due to your expertise, and then you’re the connector, yeah.

George Otel (17:10)
Yep, I connect you. I Yeah,

yeah. So I talked to you, you send me the financials, I kind of do a small underwriting, I see who may do it. Then I go to the bank, they give me their shit, then I connect you, you have a conversation with the bank, say, hey, nice meeting you. And then we all work together. It’s like you work directly with the bank, they say, hey, I this, this. And I’m basically in the middle, like, I’m we still on the same table.

but I’m doing most of your work and some of the work from the lender that make it happen. I’m the guy that makes sure things are happening.

Dylan Silver (17:48)
So for folks who are thinking about going to a lender, right? And they approach someone like you, would they effectively be…

going under contract with you initially and that’s when your fees would be paid or are your fees being paid once the loan is processed and the project is.

George Otel (18:11)
Yeah, yeah,

I get paid when everything is funded. It’s like nobody pays me anything. Basically, you want to do, let’s say, a single family, we have lines of credit up to $4 million. Let’s say if you’re doing single family flips, I can hook you with the line of credit. So you don’t have to go for like a hard money guy all the time. I get you approved with this line of credit. And then when you have a flip, you submit the budget.

Dylan Silver (18:15)
I see.

George Otel (18:40)
and the deal information and basically get the funding. So that’s how it works. And then if you have, let’s say, free and clear properties, you get the cash out and leverage that to buy more or to do whatever you want. So.

Dylan Silver (18:58)
This is a very

niche space that you’re in. And I’m imagining your expertise is super valuable to your clients because if they’re trying to get a large loan for a commercial deal, they don’t know where to turn. And you’ve done this so many times and you’ve worked with all the banks. When you were getting into it, was this something that you had sought out yourself? Had you had the need for commercial lending or was it you were seeing it in the groups that you were a part of that this was a potential?

George Otel (19:01)
Yeah, yeah.

Yep, yep.

was my second mentor. He was doing the financing side because like he was interesting. Like he was coaching me through the process, how it works. And I say, hey, what do I need to know about your business to bring you more clients? Because like, I’m sure more people are in my situation. So he coached me. I was bringing clients. Basically, I was with him on the line and I kind of understand this.

Dylan Silver (19:27)
Rear pass.

George Otel (19:53)
structure, then I was talking with the clients and just sending him the application. Now I have my business doing that thing. So either you want to do your flip, buy a house, single family. I don’t do basically residential mortgages, but I do bridge loans on a single family. Four units, you know, I can close in two, three weeks, like up to $3 million bridge loans. And on a buildings 30, 60, 90 days.

franchises and other stuff we get it done. As you mentioned earlier, you go to one bank, they have only one option. You’re coming to me, I have multiple options. And if one doesn’t work, I have the other one lined up. And it’s less frustration from you because now it’s a little bit of chaos because a lot of things are changing, a lot of kind of like stress, distress coming up. So but

We’re still lending. We’re still lending non-stop. I get deals done and it’s because I was prepared for that. I learned and like in 2020 I was not ready. was like, it was, I was punching the face. I was facing the reality. I was standing and like, yeah, it’s my price. Now I’m ready. I’m excited.

Dylan Silver (21:12)
mean, have to think commercial

commercial was a tough spot to be in during COVID. Right? You think commercial you think it was bulletproof. But then of course, we saw what happened during COVID. What was interesting was industrial was well was doing very well. So you had commercial doing bad. But then if you could be agile, and make a change and move to industrial, you had warehouses because everybody was going from buying from home, right? So warehouses were doing great. So you must have

George Otel (21:28)
Still good.

Dylan Silver (21:42)
seeing that and talk a little bit about that. You mentioned before we hopped on about industrial.

George Otel (21:48)
Yeah, industrial. in the Midwest, Midwest basically multifamily last year, we’re talking about 2024. Multifamily was down 12 to 17%. Office 20, 30 % down. Industrial was 0.2 % positive. It’s like, because everybody’s buying, everybody’s buying. And especially with tariffs, what’s going on in the country, manufacturing is going to be back and

So the prices for industrial, let’s say you buy something for $2 million, $1 million in 2020, 2021, 22, now it’s double, at least double, at least double. And do you think it’s going to go lower? mean, let’s say we have like a 20, 30 % lower, but if you look in five, 10 years, it’s still going to be higher. it’s, it’s, I, I believe it’s going to be the

the main growing point for United States. it’s see how all this billion trillions coming. It takes time. It takes like time to get the permit to do the zoning and everything. mean, it’s, but eventually it’s going to happen. It’s going to be a boom. So you want to position yourself before things going to happen. Not like when you miss the train is like, yeah, it was a nice ride, but I’m not riding it.

Dylan Silver (23:12)
It’s slow money, it’s not fast money, but it is real and true wealth. And so what I like to ask my guests in the last 10 minutes or so of the show is where do you see your industry, commercial lending and the commercial lending space currently being impacted by AI and technology? How is it impacting you day to day? And then also a follow up to that.

Where do you see it going to? How do you see in the next maybe year, year and a half, two years, things changing?

George Otel (23:45)
Yeah, AI is great. I believe everyone who is a consultant offering a service should learn, study AI. We’re doing that. I have a team that we’re doing content and actually content based on experience we have. We’re gathering data, a lot of useful things that was not possible a couple years ago before AI. And definitely we’re using and we’re learning. We’re trying to stay on the edge.

And yeah, there is going to be a lot of opportunity for commercial. It depends which side of the opportunity you’re going to be. it’s the deals that are done right, they’re going to be good for no matter what. it’s so everybody’s like, hey, I’m going to wait until the rates drop. Now, my question to them is like, okay, when the rates going to drop, do you think it’s going to be more buyer or less buyer?

Buyers. Obviously more buyers, so the price is gonna go higher.

Dylan Silver (24:45)
more.

This is so true and you have to have that agility and I can’t emphasize that enough and in speaking with people like yourself who have been able to thrive in multiple different economies, multiple different markets and industries, right? You have to have to have to have that agility. And so when I’m thinking about all of this and I’m thinking about the trajectory like I earlier said of the real estate investor,

going from wholesaling, maybe fix and flips, short term rentals, long term rentals, and then holding notes, lending money. Is there a next phase? Do you think that once you’re doing commercial, is it just scaling commercial? Is that where it is? Or is commercial really, this is the end game, this is where I see myself from here until I retire?

George Otel (25:40)
So basically, I’m kind of like in the service consulting, but the next step is buying portfolios through, let’s say, syndication or a fund. I’m working on something with one of my partners right now to acquire those assets because like, we get deals because I mean, we have access to the money and some people suggest we can…

partner on a deal because look, mean, they’re to lose the deal, but we have an access to the money. We get a piece of the move and a lot of times we have banks, which is more interesting. So basically there’s defaults happening right now, right? So there’s not too many people have access because the banks, sell it behind, they sell portfolios, they have everything. We may see something in our chats and conversation with our connections.

And that’s the goal. You’re getting something at the discount is not even on the market and just lined up the money. Let’s say investors, because when a client comes to me, I’m looking from a business owner perspective, then from a lending perspective and then from an investor perspective. So it’s like I’m telling them like, hey, this, those are the scenarios. It’s all depends what, what you want to do. So that’s, that’s the beauty. I position them for success because

I don’t advise them. I give them the real situation and what options they have.

Dylan Silver (27:12)
It’s a great model and I wasn’t this is actually the first time that I’ve spoken so frankly with someone in your position and my assumption had always been that if you’re lending out or participating in this that you yourself need to be the one with you know tens of millions right and it’s not if that’s not the case right you can be the facilitator. Are you seeing in your field that it is expanding or because you’re the first person that I’ve spoken with who does this is it’s still.

George Otel (27:18)
Yeah, yes.

I know.

Dylan Silver (27:42)
relatively a newer idea in the market.

George Otel (27:46)
What exactly? So he’s expanding people with money?

Dylan Silver (27:52)
As far as

being the facilitator in these transactions, you’re the first person that I’ve spoken with who does this exactly, and are you seeing many other people get into this space?

George Otel (28:03)
It’s a little bit hard to be honest, especially with commercial. It’s like, mean, sometimes you’re not going to make money for six months for a year. You’ve got to be ready for that. Because I was, was doing a trucking trailer equipment financing to, you know, get some deals going, but at the same working on the commercial. Now I have a team that they do equipment financing. I have the trucking finance loans. We do transportation financing. So that running by itself.

Then I have another department, we do the small business administration, SBA loans. So those are, I have deals going on all the time, but my focus, my George’s focus is for commercial. So to take those deals going. So I’m expanding, but it was hard. It was hard to get. it’s like, it’s, it’s

Dylan Silver (28:54)
growth was a

lot of obstacles. And to your point, George, you know, in real estate in general, if you have all your eggs in one basket, that basket could go away or it might not bear any eggs, right. And so, so having those, you mentioned the trucking, you mentioned the SBA, those revenue streams, while also putting your focus and your passion into the commercial lending is a great way to go about it. And even if you’re not at that scale, you know, to our listeners who might be new, I

George Otel (29:05)
Yeah, yeah.

Dylan Silver (29:22)
Have heard so many times you just have to dive headfirst into real estate You know if you want to do real estate quit what you’re doing and dive headfirst that wasn’t my experience that was not I Tried that I wasn’t able to do that had to go back and get a w-2 job at least two times at least two times and then the third time it Stuck, but it wasn’t it was not straightforward. It was not easy and I would just say to folks You know who are listening to this?

Even when you get to a spot where you’re doing commercial lending, it’s still you have to have that that other revenue.

George Otel (29:56)
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And because you got to, I have multiple deals. Look, I take you from A to Z. I’ve done my work and the deal blows up. But having other sources, like you feeling much better. You don’t feel devastated. At the same time, I would say that’s my problem because I have only a couple of deals. Now I have much more and I mean, it’s a numbers game. So that’s the goal. So increase the pipeline.

and to feel more comfortable. Because like, look, I’m excited when it gets pre-approved and stuff like that. But I’m not excited anymore. I’m excited when I receive the check, the money. That’s when I’m excited. Because like, I had deals, I submitted the invoice and yeah, everything is good because I done my work. The bank is like, hey, send me the invoice. And the deal didn’t close. Something happened, blows up. it’s… But it’s…

Dylan Silver (30:54)
can’t catch

rags until they hatch.

George Otel (30:56)
take small steps and you gotta have your eyes open for the opportunities. Let’s say if you have like a deal, you don’t know how to do it. People can reach out to me like on LinkedIn, George O’Tale or like say, hey, how this goes? Same way I started with my mentor. Like I’ll bring them some clients. He was sharing revenue with me. So let’s say you find if any of your audience, they working on a deal, they need.

they need know some they know someone that they need financing. They just say, hey, I know this guy, George doing financing. They introduced us giving the number and the information. I pay you 20 % of my commission. I just give you for the introduction. you’re going to get some knowledge for how the deal is going to structure, how it’s going to work and still going to make money. Or you decide to do nothing and say everything is bad. That’s

That’s how you learn. You learn by no risk. Because you don’t invest your money, but you can invest your time and knowledge and your relationship and build it up. I’m an immigrant. I’m an American citizen. But that’s how it started. Like, hey, how do I help? What do I need to make you happy? Because everybody needs help. Everybody needs help.

Dylan Silver (32:13)
That’s right. got it. You got to be of

service to others, you know, and I think folks are probably going to be shocked that when you’re in the real estate space, especially our newcomers, know, people are more open to sharing their life story and their feedback than in other industries. And then you would think so definitely network. I say Gorilla Networking networking junkie, right? Just get as many mentors as you reasonably can.

George Otel (32:27)
Yep, yep, yep, yep, yep. Yep.

Dylan Silver (32:42)
George, we are coming up on time here on the podcast. Where can folks go to get a hold of you?

George Otel (32:48)
They can go on LinkedIn, George Otel, or usbusfunding.net, or usbusinessfunding.net. And before we go is like, one of the things that made me be more successful, getting the conversation started. Ask, listen, listen to the person. What is it they trying to say? And if you listen to them, they’re gonna…

give you, I mean, as you mentioned, the very successful people, I asked them, I don’t say what I’m selling or whatever. And then three, five, 10 minutes in the conversation, they say, George, what you do? So that’s the click. That’s when it happened. I was at the conference recently, and this guy coming up is like, like, started talking to me. Because I was talking with other people, they explained giving some data and

Apparently this guy had like 500 acres. He was like working on those subdivisions for 30 years. He was like 500 acres doing hundreds of houses. So he liked the way like, cause like I was open. So like, you never know what’s gonna happen.

Dylan Silver (34:01)
You never, you really never know. But we are out of time here, but George, thank you for coming on. Absolutely, and that wraps up another episode of the Real Estate Pros podcast. Until next time, thanks for tuning in.

George Otel (34:08)
Thanks for having me.

Have a good day.