
Show Summary
In this episode of the Real Estate Pros podcast, Chad Choquette shares his journey from a full stack web developer to a successful real estate investor. He discusses his experiences with fix and flips, the Airbnb market, and the importance of automation in managing properties. Chad also delves into private money lending and his exciting new venture in revitalizing a small town, highlighting the significance of relationships and market research in real estate investment.
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Investor Fuel Show Transcript:
Dylan Silver (00:01.442)
Hey guys, welcome back to another episode of the Real Estate Pros podcast. Today we have Chad with us. Chad, how do I pronounce your last name? didnโt even get that. Shoket, Iโm glad I did not attempt that. We have Chad Shoket here with us. And he was formerly a full stack web developer for 15 years, transitioned into real estate with fixing and flipping, did that for five years and is now
Chad Choquette (00:12.034)
itโs Showcat. Like, S-H-O-W-K-T. Itโs hard.
Dylan Silver (00:29.996)
Revitalizing a Small Town. So Chad, letโs start from the top. Tell us how you got into real estate. Tell us about your background. Iโll let you have the floor.
Chad Choquette (00:39.662)
Yeah, sounds good. Yeah. So my background was in, you know, web development in general transition more into full stack. So if you know anything about the tech space and youโve ever dealt with, you know, web development, thereโs a whole variety of things you can do. You know, youโve got WordPress engineers, people who just handle design, people who just handle like how the front end works, server maintenance. Thereโs just everything. And, essentially my job over time as I transitioned through companies became manage it all. So
Generally, I wasnโt in charge of making the beautiful picture, but I was in charge of turning the beautiful picture the designers would send me into the actual functioning thing. And then, you know, weโd set up the server side things and the front end stuff. So that was kind of the background. I went through probably three companies. I did some of my own clients on the side and that was fun and I learned a lot, but Iโm very creative and I like to make things. And so it worked well for that time. But in the middle of that journey, we had already started
buying properties. had our primary home and then we had every two years. This is one thing that Iโm surprised people donโt even know is if you live in a house for two years, you can sell it and you can take the profits tax free. If youโre single, itโs up to 250,000. If youโre married, itโs up to 500,000. So thatโs a great way to build that trapped equity that you have typically in your house. You move every two years, you can just take it up size, you know, whatever youโre living in or just take that money and you know, tax free. Itโs, itโs really great.
And that is what really allowed us to the point where we got, hopefully Iโm not doing any echo feedback. I couldnโt get my AirPods to work. But if I, if, so it allowed us taking that money that, you know, the appreciation in the market, pulling out the equity, moved up in size. Eventually we got to a point where we sold our house. So this was kind of like a crazy time where my wife was in the hospital with one of my oldest daughter.
Dylan Silver (02:09.067)
but really allow them to.
Dylan Silver (02:17.261)
Youโre good.
Chad Choquette (02:34.99)
which we later on had open heart surgery for her. But she was in the hospital. We were selling our house and closing on it in like a few weeks to sell it. And because our daughter had, I donโt remember, she had some kind of sickness, RSV or something, and it was just where weโre at. And a house came on market. We didnโt have another house to go to. And so I saw a house come on market. I called my realtor. I FaceTimed her while I was there and we were just like, boom, we just bought the house.
so there was just like these crazy stories for every property weโve gotten into, but come to selling that house, we couldnโt find anything that really worked. So we ended up moving into apartment and thatโs when we really did more of a fix and flip without being involved. And that was like just prior to 2020. And so we flipped a house, man, I would love to get into all the details and every story. Like some of this one house weโre supposed to know my first house.
I, itโs because I stepped on a nail in Florida on my birthday.
Dylan Silver (03:31.661)
Selfishly, selfishly, Chad, I want to know, and we were talking about this before we hopped on the podcast here. Iโm actually in a real estate bootcamp and excuse me, not a real estate, a coding bootcamp. And I think thereโs a lot of similarities, but also some rather glaring differences between the typical person that does real estate and the typical person that does kind of the software engineering or IT type background. And, you know,
sometimes people need partners for a reason. First of all, tell us about how you discovered that you could be a real estate investor. Was it in your blood or was it, know, Iโve been doing this web development for a while and Iโve got either a nest egg or I want to branch out. How did you end up getting into it?
Chad Choquette (04:20.364)
Yeah, so I grew up in New Hampshire and my dad built houses in New England. So Iโd always been around real estate and business. And what allowed us to get into it was really the fact that we bought a house and then sold it and bought another house. And we just kept doing that for a couple of years. And that, you know, pent up equity that we were able to recapture in the form of, you know, cash out from selling our house and buying something less expensive or getting a HELOC.
was what allowed us to get into real estate more formally. So when we got to moving into an apartment, we had sold our house and now we had all this money that we didnโt have to pay taxes on because it was our primary, but we didnโt have anywhere to go. And so we flipped a house on the side and we paid for it out of pocket entirely. You know, we just bought this house, that property we saw on market. We approached them, got a really good deal on it because you know, a whole different variety of scenarios. And then we just funded the whole deal ourselves.
And then made more money on that, which we have tax on that.
Dylan Silver (05:20.874)
Were you keeping these as any of these as rentals or was it all like that deal fix and flip?
Chad Choquette (05:26.146)
Yeah, I was just fixing flips initially. And some days I kind of regret having sold anything given where prices are now.
Dylan Silver (05:33.952)
I hear that as the big thing and the avatar for the person who listens to our podcast is someone whoโs doing 50 plus deals a month, or excuse me, a year. Not a month, that would be tremendous, but 50 plus deals a year. But we also have some newer investors and for folks who are like, know, Iโm a software engineer or I just had a gentleman who was an accountant on the podcast, it can seem daunting to go into this totally new industry
where you hear so many different ways, wholesaling, fix and flip, short-term rental, getting things from the foreclosures, itโs daunting. And so it sounds like it was almost a divine intervention way for you to get into this from selling your house, realizing that you had these tax benefits really, because you donโt have to pay taxes every two years, which I didnโt even know. And then you flipped it and you realized, hey, you know.
I can do this. And now maybe thinking like, I wish I would have kept one, but you know.
Chad Choquette (06:37.55)
Well, now Iโve learned my lesson. Iโm trying to keep a little bit more, but ironically I am trying to sell off some of my assets that actually produce income, which weโll get into that in a minute. yeah, like I think for most people who want to get started, starting any business takes a level of risk that youโre willing to accept. itโs a lot, I will say itโs a lot easier if youโre not married and you donโt have kids. Itโs a little bit harder once you have people that rely on you.
So if youโre young and you have the time and energy, go for it. If youโre older or whatever, you have people that you need to take care of or whatever, it doesnโt really matter. You have to figure out and assess your own risk in that because thereโs, with any investment, like thereโs a potential of losing everything. So it takes a good bit of putting the right people in place to underwrite and look at a deal and assess and find good deals or learning that yourself.
Dylan Silver (07:28.515)
Yeah, and for folks who are on that, you know, jumping into it, trying to figure out what can I do, you know, it can be scary, for sure. You did 15 years in full stack web development. So it wasnโt like this was something where you have no professional experience and youโre jumping into that. But thereโs people who do do that. I know a couple of them. And so
When people do this, itโs like what you said, you do have to assess your level of risk because someone might say, hey, Iโm willing to risk it all. Iโm willing to leave my job, but I also have no dependence versus that person who does. And in your case, was, hey, we happened to get this home. We flipped it. We did several of those to now getting into something very interesting, which is revitalizing a small town.
and then also doing private money lending, which is a whole other aspect of the business. So tell us how you got into that.
Chad Choquette (08:30.434)
Yeah, so we have owned and operated Airbnbs for about four years since COVID and
During that time, that was kind of like our primary income over the past two years. I was a full-stacked web developer until about two years ago. And then I got laid off because the company was, you know, didnโt have as many clients coming in at the time. And we had kind of been praying about it, thinking about it. And then itโs just like, okay, well, hereโs our chance. Letโs do it. And we ended up selling off one of our Airbnbs in North Carolina. And that gave us an influx of cash. And we ended up going by another property, launching another Airbnb. And what happened over the past two years since I left my job
was we did some fixes and flips and we operate our Airbnbs and we automated the processes, but there was just some level of growing pains that we couldnโt figure out how to overcome some of the levels in which prices have gone up. know, everybodyโs cost of living has gone up, whether it be food or gas or whatever youโre talking about.
And our Airbnbs were doing really well. Like we have fed our family essentially on running two Airbnbs and that has gone really well for us, but they didnโt really keep up with the way inflation is and, and getting to where we are now. So about, I think it was six months ago, sometime in June last year, the, somebody from pace Morbys team reached out to me. I donโt even remember how they got in contact with me and like they just found me. People just come find me. And it was like,
Okay, sounds good. They were like, how about you join this new program we have called Gator and itโs all about money lending and stuff. And I was like, okay, that sounds great. Like, I mean, it makes sense. So yeah, Iโm going to side tangent soapbox for a minute. If you pay to be in a program, you should do the things that they talk about in the program or why are you there? Cause I just joined a business coaching program as well. And I meet so many people in these programs and things they pay like ridiculous amounts of money. Like one of them, I didnโt even pay to do it, be in the program for this.
Chad Choquette (10:26.978)
tax structuring business thing. I just went and did all the things because I had all the connections to it. People had already paid like 50 grams. Somebody paid a hundred thousand dollars to be in this thing and didnโt even do the thing. And I was like, itโs blown away. So when I joined that program, Paceโs Gator program, I just started doing everything. Like I just watched all the videos, the content, and I just literally do everything. Cause I think he talks about this, Pace talks about it and several other people talk about, thereโs different personalities. Thereโs some people who,
Theyโre sitting in the airplane. I think it was Eddie Wilson and Andrew Cordova talking about this. Eddie Wilson, he runs a family office and stuff, and heโs talking about how if theyโre in an airplane, theyโre gonna find the parachute, theyโre gonna put it on, assess how far they have to jump, evaluate the wrist, howโs the airplane actually doing before you jump. Andrew Cordovaโs over there like, parachute what? And dive bomb, jump out. And Iโm a little bit more that way in which I think of an idea.
and letโs just go figure out how to do it. Like just, you know, jump into a deeper pool and youโll figure out if you can swim. And that is definitely a hard way to go. Experience is the best teacher, but itโs also the hardest teacher. And youโll learn a lot of that. am Pace was talking about him and Cody were discussing how Cody Sanchez will do a little more research and Pace just like jumps in and usually by the end in which Cody has figured out like this is the appropriate path to move down this venture.
Pace has like failed like five or six times and learned how to do it and like even better. And you you kind of have to figure out what your personality is. Go read some books. Thereโs so much good literature out there that can teach you a little bit more about yourself and the proper way to do things.
Dylan Silver (12:07.068)
You know, itโs surprising. Youโre probably, you are the first full stack web developer that Iโve talked to whoโs transitioned into real estate. But I think traditionally when people hear, you know, engineer web developer, they think super analytical. Like youโre gonna map everything out before you make a move, you know? But in your case, it sounds like the opposite. Youโre like, letโs just go, letโs go.
Chad Choquette (12:32.438)
Yes. Well, cause thatโs how I programmed because the way it was is you ever see a picture of like a car running down the road and somebody sitting on the engine with the hood open and like working on it. Thatโs like, were working in stuff in production. Like I was like breaking stuff in real time while people were probably actively using the website. And thereโs not the way you should be doing it, but like when youโre launching big stuff or things need to be changed and we had, found a bug. like, weโre not going to take the website off. Weโre just going to keep going. And like, weโre going to fix it while itโs being, you know, being used. So.
Dylan Silver (13:00.936)
Thatโs right. People are not going to be without their major media, whatever it is, financial tool. in that space, well, first, thereโs two different spaces that Iโm thinking about here, the fix and flip space and the Airbnb space. And they can intertwine. You can fix and flip and do an Airbnb. Did you have partners in this? Was it you and your wife? Was it you alone? How did you get the skills? Was it from your father, who was the home builder?
Chad Choquette (13:01.888)
Hahaha
Chad Choquette (13:08.216)
Exactly.
Chad Choquette (13:28.78)
Yeah, so mostly it was ourselves. My first house, I didnโt even tell my parents that I had bought it. We just, they showed up and were coming to visit me and my wife, were about to be engaged at that time and my parents were coming to visit and theyโre like, I was like, yeah, you can stay here. And we show up at the house and like, whose house is this? And I was like, this is my house. And theyโre like, what? So theyโve always been around what weโre doing, but they havenโt directly been part of what weโre doing.
My wife and I have mostly done everything. Iโll give her, hereโs a bunch. This is how much money we have to design this space. Um, and we have a private money lender who has kind of helped us along over the past, I guess, four years, four or five years. Um, thatโs really accelerated some of our acquisitions cause itโs a lot easier to buy with private money. Uh, you know, if you have that personal relationship and so outside of him until recently, I hadnโt had as much of a team. Iโve had people I bounce ideas off of.
But weโve mostly been kind of going on our own.
Dylan Silver (14:29.35)
Are you in the Carolinas? Is that where youโre out of?
Chad Choquette (14:31.584)
Upstate, South Carolina, Iโm Taylorโs just outside of Greenville.
Dylan Silver (14:34.799)
Okay, so whatโs your perspective? ask our guests this often. If youโre doing fix and flips, do you have to be there or is it potentially possible or even profitable to do it remotely somehow?
Chad Choquette (14:51.81)
I would say you can do it remotely and be profitable, but if you read the book Atomic Habits by James Clear, he says, you never rise to your level of your ambitions, you always fall to your systems or processes. And that is just like the epitome of whether or not youโre gonna be successful in everything. Because we had an Airbnb in North Carolina, I didnโt live there, and it would take me like three hours to drive up to our unit. And so if something went awry, I had toโฆ
rely on the people that I already had connection with up there. And it was somewhat easier to manage that one just because of that. So once you put systems and processes in, like sure, you have to find reliable people. You have to know those people. You have to set the standard of what youโre trying to do and have those systems and processes to be successful. So Iโd say, yeah, you can do it, but you really have to know what youโre about. You have to have the right people in place.
Dylan Silver (15:45.824)
Thatโs good for me because one of my long-term goals is Iโd love to move to Latin America, but Iโve asked everybody this. said, can you really do fix and flipping if youโre not there? It sounds crazy. Youโre just going to trust someone with lots of valuable equipment. You know, theyโre going to have to go to Home Depot for me. You know what I mean? So, also, for the folks who are looking at the Airbnb model, it sounds like there was some growing pain. It sounds like you were very active in that space for five years of the fix and flip space.
Chad Choquette (16:03.384)
Yep. Yep.
Dylan Silver (16:15.97)
What advice would you have? What growing pains were there? I know you touched on it a little bit and what advice would you have for folks?
Chad Choquette (16:22.242)
Yeah, so in Airbnb in particular, I would say make sure you are spending a good bit of time doing market research before you invest and then make sure you have the right systems and processes in place. So we have a lot of automations. We use hospitable and price labs. We have a whole stack. Weโre on every platform. We do direct booking.
And AI writes like our reviews and our messages and it just kind of assists us because I canโt be available day and night as much as I really want to be like, you know, top post respond instantly. Um, and we ask a lot for the customer feedback, but putting those automations in place, like I donโt, our, um, our grass is actually cut by robots. have robots that cut all the grass at our properties too.
Dylan Silver (17:06.405)
To our listeners, this is the engineer coming out. The grass is getting cut by robots.
Chad Choquette (17:09.089)
Hahaha
Thatโs the way to do it, know? Automate everything, if we could. Like, I imagine the future of humanity is sitting back on a hammock, exploring the mountaintops, eating grapes, and robots do everything.
Dylan Silver (17:22.469)
As an aside, a little quick aside, these humanoid robots that weโre seeing from all these companies, know, Boston Dynamics, theyโre scary. What do you think about them?
Chad Choquette (17:33.142)
I donโt, Iโm not like particularly scared of them. Computers only do what you tell them to do. And so I was mentioning, I have four kids. And so I was mentioning to my wife, I was like, we always have this trouble getting a babysitter. I was like, you know, if we bought one of those Tesla bots, it could babysit for us. And she did not like that idea. No, no, no. But I thought I think thereโs a big opportunity to offload a bunch of our work that we just need done that people donโt.
Dylan Silver (17:49.529)
Sheโs not for it.
Chad Choquette (17:59.788)
really want to do those jobs. What? Well, have you seen some of those robots with like professional chef controls the hands? Yep.
Dylan Silver (18:01.103)
Cook me dinner. Cook me dinner. I have none.
So the iRobot, and weโll get back to the real estate stuff, the iRobot scenario where youโre Will Smith and all the robots are coming to get you type deal, you donโt think that thatโs gonna happen, at least not in our lifetime.
Chad Choquette (18:12.894)
Okay.
Chad Choquette (18:22.24)
Itโs not the robots that will be coming to get us. Itโs just other people.
Dylan Silver (18:25.678)
Fair enough, fair enough. Well, back to the real estate stuff. the Airbnb model for those folks who are looking into it, automation is key.
Chad Choquette (18:36.852)
and a reliable team because your cleaner is like number one person on the ground, boots on the ground, the person who should inform you about everything, understanding exactly how you pay them when they show up, how the processes are, like that person has to be key and on point. So you can.
Dylan Silver (18:54.283)
Very, very key, the cleaner, I can only imagine. For folks who are North Carolinians, if I said that right, North Carolinians, does Airbnb work well out there? Is it tricky? Is it becoming more difficult? I know in a lot of places it is.
Chad Choquette (19:12.801)
Yeah, it depends on where youโre operating. like Greenville City, like proper is really strict. And so you have to look into the particular jurisdiction youโre operating in. We operate in the county, which doesnโt have regulations and you, you know, itโs, itโs really easy. You have to kind of look at the market. like in our particular market, I can make a quick pitch. Iโm trying to sell my Airbnbโs. Itโs not because Iโm, I have anything against them. love the hospitality business, but I was sitting down with one of my lenders and they were like,
Dylan Silver (19:18.948)
Mm.
Dylan Silver (19:33.784)
Go ahead.
Chad Choquette (19:41.528)
I was like, how do I be more like you? How do I, you you buy and sell insurance agencies and merge them and youโre lending me money and stuff. And he said, the problem is youโre young, you have all this ambition, but youโre not cash heavy. And so you need to be cash heavy to do more of what you want. You already have these assets and you may be making money here, but given the returns youโve already given me, or youโve told me that you make, it makes more sense for you to sell them. So I did the numbers and I was like, okay, given where the direction weโre going, makes more sense to sell. So I have a couple here, Simpsonville, Taylorโs.
Even my primary home is wrapped into that because weโre just trying to go a different direction. what Iโm seeing is every market is very specific and the types of returns that youโre going to be getting. And you can outpace the market by investing in the types of amenities and the design. like if youโre on, have views or youโre on water and stuff, making sure you understand the market, the type of people like I can tell you exactly.
You know, last year we had 700 guests. So I say next door because Iโm at my house right now and I own the property next door we bought from a neighbor. I operate that as an Airbnb so that we could have our family come and stay with us. And I can say like, okay, we had 700 people stay at that one property alone across all of our channels. We primarily had people coming for weddings, family reunions, graduations, and then work cruises are other primary demographic. And then you can calculate out if you know what your average daily rate is, your occupancy rate.
You watch the market, you adjust prices like you have to be involved in that. But when you go and look online and youโre trying to assess whether or not a deal makes sense, make sure youโre looking at not just what airDNA or awning.com is a great resource and look at Zillow on the valuation and stuff. You want to look at what the market itself is procuring as far as tourists. We donโt have tourists as much right now. Weโre shifting to that as far as Greenville is concerned.
Dylan Silver (21:13.133)
Thank
Dylan Silver (21:23.81)
Right.
Chad Choquette (21:31.64)
but you wanna see like whatโs the type of people that are becoming and we cater because we have four kids, we cater to the family friendly market and that also happens to be obviously our highest demographic. A ton of people come here for work or family related events. So understanding that.
Dylan Silver (21:46.244)
Do you find that, I know someone who does quite a bit of this here in DFW, and theyโve found that sometimes having vacancies in Airbnb can be beneficial. So if youโre tracking and youโre like, darn, Iโm not getting a bunch of bookings, you could get a 60 day booking. I donโt know exactly how that works, but do you find that to be true at all, or is it like you want the shorter term?
Chad Choquette (22:10.658)
Yeah, so it depends on what youโre trying to do. So we have a studio and that one I want short-term people. That doesnโt have a laundry unit. Like we want them short and you know, we donโt really cater to long-term stuff there. The family house, I like to turn over on a weekly basis at least just because we may want to house our friends or our missionaries or our family members. Our Simpsonville house, that one Iโm fine with it being booked for a long time because the last year we had aโฆ
three or four month booking for somebody who was building a burger restaurant here and they were the project manager. And then we had people come for the new Fennico company thatโs planning on building a new facility here in Greenville, or people come work for some of the other foreign, like we have a lot of people from Poland and France and Germany and things like that who are here for production, you know, building stuff. So Iโm like.
Dylan Silver (22:58.336)
Wow, I know itโs exciting to get that notification. Three months? Gosh.
Chad Choquette (23:02.433)
yeah, yeah. Theyโre typically on Verbo for some reason, or booking.com, not usually Airbnb.
Dylan Silver (23:09.204)
We could get into that even more, but I want to make sure that we fit in the new endeavor that youโve been doing the last six months, which is private money lending and revitalizing a small town. So going from fix and flipping to revitalizing a small town, this is another scale, another level. How did that work?
Chad Choquette (23:20.536)
Yes.
Chad Choquette (23:28.526)
So as far as the money lending is, you know, I joined Gator and I just started doing everything they said to do. And so I spent like two weeks watching all the videos, connecting with all the organizations that would support you in this journey and just started doing it. And over that time, there was definitely some connections Iโd wish Iโd made sooner, but at this point we primarily lend second position. So typically when youโre buying a property, youโre getting a first position note, somebody whoโs paying, you know, the hard money lender, the private money lender, theyโre helping you buy it.
And then sometimes theyโll fund some of the invest, the, rehab costs or the renovations. And sometimes you have to bring that, or you could also get somebody who will fund the closing costs and the rehab as a gap. Thereโll be second position note. And those are typically at a higher percentage, a higher rate. And thatโs typically where I come in. I donโt do it with most people though. I just do it with some of my financial friends that I trade money. They support my projects. I support theirs and theyโre a little more expensive and theyโre
Usually we do the notes at like two, three, four months or something like that. Most of them are at six months, I think, but.
Dylan Silver (24:34.037)
those relationships and I tell this to everybody. So if the typical investor whoโs doing that we have as a listener is doing 50 deals a year, they already know this, but for newcomers, even if you donโt know what youโre doing, if youโre out there fanatically networking, itโs those relationships that really get you paid for lack of a better term. You can do all the knowledge, you can do all the knowledge, but itโs making those relationships where you really see the power of
You know, your time. Itโs in the relationships.
Chad Choquette (25:06.542)
Youโve got to have good relationships and if you ever go to Aspire tour with Andrew Cordele and Eddie Wilson, they talk about that a lot in the financial game of creators versus contributors. And weโre not going to get into that, but they said like, thatโs the biggest thing is having financial friends as you move up the money game ladder and you work with other people. And I see so many people, so I connected on a few deals. I brought some peopleโs money to another deal and Iโve seen some borrowers who haveโฆ
I donโt know, not that theyโd have no intention in paying back the lender, but they also donโt seem to make it their problem. Theyโre like, Iโm sorry, Iโm losing and you kind of have a problem now. I canโt pay you back. And that is just a poor way to look at the way this whole game works out. Cause thatโs kind of the end of your journey there. If you donโt pay somebody back, cause that work. So donโt do that.
Dylan Silver (25:50.981)
Thatโs it. How did you, how did you get into the, small town revitalization? I donโt think a lot of people will get that youโd be blessed to get an opportunity to do this. And I think a lot of people are happy doing what youโve been doing so far. That could be their end game. That would, they would, that would be thrilling to them, but you have the opportunity to revitalize a small town.
Chad Choquette (26:13.454)
Yeah. So I had, as I call it, the opportunity, the crossroads of opportunity and desire. Where I live, the main street here is nothing, you know, fancy. We donโt have a local government for our town, Taylorโs. And several months ago, you know, after hearing for years, everybodyโs like, oh, I wish something would happen over here. Itโd be really cool. Somebody approached me and theyโre like, hey, weโll sell off these two properties. And another person said, Iโll sell you a property on Main Street.
And we just kind of had this opportunity to buy several properties on Main Street all at once. And I kind of took that as the sign of like, maybe we can do something here. And then one of my friends in the sub two community and owners club and paces community, uh, and McNamara, she was throwing a workshop for small town revitalization in down in Palatka, Florida, where sheโs doing that. And hers is more of a revitalization and mineโs more of a redeveloped because our town is, you know, itโs growing and people are moving here, but
Dylan Silver (27:08.992)
Yup,
Chad Choquette (27:12.588)
Weโre more looking at a redevelopment and sheโs looking at an actual revitalization of a town thatโs not really growing. Sheโs trying to make it grow. so we were able to buy those three properties and then several other properties came up. So I just closed on two more. Weโre negotiating with several more on that. And I kind of just laid out this plan of if Iโm living here, what are the things that I want? So one of the things, you know, after church, I went out to eat with my friends. I got four kids. They got eight kids. Another oneโs got three kids.
Dylan Silver (27:27.456)
She was so.
Dylan Silver (27:33.866)
So, ciao.
Chad Choquette (27:40.302)
Where do we go to eat? down in Dallas, you have the, what is it called? The burger place with the playground outside.
Dylan Silver (27:47.426)
gosh, Iโm too new here to know. Iโve only been here since September and I live an hour north, but I should know. I should know.
Chad Choquette (27:50.529)
Okay.
I love that place because our kids can play and then we can eat and talk as adults. And I love that. And we donโt have anything. We have some stuff further over like 30 minutes downtown in Greenville, but I was like, itโd be nice if it was here. So we went to Chipotle and then after two hours of our kids not particularly being happy about hanging out there, that was the end of the conversation. And it would be ideal if we had something where community people could get together.
Dylan Silver (27:55.794)
huh.
Chad Choquette (28:18.414)
So we initially pitched the idea of building a restaurant on Main Street. That didnโt really work out with some of the costs on the building because itโs older. But now we have a new property that weโre looking on that backs up to Main Street. Weโre calling it Taylor Station. Itโs a former 7-Eleven. And weโre looking at developing a 36-hole miniature golf course, a pizza restaurant, and then an outdoor pavilion with outdoor seating and a fenced-in play structure area for kids. Because weโd be able to have the opportunity to go there.
Adults can hang out, talk. Younger kids can go in the fencing area. The older kids can go play mini golf. Thereโs a few other things weโre thinking about adding. And the unique thing about that particular one is weโre allowing anybody to invest in it, take apart ownership and take an equity stake for like, I think right now the minimum investment is like $12,000 and weโre working on getting some additional funding so we can lower that minimum. But thatโs on investintaylors.com or you can see it, taylorsstation.com. But thatโs just like one of six major points Iโm building out.
or designing out in our town.
Dylan Silver (29:16.425)
could probably talk about this expansion of this town, revitalizing of this town for probably two and a half, three hours. Cause I want to know, I mean, just some of the questions, you know, how is it talking with the city officials zoning, you know, how, how does one even start connecting with that type of network and, know, the, the difficulties associated with that. I sat in on a podcast,
recently where someone was talking about, know, rather than it being combative, you got to try to really nurture that relationship just like you would with an investor or with a seller. And I think a lot of people are not doing that, but unfortunately we donโt have all the time for that. So Chad, where can people go to get in touch with you?
Chad Choquette (30:03.682)
Yeah, so you can find me on Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, whatever it is, at Chad Choquette, C-H-O-Q-E-E-T-T, just simple, my name. I primarily focus on Instagram right now, like I mentioned before, Iโm in a business coaching program with Dan Martel. One of the things we have to do every day is post three times a day, and Iโm also working on reels and content. Iโm talking with some marketing people that I can put out some more content about our projects, but thatโs primarily where weโre at.
if you want to be involved in our project, invest in tailors.com, can see tailorstation.com and Iโm going to work on putting out more, but at right now, like Instagram is the place for us.
Dylan Silver (30:43.145)
Well, Chad, thank you for coming on the podcast and to our listeners. If you are a full stack web developer, if youโre in the engineering space and youโre saying, how do I do this? Well, if you listen today, Chadโs journey details that and then some until next time. See you on the real estate pros podcast.