How a South Florida General Contractor Wins Commercial Build-Outs & Investor Projects

Mike Mondelli (00:00)
by the time we waited for permits, after 14 months of waiting for permits, I built out the bar in less than 30 days. mean…

I did the grease traps, underground grease traps, the underground plumbing, the electrical. We poured the slab, we built the bar out, framed it.

built the wall, I it’s just, I did the whole thing in less than 30 days.

Dylan Silver (01:51)
Hey folks, welcome back to the show. Today’s guest, Mike Mondelli is a general contractor in South Florida, founder of Avante Construction. Thanks for joining us today,

Mike Mondelli (02:00)
You’re welcome. Nice to be here. Happy to be here.

Dylan Silver (02:02)
Now, when we talk South Florida, Florida in general, but specifically South Florida, I was mentioning to you in the green room, this is probably my favorite area in the country. And there’s so many people from around the country, around the world who are looking at investing in South Florida. I’d like to start off at the top by asking, know, how you got started in this space.

Mike Mondelli (02:22)
Well, I got started at a very young ripe age of probably 18 years old.

My father was a real estate investor down here, actually was in New York and then came here and partnered in with an investor, Tom Palumbo. Tom was a very, very seasoned investor here in South Florida for a number of years. And my dad was his partner. basically got started in buying and flipping and wholesaling property. And that’s how I got started. I walked into my dad’s office at a young age and over the summers I’d come home from college

I played college football, but I came home from college and I said, dad, you know, I want to learn the business. And, you know, I started out, know, demolition work for my dad’s rehabs and my dad’s flips.

then I eventually got into hanging drywall and painting and stuff like that. But the majority of the way I started was the grind, just started from the bottom. And that’s it.

Dylan Silver (03:16)
Yeah, now when we talk

general contracting in general, I think that there’s a lot going on around the country and I think more people are getting into the space. I would say there’s still a shortage of general contractors, but South Florida specifically, I gotta imagine the competition is steep and people have to find their niches, right? Is there any one niche that you’re involved in or that you see a lot of work coming from as far as a segment of real estate?

Mike Mondelli (03:33)
Peace.

You know, as much as I would like to tell you that, I’m involved in a niche and I pound my niche, just, I’ve been, I’ve been, I’ve been in this space and I’ve done such a, we have done such a great job in, customer service and, cultivating the relationships with, with homeowners and either, and or developers. I think, I think my niche has shifted towards

⁓ commercial build outs and build outs for developers. We just built out a illicery bakery. We built out a state farm insurance company. We built out a mixed martial arts studio for one developer and now we’re doing a large restaurant, pizza restaurant for them. So that’s kind of our niche is those build outs, those small build outs.

But then we’re also in a high rise building. I do a lot of, they do something called, they just sell you a white box here.

Dylan Silver (04:26)
Right, right.

Mike Mondelli (04:34)
In Miami, a lot of developers are just building these skyscrapers and you’re going in, they’re just giving you a box and they’re saying, here, here, homeowner, here’s a $2 million shell. Now hire a contractor. Me, we go out there and we design, we hire a designer and they go design their whole white box out to whatever they want their unit to look like. So there’s a lot of that we’re

into.

Dylan Silver (05:42)
You

mentioned commercial build-outs, right? And one of the things that is interesting right now across the country is I’ve heard mixed feedback as far as how these deals will pan, how these deals will underwrite. People talking about it’s difficult to develop commercial multifamily housing, for instance, just because the costs of materials and then depending on where you’re at, rents could be fluctuating and so forth.

What’s been your experience as far as developing in that multifamily sector?

Mike Mondelli (06:12)
Yeah, well construction costs. So the biggest thing with multi-family build outs and custom build outs like that is the logistical portion of it. You’ve got condo buildings that

You can’t get until nine o’clock. You’ve got people living in the common areas. So you’ve got to navigate bringing materials up. And you can only work from nine in the morning till three in the afternoon. Everything goes up. Your cost of goods have to, I mean, just you have to bill accordingly.

to be able to sustain the amount of extra time I’m gonna be in that unit or in that apartment building or in that multifamily skyscraper because by the time you get around to parking in the morning, it’s nine, 10 o’clock before you get upstairs. You’re trying to find parking, you have to park a mile away or whatever and then delivering those products, mean, it’s just… And we also do a, we had a logistical nightmare in South Beach.

Dylan Silver (06:56)
Yeah.

Mike Mondelli (07:06)
We’re building out the Tiki Hut bar at the Surfcomber Hotel. So, I mean, you’re talking Miami Beach, spring break time. I’m just wrapping up the project now. I’ll share with you later some pictures and how that dynamic went.

But by the time we waited for permits, after 14 months of waiting for permits, I built out the bar in less than 30 days. mean…

I did the grease traps, underground grease traps, the underground plumbing, the electrical. We poured the slab, we built the bar out, framed it.

built the wall, I it’s just, I did the whole thing in less than 30 days.

So that’s, you asked what the niche is, I get work done really, really fast. have a, the way I strategically coordinate and work around logistically, especially like South Beach, you’ve got stuff going on everywhere. We had two streets closed off. I couldn’t get a concrete truck in there, bro. I had to get pallets of concrete delivered on our trucks.

And then I had to men walk them, literally probably 500, I would say an eighth of a mile. They had to walk 80 pound bags of concrete to the back unload. And it was just, it was a nightmare.

Dylan Silver (08:14)
When we talk about timelines, deadlines, and in general, working with investors or folks who are doing some type of value add rehab to their homestead or to an investment property or their restaurant, one of the common bottlenecks I hear is managing contractors and deadlines, et cetera. How have you managed to be able to consistently meet and exceed deadlines?

Mike Mondelli (08:24)
Mm-hmm.

don’t procrastinate.

And that’s how I, I mean, I know it sounds elementary, but procrastination is the assassination of your ultimate destination.

how do you stick with timelines and deadlines? You don’t procrastinate. You stay on top and you have, and this is this, my job, my business is a full time babysitting service. I know

it’s a, I mean, it’s a glorified babysitter. I’ve got, I’ve got to stay on top of guys because here’s the thing. If I have to open up a bar and I’ve got a deadline for this bar to open up.

on March 24th. So if my plumbers don’t show up or my electricians don’t show up or my framers don’t show up or I’m not getting concrete delivered on time, I get hurt because of it. And the only way to do that is you have to hold people accountable.

and you have to let them know that you’re just gonna be here this day and this time and if you’re not, not only are gonna lose the job but I’m gonna come after you. You know what saying? It’s just, ⁓ it’s very difficult. is not an, construction is not an easy business. I people tell me like, well you seem to be a little bit higher than everybody else. I’m not the most expensive nut.

Dylan Silver (09:33)
Yeah.

Mike Mondelli (09:45)
not the cheapest, but I’ll tell you this,

I’m good. I’m very good at what I do. And the job is gonna get done. It’s gonna get done on time when I say it’s gonna get done.

Managing crews, as you’re managing construction work, you wanna always stay ahead of them. Meaning, my guys are never, I’m never gonna give my guys too much money where, because at the end of the day, these guys are infamous for taking money, going to the next job. And by the way, when I start a job, I don’t stop the job until I finish it. I don’t take guys off. And that’s another way dealing how I stick the timelines. A lot of contractors,

they’ll take on a job and they’ll start demolition on Monday and then go do another job on Tuesday or Wednesday. No, when I start demolition on Monday, on Tuesday, I’m there, I’m framing. You understand? I’m putting, I’m doing my framing, I’m doing my next steps. don’t, yeah, I’m demoing Monday and then I’ll start framing on Thursday. No, no, I run through the job and get it done fast.

Dylan Silver (10:25)
Yeah.

for folks who are looking at managing multiple sites, and I’m specifically thinking about flippers right now, and they’re thinking, okay, well, we gotta do volume, right? So now we’re gonna have multiple sites. We might be using the same crew or multiple crews.

That can be a tricky process, especially for folks who are scaling. Any feedback for folks who may be, for their first time, managing multiple sites?

Mike Mondelli (10:58)
So managing multiple sites, multiple trades. So if you have several rehabs going at once, it’s best to try to coordinate the trades that you’re doing simultaneously, right? So if you’ve got…

three projects at once, you wanna get all your demo done. If you can coordinate it like this, if it works out where, okay, so I close on the properties on Friday, and they need the same scope of work. Let’s say the scope of work entails,

demolition on all three properties or demolition on two properties without getting too complicated. Let’s say demolition on all three properties. So I close on Friday and I say, well I have my demolition crews. I will pinpoint, know, hey, you’re gonna be here. You’re gonna be at 17th street, 18th street, 19th street. We’re gonna do demolition in one day. So I’ll coordinate all my demo in one day. While my guys are demoing, I I’ve already done a takeoff on the materials that I need.

Dylan Silver (11:38)
Sure.

Mike Mondelli (12:01)
to be placed on site. So when my demo is done and I have that trash removed and now I have a blank canvas to work from, I’ve got my materials already delivered, my framing materials, you understand? My drywall materials. So if when my framing is done, my electrical rough, my plumbing rough, and then obviously your inspections, you get your rough inspections done and boom, then you start putting everything back together.

Dylan Silver (13:25)
Pivoting a bit here, Mike, for folks who are coming from a value add background, whether it’s the single family space or the multifamily, and I think South Florida may actually be an exception here. So this may be a little bit of a curve ball question here, but there’s a lot of folks right now that are seeing properties sit on market for an extended period of time. And also too, in the multifamily space, some of the logic that was working maybe five years ago was not working today. Like you can’t just necessarily put like a fountain and some amenities.

and then staircase rents up year by year because people are just gonna move to a place that’s offering incentives even if all those amenities may or may not be there. And so, you know, I’ve seen as well folks having to pivot their strategy away from just strictly value add to almost downside protection, expense management, you know, hey, how can we save on taxes?

for folks who are coming from a value add background, whether that’s in the single family space or multi-family, I’ve seen that because of market fluctuations, properties sitting on the market for maybe a little bit longer, and then as well, there’s increased vacancies in multi-family housing in various markets.

people can’t just bank on the same type of value add approach that they maybe previously could and properties are sitting longer as well. So there’s increased holding costs associated. Are you seeing investors, know, pivot away from strictly value add to also looking at how they can, you know, increase cashflow other ways and increase, you know, the value in their asset other ways, such as, you know, tax strategies and then also operational efficiency.

Mike Mondelli (16:05)
I mean, there’s room for negotiation on, in every corner, I mean, you could cut your costs down. if you’re working on value add, it’s value add, right? You have to figure out a way to add more value to the property if it’s increasing or decreasing tax, your tax liability or…

you know, saving money on material cost and adding to your bottom line at the end of the day. there’s no secret sauce or I don’t think there’s a, there’s some sort of, there’s no, there’s no easy answer to that question. Right. I mean, we try to cut costs everywhere we, everywhere we can. Right. If I’m, if I, well, here’s the thing, maybe sometimes on, you know,

Dylan Silver (16:42)
Yeah.

Mike Mondelli (16:48)
given the market conditions and the way things are going and the way the market has softened up, interest rates are increasing, I think that you can add value to a property without.

totally ripping out the entire bathroom or without totally gunning the kitchen. There’s other ways to add value and create a desirable property to either live in or to flip and ultimately sell for a profit.

A lot of people think, I think like going in Dylan and it’s like ripping a house apart and spending $100,000 was the best idea. But I come to find out that you can get the same result by maybe spending $40,000. And there’s ways to do that.

Dylan Silver (17:10)
Yeah.

Yeah, I

mean, especially, you know, people are looking at doing these like HGTV level flips and everything from the roof to the studs, right? And then, you know, it becomes almost a passion project. And you can start to start to distance yourself from the bottom line. And that I think that’s where people sometimes get into some bit of trouble.

Pivoting a bit here, though, Mike, you know, when we talk specifically about South Florida, it’s very interesting market, right? Because probably one of the most desirable, if not the most desirable areas of the country

And I personally love that area. I was mentioning to you in the green room how much I love Miami and Fort Lauderdale and being on Las Olas Street and Fort Lauderdale just loving that. I think there’s a lot of interest from folks across the country in real estate about moving their business to South Florida, Florida in general, but not just for the weather, not just for the favorable tax treatment, but also because there’s an energy of entrepreneurship that is happening

Mike Mondelli (17:40)
Mm-hmm.

Dylan Silver (18:06)
in South Florida specifically, where you’re seeing real estate operators from across the country move their business there, even if they’re not based out of South Florida.

Mike Mondelli (18:16)
Yeah, well, I mean, I see that every day. here in downtown Miami the majority of the time. mean, there’s the urge just in, mean, people are realizing that in order to get rich, in order to create true wealth, it’s in the entrepreneurial space. 75 % of the millionaires are made in the entrepreneurial space, whatever it is that you’re doing. And I think that there’s more with artificial intelligence specifically, there’s ways to make money, a lot of money.

Sitting at home, doing work from your home and what better place to live than sunny South Florida, right? I mean, you’ve got everything you could ever want here. And it’s a young entrepreneur’s world now, down here specifically, places like Las Olas, Fort Lauderdale. It’s growing, it’s growing, it’s becoming more popular. mean, look, they’ve just built…

buildings here that are 100 % sold out. mean, people are migrating to Florida, it continues to be a place where people want to live. Despite that it’s, you the market may be resetting, the market may have shifted, you know, to a seller’s market balance buyer, you know, leaning towards that. But…

Dylan Silver (19:17)
Yeah.

Mike Mondelli (19:33)
even though prices are slightly down.

Dylan Silver (19:33)
There’s a lot of people

who are interested in moving there for sure. No question about that.

Mike Mondelli (19:35)
Despite the prices are down one to 5 %

in many areas.

So you could reach, you could either go to Avante Construction’s website, you can send me a message there, or you can text me directly. I’ll always answer my text, it’s 954-857-9971. You could reach me directly there. one of the newest projects we’re working on, we’re doing a big common area renovation right off of Las Olas. Very interesting, Dylan, so we’ll get more into that.

Maybe next time when I’m a common area renovation about six six and a half million dollar project in in Fort Lauderdale So maybe we’ll see each other for some coffee down in Las Olas

Dylan Silver (19:54)
Mike, thank you so much for joining us today.

Mike Mondelli (20:00)
Absolutely. Thank you Dylan.