How Investor-Focused Brokers Solve Deals Others Can’t | Seller Financing & Creative Real Estate

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Show Summary

In this conversation, Andrew Bosco, a New England-based real estate entrepreneur, shares insights into the real estate market, focusing on problem-solving, seller financing, and strategies for new investors. He discusses his transition from a scientific career to real estate, emphasizing the importance of networking and understanding market dynamics. Andrew provides practical advice for navigating the complexities of real estate investment, particularly in the New England area, and highlights the significance of building relationships in the industry.

Resources and Links from this show:

• • • Investor Fuel Real Estate Mastermind
    • Investor Machine Real Estate Lead Generation
    • Mike on Facebook
    • Mike on Instagram
    • Mike on LinkedIn
    • Andrew Bosco on LinkedIn
    • Andrew Bosco on Instagram
    • Candor Investment Meetups Website
    • Andrew Bosco’s Email Address: [email protected]
    • Andrew Bosco’s Phone Number: (603) 833-0951

  Listen to the Audio Version of this Episode

  Investor Fuel Show Transcript:

  Andrew Bosco (00:00)
  Yeah, it’s a good question, Dylan. So the first thing is relationships. I Make the relationship. It could be with the seller. It could be with the owner. Ask questions. Really figure out what’s their motive. What are they doing? And then one thing I advise all the agents, coming from a mentorship aspect, is one offer. The offer that you’re making needs to be really, really good. But if you make two or three offers, now you’ve given the choice to the seller. In some instances, choice is bad. In some instances, it’s good. You only know the answer if you ask questions.

  Dylan Silver (02:01)
  Hey folks, welcome back to the show. Today’s guest, Andrew Bosco is a New England based real estate entrepreneur and CEO of candor realty with a focus on building scalable investor centric brokerage systems. He also leads granite and pine properties and candor investment group offering flexible solutions, including listing as cash purchases and seller financing. Andrew, thanks for coming on today.

  Andrew Bosco (02:26)
  Thanks for having me, Dylan. Excited to be here and let’s kick it off with you, man

  Dylan Silver (02:30)
  Absolutely, and New England

  real estate. I have a lot of affinity to New England. My dad grew up in the New England area, was up there every summer. lived in New England briefly, but now I’m in a different climate. I’m in Santo Domingo in the Dominican Republic. So what’s it like up there right now? It’s probably pretty cold right now. Probably some snow on the ground, right?

  Andrew Bosco (02:46)
  Little different.

  Yeah, yeah, we got a few inches of snow, you know, it’s you know, you the freezing pipes to worry about, not like you have to do in the Dominican. You know, you have different like, you know, ice dams and all that stuff and whatnot. yeah, quite cold and a lot of snow right now.

  Dylan Silver (03:03)
  You know what’s interesting when you talk about the freezing pipes, everything’s winterized in New England for the most part, right? So how much of a concern really is that for investors and for everyday folks?

  Andrew Bosco (03:13)
  Yeah. So for investors, mean, the reality is we’re like any other market, right? So, you know, in the spring and the fall, you’re a really good selling season. So anything you buy in November to like February, you got to be conscious of like when you’re going to sell it, which is probably six months with June, because you got the holidays and then the freezing pipes, as much as we to say it’s winterized. Not everybody does as good of a job as probably you would do. So, you know, I’ve been to some houses where there’s pipes that were in the ground outside of the house that were a water inlet line and they wrapped it with like an insulation tubing.

  Dylan Silver (03:27)
  Yeah.

  So that’s one way to handle it, right? ⁓

  Andrew Bosco (03:43)
  So one way to handle

  it. Yeah. Yeah. Not the right way, but

  Dylan Silver (03:49)
  How did you get involved in brokerage? Was it through investing or did brokerage come first?

  Andrew Bosco (03:51)
  you

  It’s a great question. No, so I used to work at full W2. I was a scientist at a few different major pharmaceuticals and full of transparency. got kind of bored, I guess is the way to work. I knew the harder I was working, I wasn’t getting any reward from it. And I tried going into sales, didn’t work. And I said, you know what, I’ll get myself experienced in real estate. I don’t know why I thought that was a good idea. And so then I got it, through part-time agent mornings, nights, weekends, and full-time broke and full-time W2 work. And so it just kind of fell in my lap, was a part-time agent for about a year.

  Dylan Silver (04:09)
  Yeah.

  Andrew Bosco (04:25)
  Did really, really well my first year.

  Dylan Silver (04:27)
  Now, when we talk about making that type of transition, right, going from W to science, science, right, into real estate, two totally different fields, almost two different parts of the brain. Did you know people in real estate at that point in time to kind of guide you along that path or was this a leap of faith for you?

  Andrew Bosco (04:47)
  No, that’s a good question. I think everybody has a friend that’s a realtor. So I knew people that were in the game, but they weren’t doing what I wanted to do. I didn’t want to help the forever family buy their forever home and like the perfect shades and whatnot. I was more of a numbers guy. The science background comes from analytics. And so I just was like, numbers make sense to me. Investment property makes sense. I actually found my quote unquote mentor, person that I work with now every day, John Babachi through meetups. And so I saw him bigger pockets, went through that realm and I saw this place, it’s like a free meetup for real estate investors.

  So I showed up and just talked to them and like 30 other people. And I went to my wife and I was like, that’s the group I’m to be with. Like that, that group right there that has these meetups, that’s exactly what I to be around. And so it just kind of exploded from there and, you know, join their brokerage and the rest of history.

  Dylan Silver (06:19)
  Now, as someone who’s working with an investor, as an investor yourself, was there a segment that you were maybe initially looking at, be it like single family distress, or was it a mix across the board?

  Andrew Bosco (06:25)
  Yep.

  Pretty good, yeah, so I think when you start anything, you don’t know what to not know. So I kind of just opened my arms to everything and I found myself gravitating towards the investor side, whether it was single family or multi-family. Could’ve been fixing flips, could’ve been multi-family, distress properties, foreclosure, whatever. ⁓ There was a problem to solve and I had a lot of fun with the problem. And so that’s really what it turned into.

  Dylan Silver (06:52)
  Yeah. Yeah.

  Yeah, I mean, I know that exactly coming myself from the distress seller space, off market, know, foreclosure, pre foreclosure, know, death probate, right? ⁓ I’ve seen exactly, you know, how it takes a problem solving mind in order to get these deals to happen. And the reality is, is that most

  Andrew Bosco (06:56)
  you

  Yep.

  Yep.

  Dylan Silver (07:21)
  And I am a realtor, so I feel like can say this lovingly. Most realtors are not trying to work with folks that are in these situations. And so it takes someone who’s gonna have a investor network or be an investor themselves in order to come up with a creative solution so that everyone walks away feeling good about it.

  Andrew Bosco (07:22)
  .

  Yeah, to your point, Dylan, I I being a scientist taught me how to be analytical, but listen, and a lot of A B testing. And so I did that in beginning. I A B tested, listened to active listening is a really important skill. And the first thing I’m ever telling somebody was like, listen, my solutions may not be for you, may not be for the next person, but I think I need to listen to all your problems. And that went a long way for most people. It’s just tell me, you know, if I could give anybody advice is don’t sell, solve a problem.

  Dylan Silver (08:04)
  Yeah.

  Andrew Bosco (08:10)
  you will intrinsically sell because of that. And that’s just, if you are a problem solver, you will make money. That is just a fact.

  Dylan Silver (08:16)
  When we talk about solving these problems in the real estate space, I’ve seen every variety of problems. Sometimes I feel like when you’re an investor, you’re as much a mediator, as a therapist, as a apartment locator, as someone who’s planning like logistics and like storage and everything in between.

  Andrew Bosco (08:28)
  Oh yeah.

  Dylan Silver (08:37)
  What’s some of the ⁓ stories that you have or maybe one that comes to mind when you talk about problem solving and dealing with buyers and sellers?

  Andrew Bosco (08:47)
  No, that’s a good question. So it’s funny. I actually see this in a different light now. So as the CEO of the Candor Investment Group, know, because we changed our name from Candor Real Estate Investment Group joining EXP is what it is. The thing I have to laugh at is I see everybody’s stories now. And so I find myself, you know, the good story that I’ll share is I had an agent that was on our team, super, you know, rock star person. Her name is Sonia and Sonia had this commercial property and she’s never bought commercial property before in her life. And she called me the other day and she’s like,

  I have a friend whose parents just passed away. They have this big commercial parcel and they want my help. I don’t know what to do. And I thought it was kind of a funny remark. said, well, there’s a lot of things. What do you want to do with it? And she’s like, I want to buy the building. Okay. And so we talked through the strategy. said, listen to their problems. And she said, I don’t want to pay capital gains. ⁓ I owe no mortgage on this. you know, it was her friend. And I looked at her I was like, that’s a perfect seller finance scenario. See if she’ll finance it for you. You have a relationship. You’ve already crossed that border. You know, she owes it outright.

  And she wants to make some money, to offset capital gains. was like, that seems like a perfect fit. And so hearing her story, we had like three to five phone calls and she kept going over problems and questions and we were solving through that issue. And at the end of it, she ended up walking with a really awesome building and then she’s going to BRRRR out of it in like a few years and call it and make a ton of money. And so that was just, know, it’s a pretty, it’s a problem that like the traditional agent would have just probably said, just list it, be done with it, move on, get the commission check and move on. She, instead of getting a listing,

  acquired an asset through seller finance and had a good relationship and has a great relationship with that former seller still. So I see a lot of those scenarios all the time.

  Dylan Silver (10:53)
  When we talk about seller financing, I’ve seen this personally. There’s a lot of people right now that are part of different communities who are looking at seller financing. They may have some experience in the single family space, maybe moving into looking at multifamily or commercial in general at large, and they’re looking at making seller financing offers. How, without giving away all the gold here, Andrew, how would you recommend folks

  go about making offers on seller financing for some of these properties that they might find, whether it’s on market, off market, on Crexie, Loopnet, wherever you can find them.

  Andrew Bosco (11:31)
  Yeah, it’s a good question, Dylan. So the first thing is relationships. I Make the relationship. It could be with the seller. It could be with the owner. Ask questions. Really figure out what’s their motive. What are they doing? And then one thing I advise all the agents, coming from a mentorship aspect, is one offer. The offer that you’re making needs to be really, really good. But if you make two or three offers, now you’ve given the choice to the seller. In some instances, choice is bad. In some instances, it’s good. You only know the answer if you ask questions.

  So figure out what they need. it, everything, know, a sale as you know Dylan is, it’s price, terms and time. And it’s one of those, you know, two of those three are really, really important. You got to figure out which those are, make the offer that works for you, but make it two or three ways. And that can be pretty powerful. A lot of our, you know, investors do that and agents do that internally. They’ll make two, maybe three offers, a cash deal, a seller finance deal, and maybe they’ll do like a listing deal with its direct to owner.

  And See what happens and then typically the sellers like I like that one option all three options work for them for the buyer But that’s my gold nugget to everybody is be creative in that regard like think about two or three ways that you can make this offer

  Dylan Silver (12:41)
  When we talk about multiple different offers as well, it does at least lend itself towards, hey these are investors themselves who own these larger deals. You know if they are if they are distressed, and many of them are, especially in multifamily right now, if they bought too deep five years ago, where are they at today, right?

  Andrew Bosco (12:44)
  Ahem.

  ⁓

  Dylan Silver (13:02)
  ⁓ Arm loans and so forth cost of materials rents stabilizing or going down in places like Austin, Texas where I’m licensed but

  Andrew Bosco (13:07)
  Mm-hmm.

  Dylan Silver (13:11)
  Walk me through you know how an investor might evaluate some their own situation. So they might be looking at this and saying, okay, well, I’ve either got to extend you how long we want to stay on this deal we thought we were going to exit in five years, or I if we can’t do that, we may have to look at selling you know either at breakeven or maybe even taking a loss. We’re maybe looking at seller financing, but I don’t really want to do that. Is that the process?

  there or what’s the kind of mental gymnastics that sellers are doing?

  Andrew Bosco (13:46)
  Yeah, so to the middle gymnastics, like if we’re saying like the right now, kind of going forward, I tell Brandy, like when you buy it, you better know how you’re exiting it three ways. Give me three ways. Give me three realistic exits that you’re going to give. I don’t care if it’s listing at a certain price and then a lower price or creative finance. You better have those three options ready because to your point Dylan, like the market shifted pretty fast for a lot of people. And so you got to have that exit. I’d say for current sellers, you people that are in that scenario.

  It’s, think your network is your net worth. And I think talking to other people that are investors, maybe other people, you know, that is going to give you options out there because a lot of people are trading internally. There’s a lot of off-market trades. Seller finance is a really good option for people, but you need to have the relationship and that relationship can go a long way. If you’re willing to hold, you know, maybe you some sort of, maybe about the deal, like the last five years, you’re willing to hold some paper, but not all. You’re going to make, you’re going to feel better about the situation. If you know the person.

  And so that’s kind of my estimation of talking through any current seller is like network out there, figure out a 1031 if that’s a better option, seller finance, or do you just cut your losses and move to the next asset?

  Dylan Silver (15:31)
  Yeah, I mean, when we talk about being able to identify when the right time to cut your losses is, that’s a difficult thing, right? And in these larger deals, you know, there’s more margin for, there’s a greater upside, but there’s also a greater downside too. And I think what happened, and I’ve said this before, is there was like this time period from like 2014 to like 2019 where just every deal seemed to work.

  Andrew Bosco (15:51)
  Mm-hmm.

  Dylan Silver (16:00)
  in multifamily. And so people were, you know, had a five year exit strategy and they were hitting their pro forma and like half the time. And so when you’re seeing that and you’re seeing that and you’re seeing that, come 2019, 2020, you’re thinking, okay, well, I’ve got to get in on this. And then you have these black swan events, right? You’ve got COVID happening. Then you’ve got rates doubling literally like the premium, the mortgages were doubling on these properties. You then you have all this

  Andrew Bosco (16:01)
  Mm-hmm.

  Mm-hmm.

  Dylan Silver (16:29)
  all these people thinking the same thing, all of this new construction happening throughout the country. Like I’m licensed in Texas, in Texas, Arizona, Florida, the Carolinas, Georgia, Alabama, and so on. You’ve got all this development happening. This creates like a downward pressure on rents. So now like nothing is penciling. So you’re at the back end of this and you’re thinking, well,

  Andrew Bosco (16:47)
  Mm-hmm.

  Dylan Silver (16:53)
  What do I do now? And I know some really big fund managers and syndicators who have a large portfolio who haven’t bought anything in years, literally, because of this.

  Andrew Bosco (17:05)
  Yeah, I’d say, you your your syndicators and your investors out there who are raising money and the LPs out there, the world, they need to be careful because when you’re when you’re buying larger deals like what you’re talking about, they need to ask themselves who the operator and if they’re going to actually perform today, the history. I’ve seen more and more syndication operations like new people starting like 2020 and on. They’ve only really seen the good. They haven’t seen bad yet. And I think you’re seeing who the big ballplayers are right now. Who are the ones that are actually making money for others?

  from a fun perspective. My big takeaway when I hear about ATAR, they talk about shifting markets and whatnot is you need to have a diverse relationship crowd. You need to have a group that you’re not all the same demographic. I know one of the syndication groups I can think of, they have a gentleman who’s 60 years old, another guy who’s 40 and a handful of guys that are 30 really operating. The 60 and 40 year old, they’re there because they remember our weight and they remember what it was like. I think you need to have that balance.

  Dylan Silver (17:59)
  Yeah.

  Yeah, that’s key, right? Because if you don’t have that reference point, you kind of haven’t been burned yet, right? So your reactions might be a little bit different when you’re looking at these deals. It’s oftentimes the deals that you pass up that are the most important ones, because those are the ones that could sink the ship. I want to ask you maybe a granular question about New England real estate, especially for folks who are investors in Massachusetts, in New Hampshire, Rhode Island, you know, some of those other surrounding states.

  For folks who are newer investors, New England is known for being a higher entry point area, but then you’ve also got some other areas where, you know if you’re in Boston, it might not be the easiest place to be a single family investor, but you could look at New Hampshire and some of these other areas. Any advice to folks who may be looking at getting into the investment game and their base out of New England?

  Andrew Bosco (18:55)
  Yeah, it’s a good question. So I’d say anybody that’s based out of New England, if you’re looking to kind of like make your entryway, break it down to like bite-sized chunks that make sense to you. So don’t buy in the middle of nowhere, bad school system, bad that like, you know, it just, isn’t checking boxes for quality of life. You’re not going to probably do super well in the sense of like, it’s not desirable. So if I was brand new starting somebody else at this end of the day, I’d find an AB market.

  and then I would look just outside of that. I’d look in the surrounding towns, look at school districts that feed the best school districts. People are gonna wanna move there. I’d also stick between 20 minutes off the highways. The major highway is 93 or 95 or 91, and look across there. Those are the core areas where most people are gonna wanna be in. And then if I was also starting again, I would spend a egregious amount of time networking my face off. I would just go super hard, figure out who the wholesalers are. I’d find a partner or a mentor who

  Dylan Silver (19:48)
  So.

  Andrew Bosco (19:54)
  who has done this before, just willing to work together. You got to bring something to the table though, whether it’s operation, money, I don’t really care what it is. You got to bring something. And I would, you know, between knowing your location and your buy box, having the right connection and mentorship. And then probably the third is I would just get out there and shake a lot of hands. And that goes into the networking part. There’s meetups everywhere. Candor, we have the, it’s called the Candor investor meetups. They’re free. We have like 13 of them across New England. Go, I’ve seen more people make deals happen on those meetups than any other place.

  In across New England and they’re all over New England so anybody can go if you’re new I would actually recommend going to those

  Dylan Silver (20:30)
  Yeah, I think the networking can literally not be overlooked. If someone was to tell me what’s the most important thing, I would tell them, yes, you’ve gotta put your notes to the grindstone. Yes, you’ve gotta understand you know how to have unright deals. But literally the most important thing for me has been networking by far. I mean, it’s saved me time, money. I felt like I’ve been able to benefit.

  off of the knowledge and wisdom of others. So I second that very much. We are coming up on time here though, Andrew. Where can the folks go? Where can our audience go to learn more about you and your team? Any projects that you guys are working on right now as well?

  Andrew Bosco (21:10)
  Yeah, it’s a good question. We’re you can find me anywhere. I’ll give you my socials after the call. put up the show notes, my LinkedIn. I’ll give you my email. You guys will have everything. So I’m Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn. all there. I’m an open book. I get a lot of messages and DMs. Again, I being the CEO, you have that title. People reach out to you about certain things. So at the end of the day, I try to be very reachable. I’ll give people my calender. Book time to have a call on me. And I’m always happy to meet you. And plus we have the meetups. Like I said, we have the free Candor Investor Meetups. You can find us at facebookandmeetups.com.

  I go to quite a few of them and so meeting people like yourself or anybody else that’s a new investor or really experienced investor, I talk to a lot of people every day and I might be able to find somebody to help you out.

  Dylan Silver (21:49)
  Andrew, thanks so much for coming on the show today. Thanks for your time.

  Andrew Bosco (21:52)
  Thanks,