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Show Summary
In this episode of the Real Estate Pros Podcast, Kristen Knapp interviews Mauricio Gomez, founder of Gomez Commercial Group. They discuss Mauricio’s journey into real estate, the transition from residential to commercial, and the importance of building a supportive team culture. Mauricio shares insights on navigating the commercial real estate landscape, the significance of mentorship, and offers valuable advice for new agents entering the field. The conversation highlights the unique challenges and opportunities in commercial real estate, emphasizing the need for collaboration and continuous learning.
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Investor Fuel Show Transcript:
Mauricio (00:00)
get a mentor. Have somebody that you can, that you can learn from, that you can just soak the knowledge up and, and continuously learn. But I think one of the biggest pieces of advice is you can’t do this alone. In commercial, you need to have a partner, a team, somebody or some people that you can trust, that you can work with well.Once I partnered them up, within a month, they have a $1.9 million building under contract. They have three commercial leases that they’re
immediately they’ve generated four or five deals and real deals that are closing,
that are being signed. And it’s because they were able to work so well together that they pushed each other to close, right?
And I think that’s so important. It’s just find your person. Find your person.
Kristen Knapp (02:21)
Welcome back to the Real Estate Pros Podcast. I’m Kristen and I’m here with Mauricio Gomez, is the founder of Gomez Commercial Group out of Orlando, Florida. Thanks for being here.Mauricio (02:29)
Thank you, Kris, and I appreciate the time.Kristen Knapp (02:32)
Amazing. Well, I want to get into this great business that you’ve built, but you know, to start, how did you fall in love with real estate?Mauricio (02:39)
Wow, ⁓ about 11 years ago, ⁓ a friend of mine and I decided to just get our real estate license together. And ⁓ I kind of was one of those one-offs where my first year in real estate, I decided to do a lot of traveling and try to look for investors to buy the vacation rental homes. They were paying really good commissions at the time. I said, look, that’s what I want to go after. So I went to Columbia, South America. I went to London, was at the Property Investor Show there.And when I came back, one of the co-founders of the brokerage that I was at sat me down and asked me to be part of the commercial group. And he saw what I was doing, the type of clientele that I was building, and he said, look, I want to take you under my wing. I want to teach you commercial and help me build the commercial division.
Kristen Knapp (03:25)
Were you getting a little frustrated with residential or were you just excited about something new?Mauricio (03:30)
It’s a funny thing because I always say this, residential is a very emotional purchase. It’s a big deal, It’s you know, families with kids and it has to be the perfect home in the right school district. When it comes to commercial, you’re dealing more with numbers and returns. And that’s what really hit me is if the numbers are there, if the return is where you want it to be, then the property works for you, right? It’s not an emotional purchase. And I think that’s what gravitate, made me gravitate towards commercial.Kristen Knapp (03:56)
Yeah, and you can really build up a client base where there are repeat customers a lot.Mauricio (04:01)
Yes. Yeah. I mean, especially with, I mean, you can convert a lease to a purchase down the line once their lease is up for renewal. A lot of investors like to flip properties after two, three years when their private money loan is about to balloon, is about to expire. So they have to refinance or sell or do something with the property. So commercial property moves a lot quicker. And you’re right. It helps you build a lot of these relationships with strong investors.Kristen Knapp (04:30)
Yeah, so when you first started getting into commercial, what did that, so he took you under his wing, which is awesome. So you got a lot of education that way. But what did that look like in the beginning? Like, what, do you remember your first deal where you were really…Mauricio (04:42)
I was solost. I thought it was going to be easy and realized that even the simplest commercial lease can get really complicated really fast. And so I was lucky to have a lot of people around me that would just help push and support. And we developed a lot of the curriculum for the training. So I would just absorb a lot of that information. And I would just nonstop be studying stuff.
Back then we didn’t have chat GPT. It was literally you have to go ask people we have to go to a lot of the events I went to a lot of the trainings. I did the CCIM courses ⁓ I did a lot of stuff but what really taught me kind of the ropes was doing and making mistakes and learning from those mistakes or losing deals Unfortunately, you learn a lot with the deals that you lose because you start reflecting on what you could have done differently. So
⁓ Just from the get go, just hitting the ground running and just learning as I go.
Kristen Knapp (06:29)
Yeah, and can you think of like one of those early mistakes that you really learned from?Mauricio (06:34)
Gosh,so I was working with ⁓ a PPEC, ⁓ a prescribed primary care, extended care facility for children with disabilities. ⁓ We found it, it was in a plaza that had medical physicians, dentists. So I was like, this is perfect. This is the same use. It’s a great mix. Let me put them in there. When they went in to do the application, they did the application as a medical facility. And unfortunately, that one unit that they were going into,
did not have the transportation impact fee yet for medical. So it was going to cost them about $45,000. And I never heard of impact fees. I never heard of, I just thought medical office, this is right next to a medical office, it’s going to work. And so it was a very hard lesson to learn. Luckily, I was able to call the city, explain to them that there was no medical professionals, no doctors in the facility.
So technically it’s not a medical facility. It’s more of a, ⁓ you know, special needs daycare. And they said, okay, well, that’s fine. We can label it as a daycare. No transportation impact fees needed. So I saved it, but it was a huge learning lesson to always check with the city, always check the allowable uses. Now, you you have the Muni codes that you can check, but even then…
You always want to check because the city might be annexing some things over to county. And so there’s so many things that could happen. Always check is what I would say.
Kristen Knapp (08:04)
Yeah, I would imagine that’s a huge part about going from residential to commercial. You have to learn about all these new regulations. ⁓Mauricio (08:13)
Yeah, yeah, and you know, even commercial leases, it’s not like residential, you don’t sign for a year, you’re signing for three, five, 10, 15 plus years, which is great on the commission side, right, which a lot of agents when they learn that, that’s what attracts them to commercial. But you have to understand that and your client needs to understand that as well.Kristen Knapp (08:36)
Absolutely, and so then when did you really go out on your own and build your own brokerage?Mauricio (08:41)
⁓ Just recently. is actually new since January. I’ve had the logos. I’ve had the vision. I’ve had the desire to do this ⁓ for over 10 years. I mean, I’ve had this for 10 years. It’s just the brokerage I was at was not allowing me to do what I really wanted to do. But when I came across LPT Realty, they really have everything set up so that you don’t have a glass ceiling and you can just build freely.And this is the only reason that I’m actually allowed to build a group and not take many commissions from the team. I have some of the best splits in the industry and that’s because I chose to do it that way. I think that a lot of the things that deter residential agents from getting into commercial is they’re going to put in all that work and at the end of the day they’ll get like 20, 30 % of the commission and that’s just not fair. They’re doing a lot of the work. So I wanted to change that. And that’s one of my main drivers for my team.
Kristen Knapp (09:38)
That’s amazing. So you got started just in January. What did that even look like? How did you start building your team?Mauricio (10:22)
⁓ I had a few agents that came with me when I made the switch. And ⁓ the first thing I did was I created a 90 day challenge. I wanted to really assess how they were working the commercial world and commercial transactions. And also wanted to assess how they picked up on certain things that I felt would help them prospect, would help them get integrated into the industry.From that, I took all the wins, all the losses, the challenges that we ran into, because every week we would sit down and discuss. ⁓ From that, I created a 30-day onboarding program. It’s condensed, it’s more digestible, but it’s something that I can hand out to any agent that joins my group. And I guess through just doing that and recording and putting it out on social media, a lot of people started reaching out to me. I got interest from…
agents from out of state, from Texas, from Georgia, from California. And so through word of mouth, really, ⁓ agents have just kind of come to me to sit down and discuss, okay, what is it that you’re doing? Because I see that you’re doing so much and I’ve never really seen someone in commercial offer so much knowledge and education and training and support. So tell me about it, right? And that’s kind of how I’ve been able to grow organically to about 30 agents in seven, eight months.
And I have a goal to hit 50 before the end of the year, so we’ll see how that goes.
Kristen Knapp (11:47)
Wow, meanit sounds like you’re probably gonna hit it. That’s really impressive. And you kind of touched on it, but I would love to talk about what makes Gomez Commercial Group different, because I know that you provide a lot of education to people.
Mauricio (11:59)
Yes, yes. So one of the most powerful meetings that our group has are our Monday alignment and accountability meetings. We don’t train in that class. What we do is we go down the line and we talk about what we did, what we didn’t do based off of the 30 day onboarding program and where we had challenges and what are we working on, what are our haves, what are our needs. Through that and through those conversations, all the other agents that are present are learning.They’re picking up on challenges that they might run into if they’re doing those types of transactions. So it’s just basically a very high energy alignment meeting to give you the motivation to be able to set your goals for the week and to keep each other accountable. ⁓ Our team is not the type of team that we’re going to be fighting for deals and fighting for commissions. We’re really there to help each other out. And we have no doubt that we’re all here to support each other. And I think that’s really something that’s powerful to have in the commercial world.
Kristen Knapp (12:57)
Yeah, how do you create that type of culture?Mauricio (13:00)
By example and by being available and by correcting when I see something, you know, ⁓ I’m looking for a church. no, I’m looking for a church too. So I’m not going to tell you anything. What I do is I just throw the properties into the group chat. First come first serve. mean, you you’re in a world where you’re going to have like needs, but that doesn’t mean you can’t still help each other.Right? And so the moment that you’re trying to pull back and be secretive about something, that’s where I kind of correct it and say, it shouldn’t be this way, you know, because, you know, if you’re going to help your fellow agent close a deal, trust me, that’s going to come back when they have something that you might need. Right? And so when we create that synergy, that’s what, that’s what allows the agents to kind of feel a lot more comfortable in that environment and start helping each other out.
Kristen Knapp (13:50)
Absolutely and kind of providing this education it’s interesting because real estate is one of those industries where you get your license and you’re you’re expected to just kind of do it and you’re expected to just kind of start producing and that’s not necessarily how it works so I know what makes you special is like you don’t just have 30 agents you have 30 producing agents.Mauricio (14:00)
Yeah.That is a huge ⁓ detail because you see a lot of teams or commercial teams and you see brokerages that are not commercial trying to grow a commercial division. And one of the biggest things that I see or flaws that I see is that they start charging a monthly fee and they’re not providing the value to pay a monthly fee. In fact, they lose sight of the training, of the education, of the support that is needed for a new agent to get into the industry.
And so what happens is they get a bunch of agents that are paying a monthly fee and the broker is getting the revenue. They’re happy. But where’s the development? Where’s the growth? Where’s the support? And then that’s where you get agents that are start getting secretive. They don’t share things because they want to keep it proprietary. And then you’re not breaking the chains. You’re not breaking these cycles that you see in the commercial world.
Kristen Knapp (15:46)
Yeah, and what would be some of your advice for someone starting out? Like how can you break a million dollar listing for the first time?Mauricio (15:54)
⁓The easiest way possible and it’s the way that it’s always worked. Knocking on doors, making phone calls, going to networking events, being present and learning the lingo, right? So a lot of the value that you get in our meetings is you start learning the lingo because we, I promise you, I’ll pick up the phone and I’ll call a broker right then and there. you’re having a hard time getting a hold of this person, let me call them.
and I’ll leave a message and all my agents are hearing me leave a message. So they’re learning verbiage, lingo, how to present themselves. In the commercial world, if you call and you say, hi, how much is your rent? Immediately, you’re gonna be labeled a residential agent and they’re not gonna give you the time of day, right? So there’s the little things, the little details, the attention to the details that’s gonna help you kind of present yourself as a professional so that you can get taken a little bit more serious.
Kristen Knapp (16:38)
Right.Yeah, I mean that’s interesting what you just said about asking about rent. What are some other maybe quick red flags that a lot of commercial agents maybe shifting from residential do?
Mauricio (17:00)
⁓ having residential and commercial on their business cards. And don’t get me wrong, I am not against the res-i-mer-cial agent, okay? If you’re closing deals on the residential side, good for you. I mean, that’s your money, you’re paying bills, you’re supporting your family. I’m never gonna stop you from doing that, but you do need to separate the two, right? So you need to have a commercial card. If you’re sending out an email to a commercial agent, make sure your signature is a commercial signature. Make sure you don’t haveyou know, top residential superstar, even though it’s a great accolade, you don’t want to show that to a commercial agent because unfortunately in commercial you get judged very quickly. And because they get so much, so many emails, so many phone calls, they’re going to try to sort through everything and just deal with the ones that they feel that they can close with. So yeah, there’s the little things, yeah.
Kristen Knapp (17:54)
Yeah, people just wanna, like you wanna be taken seriously.Mauricio (17:58)
Literally is the biggest piece because one of the biggest complaints I hear from newer agents trying to get into commercial is they don’t call me back. They don’t respond. I spent two weeks trying to get a hold of them and then I called the broker and don’t do that. You know in residential that could work but in commercial you call the broker. The broker is going to be like who’s this? Hang up. You know they’re not even going to give you the time of day. So there’s ways and that’s a lot of what I teach within my group.Kristen Knapp (18:18)
Yeah.Yeah,
that’s amazing. I mean, it’s amazing that you provide the education because all that is very nuanced. It’s not stuff that you could maybe even Google, you know.
Mauricio (18:34)
It’s not, it’s not, and something that I haven’t shared with you is that this is just the beginning, right? The 30 day program that I created is now going through a process of becoming ⁓ actual curriculum to have an educational platform. My goal is to be able to have that platform to be able to scale and to be able to offer this to anybody. So it’s a process, but luckily I’m able to test this out with the group, right?Kristen Knapp (18:50)
Thanks.Yikes.
Mauricio (19:04)
and be able to have that proof of concept before getting it out there. But I’m very excited about the things that I’m working on for the team.Kristen Knapp (19:12)
Yeah, that’s very exciting. It seems like you really love just helping people in their career. ⁓Mauricio (19:17)
It is once I change that mindset, right? Because a lot ⁓ of times leadership still wants to close the big deals, right? They still want to be the ones that have those million dollar listings. And don’t get me wrong, I do close deals. ⁓ But the moment I shifted and I said, it’s not about me closing deals, it’s about the agent and being able to provide them with the training and support and get them up and running. Once they’re up and running and producing.then you can move on to the next and the next and the next. And eventually, if you have a long-term vision, not just short-term, give me your monthly payment, build the revenue now, ⁓ I think it’s going to come back. And this is what’s going to allow our group to grow organically and grow in a way that it’s just producers that are coming to the team.
Kristen Knapp (20:03)
Right.Yeah, and you were saying that you were saying earlier that there’s a big difference between an agent and a closer. And I would love for you to talk more about that too.
Mauricio (20:15)
Yeah, yeah. So as I mentioned, you know, you’re going to see a lot of commercial teams that are growing like crazy. But the reality is, is they’re just collecting numbers and collecting agents to be able to build that monthly revenue with the monthly fee. And that’s, think, the downfall of brokerages that are trying to build a commercial division is that they immediately try to figure out how am going to get the revenue now? Right. Bottom line, this is what’s important to me.This is why I love the platform at LPT because they just allow me to do what I need to do at my pace. And I think my pace is the right way to do it because I’m not charging a monthly fee. What I’m trying to do is I’m trying to build the value of my tools, my resources and my training because my focus is right now I have 30 agents. I got to make sure those 30 agents are able to produce if I was gone. If I’m not there, how are they going to produce and who are they going to go to for assistance and how are they going to…
use the resources that I’m providing for them to be able to generate deals, right? And I think that shift in that focus is what makes our group different from most groups out there, because as the leader, I’m not worried about my bottom line revenue right now. It’s a sacrifice I’m making right now because I know that I’m building for the long-
Kristen Knapp (21:32)
Yeah, sorry. Chat made a little appearance. ⁓ Amazing. think it’s, yeah, it’s really wonderful what you’re doing. I would love for you to talk about maybe a piece of advice that you wish you learned earlier in your career, maybe about building a business.Mauricio (21:34)
I’mget a mentor. Have somebody that you can, that you can learn from, that you can just soak the knowledge up and, and continuously learn. But I think one of the biggest pieces of advice is you can’t do this alone. In commercial, you need to have a partner, a team, somebody or some people that you can trust, that you can work with well.
⁓ a lot of times agents will work together.
and then they start clashing and then they start fighting over the commission splits and then they start worrying about things that they should not be worrying about. That will drive them away from being able to close the deal. So what’s more important from that is finding somebody you’re comfortable with. ⁓ Somebody that’s on your same vibration, at your same pace, someone that complements your talents, right? They might know a lot of stuff about this, you might know a lot of stuff about that, and then together you guys are a powerhouse, right?
So ⁓ something that I actually do with my team is I try to partner them up. I try to see how this person is working with this person. And I’ve gone up to them and I said, look, I actually think you would do good if you get together with this agent, because I think you guys working together would be just amazing. And that’s actually one of my success stories. Within three months, these two agents, once I partnered them up, before they were kind of trying and trying and just wasn’t hitting, it just wasn’t working.
Once I partnered them up, within a month, they have a $1.9 million building under contract. They have three commercial leases that they’re
And that building, once it’s bought, the client has another building that they’re gonna have to lease out. So
immediately they’ve generated four or five deals and real deals that are closing,
that are being signed. And it’s because they were able to work so well together that they pushed each other to close, right?
And I think that’s so important. It’s just find your person. Find your person.
Kristen Knapp (23:50)
Absolutely, I feel like that’s such good advice. Better when you have people to bounce your ideas off of.Mauricio (23:58)
Literally that sometimes that’s all they want. Let me just bounce this off of you. And you’d be surprised how many agents that are trying to get into commercial do not have that. And so what happens, they have to guess, right? Or they start doubting themselves. And so when they make that phone call, you can hear the doubt in their voice. And so just being able to have someone to bounce ideas off of and just get that confirmation or affirmation like, yes, you’re doing a good job. Sometimes that’s all they need.Kristen Knapp (24:08)
Yeah.Yeah. Amazing. Well, we’re at the end of our time, so please tell everybody where to find you.
Mauricio (24:32)
I am in Orlando. ⁓ My office is 5626 Curry Ford Road in Orlando. ⁓ You can call me. I don’t know. Do you want me to like pitch my phone number, my email? ⁓Kristen Knapp (24:44)
However, peopleget in touch we have a website ⁓
Mauricio (24:50)
⁓ gomezscommercialgroup.com. You could follow me on Instagram, gomiscommersialgroup, ⁓ or you could just email me, mauricio @ gomezcommercialgroup.com. If you’re interested in commercial, you want to talk commercial, whatever, I’m here. Open door policy.Kristen Knapp (25:07)
Amazing. Well, thank you so much for being here, Mauricio And thank you everybody for listening and we will see you back next time.Mauricio (25:09)
Thank you so much for the invite.
