How Michael Parks Built Real Estate Wealth with Hard Money Lending & Development

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Show Summary

In this conversation, Michael Parks discusses his journey in real estate, focusing on his experiences in hard money lending and ground-up development in Boston. He shares insights on market stability, investment strategies, and the importance of personal and business values. Parks emphasizes the need for courage in taking risks and the value of community engagement in real estate.

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
    • NAVWF Website
    • NAVWF LinkedIn
    • Michael Parks on LinkedIn
    • NAVWF Facebook

  Listen to the Audio Version of this Episode

  Investor Fuel Show Transcript:

  Michael Parks (00:00)
  some of the toughest parts of the journey, you know, into doing real estate full time from being a tech person has been having the courage to take the leaps. You know whether that’s the leap of the first property you buy, the leap of the first syndication, the leap of the, you know, whatever, whenever you’re doing something first, it’s so much harder than doing it again. And so at some point,

  You just need to say, I know as much as I’m going to know, I think this is the right answer in my gut. I got to do it because if I don’t do it now, I may never do it. And if you don’t do it, you’re never going to get to where you want to go.

  Quentin Edmonds (02:15)
  Hello, welcome to the real estate pros podcast. I am your host Q Edmonds Thank you all for joining me. I’m so excited about our guest today. You guys know I get really, really excited when I get to peek through someone else’s lens, when I get to pick their brain about what they do. And so today is no different. This gentleman has two platforms that I’m sure he’s going to tell you about. I’m excited with what he does. I’m excited about how he builds.

  And so I am going to let him tell you everything that he do. And so Mr. Michael Parks, welcome, sir. How you feeling today?

  Michael Parks (02:55)
  Excellent. Thank you for having me on. Really appreciate it.

  Quentin Edmonds (02:58)
  Absolutely so happy to have you here. And like I said, Mr. Michael, I kind of just want to dive in. I want you to tell the people what your main focus is these days. If you want to give us a little bit of an origin story of how you got in real estate and how you got to where you are, we love to hear that. And then tell us what markets you’re operating in. So Mr. Michael, sir, you have the floor.

  Michael Parks (03:19)
  Excellent. Well, thank you very much. So I’m from Boston, Massachusetts, and I got started in real estate. I guess if you go way back, some short-term rentals with a vacation home, but then I really got into the big business of real estate when I worked at some real estate investment trusts. We had 10 ticker symbols, 30 billion in assets under management. I was a tech guy. ran the IT department there. And that’s when I decided to set out and do my own real estate investing, which I

  like many did on my own and then became a real estate syndicator, became a real estate fund manager, came up with a really great partner through that process. And he and I, ⁓ Jeremy Lemirez’s name started the Navigator Wealth Fund. The Navigator Wealth Fund is ⁓ basically got two platforms in it, as you mentioned. One is a hard money lending platform, which is great for people who are looking for steady income. And the other is a development

  platform where we’re doing ground up development in Boston. And that’s great for people who are looking for higher levels of returns and a little bit higher risk in development too than than lending. So that’s what we’re focused on.

  Quentin Edmonds (04:29)
  Beautiful. I love it. I love it. So you said, know went from investors syndication now, you know, you’re managing a fun So obviously, you know, you’ve worked your way through real estate. You’ve seen different things You’ve had to use different strategies. And so I want to pick your brain a little bit about strategies I would love to know some business strategies that you use I also would love to know mr Michael with some personal strategies that you may use, you know I know something people do meditation in the morning some people go hiking so

  Are there core business strategies and core personal strategies that you use to find success?

  Michael Parks (05:52)
  Yeah, so I would say, you know, from a from a personal strategy standpoint is I’m a highly organized list maker. And, know, when you got multiple platforms running and you got personal stuff, I have two children and you got wife stuff. like I have lists for everything. And, you know, then I check in regularly on goals and I set goals for the,

  quarterly goals, call them rocks, monthly, you know, month, break it down to monthly, weekly, and, then align my lists around that of what I’m going to get done. And, and, and so I would say for me, that’s how I am able to do two things. One, stay, stay efficient, stay on track. And then two, it also helps with being able to say, okay, I did what I needed to do. Now I can actually go do personal things and not feel guilty. I’m not doing the other things. Right. So,

  creates some balance for me. So that’s from a personal strategy. From a business strategy standpoint, for me, it’s really about sticking to my core values, right? And if I stick to my core values, I find that I work with the right people and I get the right results. And even when things get tough or they go well, sticking to the core values always makes good sense and you come out okay.

  So those core values are things around transparent communications, integrity, value creation, you know, that’s really things that those are the people I want to work for and work with. And that’s, and I think projecting those, you attract this like-minded people.

  Quentin Edmonds (07:37)
  Mr. Michael, I could not agree more. First, I’m going to talk about your personal strategy. I love how you said you make the list. I heard someone say, you plan for the things you care about. And so when you talk about your list, it makes total sense that you make a list because you care, right? You care and you make lists to make sure that’s your roadmap, that’s your blueprint, that’s what keeps you organized. And then I love from a business strategy.

  how you said you, know, transparency and integrity use those two words and how you want to be around people who are transparent and who work from integrity. And I say this maybe once a podcast, I say, you know, one of my mentors told me when you know who you are, you know what to do. And so we’d have core values, business values, core personal values. When you put those values in place, but in whatever situation you’re in, you know how to operate and know how to move forward. And so.

  I love some of those values that you brought out. I think they’re very, very good. Now, I know as you built, I know things, or maybe they have been, so let me not assume. Let me just ask the question. As you’ve been building, have you first faced any adversity? Has there been things that you had to overcome? You know, sometimes they’ll go sideways. Sometimes you have to pivot fast. Have you faced anything like that as you was building, as you were building?

  Michael Parks (08:56)
  for sure. Yeah, for sure. you know, I think, I think a lot of people found themselves if they got into deals and let’s say, you know, late 21, early 22, right before inflation went way up interest rates went way up. that was a hard thing for a lot of people to predict and put a lot of strain on various projects. And I would say I’ve, I’ve got had a project that, that, certainly felt that and

  You know, I felt I fell back to what are my core values transparency and communication and and finding your way forward to get the best outcome you can and Leveraging the relationships that I’ve built over the years and those relationships Go, you know can can really make a big difference and I would say One of them is with the bank the fact that the bank, I’ve got a lot of trust with the bank they’ve

  come through a lot because they trust me. And if I had treated them differently, I don’t know that they would have. So, you know, I come back to a lot of the same things that I talked about as a way to get through those challenges.

  Quentin Edmonds (10:37)
  Yeah, no, appreciate that. Absolutely. I think that what makes all the difference in the world as you deal with difficult times, again, relationships, being able to fall back on your system, fall back on your core, fall back on your standards as you face difficulties. That’s the foundation. Right. And it makes a easier fall and a less impactful, higher fall when you got those core values that kind of cushion you when you fall. Right. Because the more you

  additions yourself from your core values, when you fall, that fall could be hard. That fall could be really, really hard, you know? And so, yeah, I appreciate you telling us about just the difficulties of adversity and overcoming them. Let me ask you, Mr. Michael, what’s the next real goal for you and your partner? Like, what are you looking to solve and scale next?

  Michael Parks (11:28)
  Yeah, well, we want to continue to grow these two platforms. We’re not looking to do something different. And I didn’t mention it, but we previously did self storage and we did multifamily. And as much as we liked those ⁓ for many years, they just got a bit overheated and they may come back around and we may do them in the future. But right now, we love the risk adjusted returns of the hard money lending. And so, you know, we’ve got more loans than we can fund right now.

  And so we’re looking for people investors that want the steady steady income checks that lending often provides the lower risk profile and So we want to scale that up and be able to do more of the lending We have more lending than we can do so we want to do more of that and then on the development side, we’ve got a We cut we call it our secret sauce of how to do development in Boston. We’re able to get

  properties that are pre entitlement. maybe it’s zoned for a two family property. We get them under agreement and then we get them entitled to be able to do something like a 14 unit condo building. And when you do that, you create a lot of value. So, and then we build them out and we sell them. we want, we’ve got a good pipeline of that. I would say we’re do, we’re not doing as many as we would like to be doing. So we want to do more of them. And

  That’s really where our focus is. We tried not to get distracted and get too many different things going at once, but those are the two things that we think make a lot of sense.

  Quentin Edmonds (13:05)
  Gotcha. Nope. Absolutely understand. Love it. I know you had mentioned earlier about every leveraging your relationship. She even talked about, you know, talked about what your bank. know you, you know, you have a partner. So I really want to talk about relationship building. how do you go about it? Has it really impacted you? You kind of, you know, said a little bit that it has, but tell me a little bit more about how the impact of building relationships, how has it affected you in business?

  Michael Parks (13:36)
  You know, I would say it’s just, it’s always, so I was a consultant for many years, a technology consultant, and a lot of how I operate in business, I learned from that. I worked at Accenture for any tech guys they probably know. It’s one of the largest consulting companies in the world. But I started out of college, which was some years ago. I won’t tell you how many years ago, but it was a much smaller place. ⁓ But that’s where I learned a lot of my

  core values and relationship building. And it’s really about, I think, genuine curiosity about the other person’s perspective, right? Understanding where they’re coming from, why they think the way they think. and you know, for me, nobody, for the most part, nobody’s really crazy. Like they just have a different perspective. They have different information. They have different experiences.

  And until you can really understand where they’re coming from and how they got their perspective, which may differ from yours, you’re probably not going to make much progress. And it’s amazing. Once somebody feels like they’ve been heard and understood, they’re much more open to having a constructive dialogue about where you go forward. And you learn a lot. People often ask me, where do you learn? What book do you read?

  Yeah, I read books, but you know what? I learn mostly from the people I work with and it’s because I try to understand what, what, why they think the way they think and what do they know and what do they know? I don’t know. And, and that, that really, I find a lot of personal growth through those relationships and genuine curiosity.

  Quentin Edmonds (15:52)
  ⁓ Mr. Michael, sir, you just said a mouthful because I know we don’t do like New Year resolutions. I know we don’t do that. However, thought always seems to hit me kind of like before the New Year started. And I have said in twenty twenty six, I’m going to be more curious. That’s literally the word I’m going use. So I’m going be more curious. And I naturally, you know, I love to learn about people. I naturally try to

  build relationships, but I am starting to be curious about everything. Curious, why am I angry? Why am I frustrated? Why, know, curious about even when it comes to business, like, why is this not going well? Why do I do the things that I do? And so when you said curious, I think that is so good. And I am naturally getting more curious about myself. But I know you mentioned like being curious about other people and you were speaking my language because I say everybody has a story.

  Everybody has a story and the more you get to know about their story, the more like you said, you get to understand why, how they process, why they process the way they do, why, you why, you know, their strategy is their strategy. And so you hit on something that’s very, very key to me is being curious, finding out about other people, learning why they do certain things. Like you said, I don’t think anybody’s crazy. Like there’s a reason why people think the way they do.

  And I just find that fascinating. I’m so glad that you brought that out while talking about relationships.

  Michael Parks (17:22)
  Yeah and being curious about yourself. like that. That’s ⁓ you know sometimes you gotta take inventory. Why am I feeling this way just like you said? Take inventory. What is it?

  Quentin Edmonds (17:33)
  Mm hmm. So you know, you’re

  Michael Parks (17:35)
  That’s the right reaction, know, ask yourself.

  Quentin Edmonds (17:38)
  You just literally took it out of my brain. You mentioned about being married early. It’s how much a wife, know, my wife, we’ve been married for three years and I would get so angry. And then she say, Quentin, you know, anger is a secondary emotion. What is it that you really feel in? Be like, Ooh, that’s

  Okay. And I have really been on this journey to understand and be curious about myself. Am I upset because the way they said or what they said? Like, what is it really? Does it make me feel whatever? I know we’re not trying to do this therapy session, but I think when it comes to business, curiosity can be a superpower. If you’re curious about why things are going the way they are, why you approach things the way you do.

  I really believe it will bring clarity. so again, I appreciate you saying that, especially when it comes to relationship building. Mr. Mike, I want to ask you this sir, like, is there any other thing that you want to say, maybe encouragement, education, motivation, or even about, you know, what you do? Is there any other final word you think the audience could benefit from?

  Michael Parks (18:53)
  Well, I would say

  some of the toughest parts of the journey, you know, into doing real estate full time from being a tech person has been having the courage to take the leaps. You know whether that’s the leap of the first property you buy, the leap of the first syndication, the leap of the, you know, whatever, whenever you’re doing something first, it’s so much harder than doing it again. And so at some point,

  You just need to say, I know as much as I’m going to know, I think this is the right answer in my gut. I got to do it because if I don’t do it now, I may never do it. And if you don’t do it, you’re never going to get to where you want to go.

  So it’s the leaps that are tough and you have to psych yourself up a little bit and just say, if not now, when? So, you know, yeah.

  Quentin Edmonds (19:48)
  Yeah.

  No, I think you’re exactly right. And I think the longer it takes for you to leap, the more distance it is that you feel like you have to leap. Right. Like, you know, if, it’s there now, you take the leap and it doesn’t feel as big, but the longer you go, the more that distance grow. And now you like, you’re looking at it. What do call it? It’s not a canvas is a, you know, just like that. can’t think of the word, but it’s like, you have to jump further.

  right? And you’re looking at it like, no now, you know, and do you know when you’re passing that they got bigger and bigger. And so I think taking the leap, I think that’s a really, really good analogy. And I think that’s really, really something for people to think about. So definitely.

  Michael Parks (20:32)
  It

  gets bigger in your own mind too sometimes, right? Sometimes it doesn’t seem like a big deal and then you question it and you get deeper and deeper and all of a sudden it feels like, what I thought was an easy thing feels like a big, big decision now. You got to come back to, yeah, but that’s all the things that could go wrong. It doesn’t mean they all will go wrong. So if you think it’s right, you got to do it.

  Quentin Edmonds (20:57)
  Yeah, also at a study, they say the things that we’re scared about, there is a hard 90. I want to say it’s like 93 % of the things, the fears that we have never really come true. Like they’re really like stuck in our head. So the more we think about it, it’s like 93 % actually doesn’t come true. And so I mean, hey, I think with that knowing right there, I think, hey, today may be time to take the leap. And so you heard it from Mr. Michael, I’ma say it that don’t be scared to take you

  Mr. Mike, I appreciate you, sir. Thank you so much, man. Listen, if someone wanted to reach out to you, connect with you, collaborate with you, learn more about what you’re doing, what’s the best way for them to reach out to you?

  Michael Parks (21:38)
  way to reach me is through our website navwf.com. it stands for Navigator Wealth Fund navwf.com. And on there, you can book a call with me, can book a call with my partner, Jeremy. We love to talk to people who are interested in real estate, whether you are interested in being an investor, which of course, you know, that’s what we do is bring investors into these great deals we have in Boston. But also just people who want to know about real estate, we don’t have an education platform, but we do plenty of informal mentoring.

  Just providing information and helping people out because you know, we want to pay it forward people helped us out we are glad to pay it forward and help others so best way to reach me is through the website and schedule a call and We’ll talk one-on-one

  Quentin Edmonds (22:21)
  I love it. NADWSrealestate.com.

  Michael Parks (22:25)
  WF isn’t Frank. ⁓ F. Wealth Fund. Yes. N-A-V-WF.com.

  Quentin Edmonds (22:33)
  Mr. Michael, thank you, sir. Thank you so much. Thank you for your time. Thank you for your story. Definitely thank you for your perspective. I think, you know, you have added value that just may shift the right mindset that needs to be shifted. And so thank you so much for being here today. This was privilege.

  Michael Parks (22:55)
  Thank you very much for having me. Appreciate it.

  Quentin Edmonds (22:57)
  Absolutely. So listen, y’all heard Mr. Michael, you can’t tell me you find the value. I mean, you know, you know, he just added, you know, so much value, something for you, something for you to think about. And I keep telling you, we’re going to continue to bring up amazing people. And so I want to make sure you are subscribed. That way you do not miss out on the conversations. So Mr. Michael, I thank you again and listen to everyone else. We will see you on the next time.