How to Get Into Real Estate Development | Roy Smalls on Multifamily, Affordable Housing & Growth

Roy Smalls (00:00)
The seller, he had bought it in 07 when the market crashed. He’d never seen it. He was a military guy, lived in England. I’m talking to him two, three o’clock in the morning. And he was like, man, look, the property management tell me I got to dump 50, 60 grand into this thing. I’ve never seen it. I’ve had it 12, 13 years. It served its purpose for me. I really just want to get rid of it. And think he wanted 56,000. I talked him down to about 38,000.

Dylan Silver (02:00)
Hey folks, welcome back to the show. Today’s guest, Roy Smalls Jr. is a real estate developer based out of South Carolina, focused on building generational wealth and creating long-term impact through his work. He brings a strong foundation of faith, family, and culture into everything he does, positioning himself as a positive example of what it means to lead with purpose while building something meaningful. He’s committed to staying disciplined, intentional, and aligned with his mission both in business and in life. At the core is a philosophy that is simple but powerful.

Be focused. Roy, thanks for taking the time today.

Roy Smalls (02:33)
Thank you for having me. It’s a pleasure.

Dylan Silver (02:35)
It’s great to meet you. South Carolina, the Carolinas in general seem to be really hot right now. And as someone who’s out there and been out there, they’ve been hot, I think, for 20 years and are just now beginning to get on the radar of the entire country and from investors from coast to coast, really. ⁓ How was your origins getting into development in South Carolina? How did you get into the business?

Roy Smalls (02:59)
Well, I mean, I kind of.

Kind of take it back to, you know, I guess how my love and passion for real estate evolved. And I know when we first got on, we were just talking and you were asking how close we were to Charleston. My hometown is actually Charleston. That’s where I’m from. And so for, you know, for the longest, South Carolina has been known for, you know, the coastline, you know, between Charleston and Myrtle Beach and Hilton Head. And like you said, over last 20 years, it’s kind of just started to have a lot of growth and expansion ⁓ inland, especially in

the upstate area with manufacturing, BMW. just growing up in Charleston early, ⁓ as a child, I watched a lot of development and growth take place in the early 90s. And it’s just something that fascinated me. I remember Daniels Island ⁓ was all dirt and trees. And I watched them develop that over the years to what it is now. I mean, it’s an area that is pretty much its own community. It’s truly an island.

And I remember when they were building the first few houses there, my family, were building at the same time on James Island. And I was like, man, this is pretty awesome. you know, 30 years later to see what it is has really just like, man, it inspires you and it leaves an impression. And I think that’s where my initial.

⁓ desire for real estate and things like that took place. My dad asked me recently, he was like, you know, what made you want to get into this stuff?

He was here in town taking a look at our custom build that we’re doing now. And I said, man, I’m gonna be honest. When we built our first house in I think 93, 94, I said, I would get mad when you and my mom would go and y’all would do all the selections and stuff when we’re in school because I really, I just liked it. I just enjoyed the process of watching it be built and making selections and things like that. So my roots and desire to do this, I guess, started at a very young age, around 10 or so.

Dylan Silver (04:58)
Now, any family ⁓ as carpenters or as builders, did you have mentors coming up in the business?

Roy Smalls (05:53)
⁓

I mean, I have some great mentors now kind of just guiding me and educating me on the process as far as ⁓ as a child. No, I mean, my great grandfather was a carpenter, which I didn’t even know. ⁓ I knew him, but you know, by the time, you know, I was 10, he was in his eighties. He wasn’t doing as much. And so that’s something that the family always talks about now. And and my dad actually built his last home and did a lot of the work himself and my uncle. So, you know, you just learn things.

over time that the family has always, I guess, had a handy trait, but no one has, you know, turned it into a career or a lifelong opportunity with something that like, hey, I’m working my regular, you know, job career and I can do this on the side. But, you know, right now, I remember when I graduated college, one of my first jobs was I worked part time with a handyman. I told the guy I wanted to get into real estate, one of my mentors, he said, well, if you want to get into real estate, you better learn how to swing a hammer.

And so he connected me with a gentleman that’s a handyman and he allowed me to work with him for about six months. I was working three jobs. So he was the one that had to eventually slack off. And I remember just learning, you know, basic things as as painting and, you know, just basic carpentry work.

Dylan Silver (07:14)
I mean, that’s huge. The ability to go from education, highly educated, and then into handyman work, you’re really meshing two worlds, but it also enables you to see, this is what it looks like on a ground level. And then also a big picture, hey, this is maybe how I can scale this thing. Here’s the contacts that I need. How do those two worlds come together for you? Coming from someone who’s got the education background, but then also, you know,

working with a handyman and then learning the business from the ground up.

Roy Smalls (07:45)
I mean, for me, I think I’ve always had an entrepreneurial mind. ⁓ know, when you’re young, I wanted to go to college. That’s what I was told I needed to do. And so, but I was, was proudful in doing it, being, you know, part of one of the first generations to graduate in my career.

having an entrepreneur mindset, I knew when I went to college, like, you know, I want to go for business. It’s a very vague ⁓ degree, but I always knew I wanted to work for myself and, you know, own something of my own. Real estate was always a forefront or a background of that. I actually contracted to be a realtor, but when I graduated college in 07, the market tank, so I went and got my real estate license

contracted to be a realtor in Charlotte. And I started that process, I want to say in March or April of 07. I graduated in May and by June, I was like, that’s not the career path that I need to take right now. And so I had to kind of put it on hold and I started investing at that time. But as far as just connecting, you know, worlds, I believe a lot of it is just faith. I believe it’s knowing what you, you know, what you want to accomplish and, you know,

you continually, you know, think on those things. I think those blessings will come in your path. And that’s been the case for me over the years. You know, I knew real estate was something I wanted to do. And, know, I’ve always had great mentors and every walk that I’ve done as far as entrepreneurship, ⁓ you know, to help guide me and lead me in the right direction. you know, forever grateful with that. But real estate has always been the one that has kind of, you know, taken the back seat to every

everything else I’ve had going on and I feel now it’s stepping into the forefront to where it should be, to where it is, my main day to day. ⁓ But being able to bring those words together, think it’s just a lot of faith and belief and knowing what you wanna accomplish and things will, the ether so to speak will kind of connect you the way it should.

Dylan Silver (09:49)
If someone wants to get into development, ⁓ what’s the first real step they should take?

Roy Smalls (10:30)
think as far as getting into the first step is just doing. And I didn’t necessarily say I wanted to get into development. I just said, I wanna get into real estate and investing. then I was like, hey, I wanna be a multifamily investor and that.

came to be and worked out and then that led to opportunity to get into development and you know with there’s so much information out there now social media things are always in front of you I think things just continually evolve and so I think that’s my best advice would be to just allow it to evolve allow it to take form allow it to take place my very first house I bought like to say the the market crashed in 07 and in my mindset was hey

I own this small vending company that I started when I was in college. ⁓ Maybe I should grow this into something bigger and better. And so I’ll stay here in the upstate area and focus on that right now. ⁓ so I bought a property. I told them I bought a property in the worst side of town for about $38,000. And I said, all right, well, this is going to be cheaper than what I’m paying in rent. It was a four-bedroom. ⁓

you know, old mill home. It was actually mostly renovated, about 90 percent renovated, so it was nice, but it was on a rough, rough area. And I house hacked. I brought some of my college buddies in. I said, what are you guys paying in rent on campus, all included?

And they were like, man, we’re paying like six, seven dollars. I cut your deal. You pay five hundred dollars a month. Everything included. So I rented out three of my rooms. My mortgage was six hundred dollars. So I was bringing in fifteen hundred with the lights and water and everything else included. mean, I’ve probably seen a profit about five hundred dollars a month. But bigger than that is I didn’t have any debt. You know, I wasn’t shelling out money every month for rent or mortgage. And that allowed me to, you know, create my vending business where my entrepreneurship

started.

So I was investing but I was focused on my entrepreneurial path and I tell people man I made a lot of money doing it was great and I just continued to read books and stayed in my studies and was like I got to get back to this real estate and you know I just bought properties through tax sales and things like that and did some flips and

was buying land, didn’t know what to do with it, 26, 27 years old, and selling it, and really took a long hiatus from doing anything for about five or six years. And then my wife and I…

you know, we got married and we started buying our primary houses and those were my real estate investments. You know, just understanding the market from all those years and understanding real estate, we were able to turn great profits with our personal houses. And then that’s when I started getting into multifamily development. ⁓

did a multifamily deal, really great deal. bought a part, tell people I bought an apartment complex for less than 100,000. And so I put a lot of hard work, sweat, equity into it. And I had an appraisal done actually just a few weeks ago for another project that we’re closing on and turn $80,000 into 1.5 million. And so, once I’d done that, generated a lot of income

and we were able to buy some lots and great areas of town that led me into development. And so I always said I was kind of led there. didn’t just pick that path.

Dylan Silver (13:55)
That’ll do it.

How many doors was that complex that you purchased for under 100 grand?

Roy Smalls (14:04)
⁓ It was 17 doors 17 doors a highly dilapidated apartment complex out in the middle of nowhere ⁓ It was actually listed on Zillow. ⁓ I bought it in December of 2019 ⁓ My wife and I had done a house on her episode probably about a year earlier in my realtor She she was just a great religion. I told her I said hey Holly look I want to get into this real estate space and

developing and multifamily. I said only want multifamily. I I’m gonna just put a filter out there and find me some multifamily. And one day I was working and she called me. was selling insurance. I’ve sold insurance for about 11 years. And she called me and she said, well, I found this place. You might want to take a look at it. I said, Holly, that’s not multifamily. That’s a house. And it looked like a house, but it was actually a five unit building. So I rode out there and looked at it and I was like, you got to be kidding me, man. This thing’s in the middle of nowhere.

I looked up in the woods and there were two other buildings that you couldn’t even see. I was like, this whole thing for sale or what? And she’s like, well, it’s just the one building. She was like, I didn’t even know there were other buildings down there.

The seller, he had bought it in 07 when the market crashed. He’d never seen it. He was a military guy, lived in England. I’m talking to him two, three o’clock in the morning. And he was like, man, look, the property management tell me I got to dump 50, 60 grand into this thing. I’ve never seen it. I’ve had it 12, 13 years. It served its purpose for me. I really just want to get rid of it. And think he wanted 56,000. I talked him down to about 38,000.

I reached out to the owners of the other two buildings. The other two buildings, like I said, they were totally dilapidated. Nobody lived in them. They didn’t even think anybody would ever want to buy them. And they told me, say, my dad created this property about 30, 40 years ago where we had to work on this thing as kids. And we don’t want anything to do with it. Dad ran us in the ground building these. This was part of his retirement. The dad used to be a postal worker.

had all the land and turned their primary house into multifamily and then he built two apartment buildings out there.

But they didn’t want anything to do with it. Dad had died about four years ago and they didn’t think that, you know, anybody wanted them either. And they told me the story that dad had lost that one in 2007 because his girlfriend at the time had dementia and she wasn’t paying the note on it. And so he lost it. And so they was like, well, how much are you buying that one building out there for? And I told myself, I’m 38,000. They said, well, hey, if you, if you want those two buildings, you can have both of them for 40.

And I was like, are you sure both of them? they was like, yeah, you can have both of them for 40 if you’re serious about it. I said, well, hold that thought, man. Give me about six months. I’m going to fix this one up. I’m going to cash out a refi. And I promise you guys, I’m going come back and buy it. Just promise me you won’t sell it. You won’t put it like, nah, if you want them, you can have them. And man, I just had a vision for it. Everybody that I brought back up in there to do work, they looked at me like I was crazy. was like, man, best of luck to you.

And we worked at it real hard. Unfortunately, I closed December 29th of 2019. And three months later, we’re in the middle of COVID. So two by fours tripled and doubled in price, and everything else went up. But it just gave me opportunity to learn this stuff firsthand of how to maneuver and how to do it.

Dylan Silver (17:57)
Yeah.

Roy Smalls (18:03)
you know, between me and my, appreciate my father-in-law, my brother-in-law, my son. And we worked out there every weekend and brought it back to life. And I was able to kind of rinse for Pete on all three of those buildings. But I’m just blessed to say, man, honestly, I didn’t think it was worth that much. We just closed on an SBA.

purchased a erosion control company that goes hand in hand with our real estate and development piece. And they had an appraisal on it to use this collateral and it came back at 1.5 million. So.

Dylan Silver (18:31)
Unbelievable.

That’s amazing deal. Congratulations truly Roy on the success there. We are coming up on time here. Any new projects that you’re working on and what’s the best way for folks to get in contact with you?

Roy Smalls (18:45)
Yeah, man, one thing that I’m really, really excited about the.

County and the city has really opened their arms to me the last few months as I transition out of the insurance industry to be in development and real estate full time. And I’m going to be working on some affordable home opportunities. And, you know, I’ll tell you just in transparency, I was always like, that’s not something I want to do. I was always kind of against it, but just a lack of education, honestly. And I started becoming educated on it and how it works.

and how it can be a benefit at the end of the day. I believe I’m always want to be in a position to help people and work with people.

So, you know, I’m going be working on that with the city and with the county, hopefully at the state level as well to do some affordable building in the upstate area. So that’s one. then we’re currently working on a custom home. This is my first custom home build that we’re doing ⁓ in a great area, kind of in between Spartanburg and Greenville. ⁓ Just a great area, hillside, really beautiful home where I’m getting to put, you know, I guess my artistic approach and touch on it.

So really just trying to touch it at all different levels, all different realms, and just allow this thing to continue to grow and develop. We’re doing the, this is the first time I’ve kind of, I’ve never been a big.

social media guy. But ⁓ my buddy here, he convinced me, like, man, you got to YouTube this process. And so you can find us on YouTube @RoySmallsJR where you can follow along on our custom build project that we’re doing now. And I’m sure we’ll be highlighting the other projects that we’re doing. Everyday wealth was a page that we started. And that’s where you can see the 17 home apartment complex ⁓ units that we’ve done on

everyday wealth.

So, but great things coming. I’m really excited for the future. And like you mentioned before, the upstate area is growing. It’s one of the fastest growing areas in the country, Greenville, Spartanburg. So I’m ready for the ride. I know I mentioned it a minute ago. Like I said, we just closed on a company that’s going to allow us to get in there and, you know, do a little bit of our own infrastructure and then also work in the community with all this development coming

into the area erosion control is something big that a lot of developers are needing assistance with and so we’ll be working with you know several developers in the area with some of the service that they’re needing on their development projects as well.