How to Start Investing in Real Estate With Credit, Loans, and Small Rental Properties

Rodrigo Serzedello (00:00)
So people think that you really need to have money to buy a house or you start investing. it’s, I like to say that it’s not about the money, it’s about credit score. So if you have a little say, like of course you need to have money to do your 10, 15 % down or, you know, maybe your case it can be even less, but

But it’s about you saving your credit score to get a good loan and to start small.

Michelle Kesil (02:10)
Hey everybody, welcome to the Real Estate Pros Podcast. I’m your host, Michelle Kesil, and today I’m joined by someone I’m looking forward to chatting with, Rodrigo Serzedello who is a realtor in San Diego, as well as a single-family investor. So excited to have you here today, Rodrigo.

Rodrigo Serzedello (02:30)
I appreciate it, Michelle. Thank you so much for the kind invitation and I’m excited to share my knowledge on the past investments that I’ve been doing here as well.

Michelle Kesil (02:41)
Great. So let’s dive in first off for those not familiar with you and your work. Can you share what your main focus

Rodrigo Serzedello (02:49)
So my main focus is in San Diego I work with single-family homes as a realtor and I’m also starting to work more with investors that comes to San Diego and would like to not just a single-family but like multi-units as well more towards Airbnbs and some long-terms as well. So this is one of my focus here in San Diego.

I also work with ⁓ real estate as real estate investors, but out of state. So I have some properties and investments in Cincinnati, Ohio, more towards north of Cincinnati, around Hamilton area. So yeah, I do long-terms and I do some Airbnb’s and short-terms there as well.

Michelle Kesil (03:35)
Great. And what do you feel are some of the main keys that have allowed your business to grow and run successfully?

Rodrigo Serzedello (03:45)
⁓ I believe ⁓ connections are like, it’s a really big part of what we do, right? Like when you, after you acquire some houses and you help the customer succeed, it’s just a word of mouth until you get the second client. This is how I’ve been driving my business here in San Diego as a real estate reo-tor.

But also in Cincinnati, Ohio, it’s more like a long term. So that’s, it’s two different verticals of my work that I do. But my main one right now, it is indeed here in San Diego, with helping families and helping investors to acquire new properties here.

Michelle Kesil (04:32)
And how did you get into investing?

Rodrigo Serzedello (04:33)
This is an interesting story. I started… My family runs real estate investments in Brazil. I’m from Brazil. I’ve been here for like about 15 years and my dad, he has multiple properties in Brazil. I used to have a company before which was nothing related with real estate. It got acquired and I had this pool of cash that I needed to invest or do something with that. And that’s how I started.

getting into the real estate business. So I started buying houses in Ohio and Cincinnati and then I became a realtor because part of what I do, it is really market analysis before I dive into markets. So that’s how I’m able to help my clients here in San Diego because I know like a lot of areas in San Diego where it’s succeeding.

And whereas, you know, we’re getting, it’s hard to get cash flow here in San Diego. I’ve got to get into that because here it’s more like a long-term appreciation, appreciating market. But everything that I do, it’s surrounding market analysis. So that is a part of my business that I’m really focused on here in San Diego. And that’s how I’ve been, you know, succeeding with my clients here as well.

Michelle Kesil (06:42)
Awesome. And what does like your investment strategy look like?

Rodrigo Serzedello (06:48)
So, ⁓ what I’ve been doing in Cincinnati, it’s more towards long term and some short terms as well. But I see that because I’ve been on the market for about like more than six, seven years, I’ve seen the markets that you can get a stronger cash flow if you go towards short term. And that’s not news, right? But I’ve been testing the markets, doing some AEP tests.

with different ⁓ properties that I own there. it’s really, if you take out of the equation the admin fees, and if you, that is, it take cares of your long-term properties there, you are going to have way more cashflow going towards, you know, the short-term rentals there.

So that’s a Cincinnati market there. And what I see here in San Diego, I don’t invest in San Diego. I have, I just help my clients here in San Diego, but I see a lot of my clients just looking for houses to, if we talked about markets that you can really earn money as far as investors, one long-term, that is one of section of

my client tell, but the majority are looking towards flipping houses or short terms as well. Flipping houses is the most common here in San Diego, especially North County here. That’s the best way that you can get a good investment and cashflow out of this market here in San Diego.

Michelle Kesil (08:31)
And what have been some obstacles or challenges that you’ve had to overcome in your real estate journey?

Rodrigo Serzedello (08:39)
So really, Michelle, it’s not just my challenge, but it’s the market’s really challenge, which it is the interest rate. So interest rates, it’s fluctuating right now, right around 6%. And that’s something that it is a struggle because, of course, higher interest rates, less inventory in the markets for us to work with, especially with offerings to our clients.

But San Diego, it still remains a resilient market. So, if we talk about, you know, how’s in the markets available to buy and sell, we have seen an increase of inventory here in San Diego. And that’s something that has been helping us as a real estate agent.

really like we it’s really hard to predict the the the like the the pricing of the loan let’s just put it this way you know whatever we get like a higher interest rates people are afraid to sell their houses it means they’re not going to buy the next one ⁓ it’s we are way far from the three percent rate that we got from you know the our covid era

But, so, I see a lot of people that are still waiting for to get to the 3%, which it’s a really hard, you know, prediction to do. But, you know, it’s… there are some people waiting for that. But, you know, the market here is resilient, here in San Diego. And a lot of outside of investors, they’re coming to San Diego to work specially with flips and Airbnbs as well. So, you know…

unpredictably it is really the price of the law, the interest rates, that’s something that it can complicate us over here.

Michelle Kesil (11:11)
Yeah. And what are you most focused on solving or scaling to next?

Rodrigo Serzedello (11:13)
Okay.

So, my goal it is to scale my vertical part of business which it is the investment houses that I have on Middle East. So, the challenges are actually the other investors because when he talked about acquiring houses in on the Middle East, know, Ohio…

especially Ohio, there is a lot of investors that are competing and bidding for the same houses that you are. And really like every… every hour basically here I get an investor wanting to acquire my properties there in Ohio. So, if you are, you know, going to buy a house there it’s really hard to compete with other investors because they’re always, you know…

outbeating you and, you know, trying to get the same house that you were. Now, in San Diego that’s a little bit different because we don’t have as many offers as we used to as in 2021, 2022. The market here in San Diego we have about 30 to 40 days the houses in the market as far as when we were on a pre-pandemic levels.

which was right around 10 days or 15 days and there was a line of people wanting to buy houses. So right here in San Diego is really the right place to invest rather than Middle East. So that’s one of the struggles that investors have, especially on Middle East, is the competition. So competition, it is a really big struggle right now.

Michelle Kesil (13:07)
Yeah. And how did you learn to invest?

Rodrigo Serzedello (13:12)
So that runs from my family once again. My dad was an investor, that’s how I started on my investment career. I’ve been… My roots, it doesn’t just come from real estate. I am a software developer as well. I come from the software developing world. I used to work for Apple, so I’ve always used to have…

my companies as well and that’s kind of like set up a base for you know my real estate career the way that I am right now what I’m doing and my other companies that I own it was like a drone light show business as well and things that are those not related with real estate but gave me a base to you know do what I’m doing right now

Michelle Kesil (13:59)
What advice would you give to someone wanting to invest?

Rodrigo Serzedello (14:00)
Thank

So people think that you really need to have money to buy a house or you start investing. it’s, I like to say that it’s not about the money, it’s about credit score. So if you have a little say, like of course you need to have money to do your 10, 15 % down or, you know, maybe your case it can be even less, but

But it’s about you saving your credit score to get a good loan and to start small.

And then you can scale up. So, if you think about buying a house on the Midwest, Middle East, so you can see that a house, can run from even $80,000 or $100,000, you can buy a house there. And your down payment, it’s really low.

If you start getting to the markets, getting to understanding the numbers, which is really, important, and you can buy one house right now with a loan and sell for 5, 10, or 15,000 profits, and then you can start rolling to the next one and then on to the next one. One of my strategies that I used when I started acquiring houses, it was not…

on not putting the full cash into it, but it ⁓ was buying some houses, all cash in, and then I was starting to do a refinance and buy the next one. So this is a really powerful way that when you are able to get your full money into one house, you don’t need to buy the other one to have the full money or even

you know, 10 % or 20 % in. You can, you know, refinance the first house and buy the next one, and then you refinance the next one and buy the third one. So I’ve been able to scale doing this method, just rolling over from one house to another one house, just doing this game of, you know, refinance. So that’s something that, you know, my advice would be just start small.

Don’t go into markets that you can like in San Diego, you can buy one house here as far as Middle East that you can buy 10 houses for the same price there, the same amount of money, right? So risk class as far as putting your money in and then you can flip and just go to the next one.

Michelle Kesil (17:26)
Yeah, absolutely. And do you have any goals or anything that you are looking forward to accomplishing?

Rodrigo Serzedello (17:33)
My goal would be getting to 15 houses on Middle East. That’s my goal that I want ⁓ to accomplish. And I’m getting there. I’m getting there. It’s just amount of time. And you’ve got to have a lot of patience when you’re on the real estate business. And that’s mainly because, once again, you’re competing with other investors and you cannot be attached.

with one house and that’s one of the big problems when you start investing in real estate. You get sometimes, you know, emotionally attached with some houses and then that can be a big problem because if you lose one deal you’re thinking, you’re never gonna get the next house that has the same look and things like that. So I would advise people looking towards numbers.

more than towards the color of the wall. And that is kind of like a, it’s a way that you can, you know, focus on the growth rather than focus on, you know, the beauty of the house, because you’re not going to be living there. And I’ve bought, you know, a number of houses just through the phone or just through my real estate agents there in Ohio just showing me.

the houses through their cell phones. That’s kind of the way that it needs to look at it. You need to have, you need to build a solid team and a solid foundation to make sure that, you know, people really care about you and not about their commission. And that’s something that you, you, you, you need to, you know, you need to rely on other people and have a good team to help you out. And, you know, you don’t need to invest in where you are.

you can invest abroad, but be smart and be mindful of where you’re investing. I would invite people for whoever is listening, if wants to invite in San Diego or if wants to invite even in Ohio, please reach out to me. I don’t hold information. like, I believe on sharing and helping other people. So whoever are interested to…

you know, investing in other places or investing in San Diego, I’m here to help.

Michelle Kesil (19:57)
Perfect, thank you for sharing. And before we wrap up here, if someone wants to reach out, connect and learn more, where can people find you?

Rodrigo Serzedello (20:07)
So, on Instagram, whoever wants to follow me, you can follow me to @rod.serz at instagram.com. I have a lot of contents there, but if you want to send me an email, please reach out to me [email protected]…

which it is Calarillians, that’s the real estate company that work here in San Diego. So please feel free to reach out to me if you are investing or if you’re a new buyer in San Diego or if you want to know and learn more about the real estate investments in Ohio I can connect you with my team there as well which they don’t work specifically just with me but they can help out other people there and I’m happy to connect as well.

Michelle Kesil (20:59)
Okay, I appreciate your time and your story. Thank you for being here.

Rodrigo Serzedello (21:03)
Sounds good. Thanks, Michelle.

Michelle Kesil (21:04)
And for the listeners tuning in, you got value, make sure you have subscribed. We have more conversations with operators like Rodrigo who are building real businesses and we’ll see you on the next episode.