How to Structure Real Estate Investments in Florida | Compliance, Taxes & Protection

Yves Maia (00:00)
Investor shows up at his doorstep about to lose a deal because they can’t finish securing the finance because they don’t understand what the bank is requesting of them. We have a deal like that right now, an SBA deal that, well, it’s the same situation, right?

So we’re having to communicate with the bank, get involved to make sure that all the documents, all their ducks are in a role in terms of the documents that they need so that the bank can approve them and then get going and seal the deal.

Leonardo Prada (01:57)
Hey everyone, welcome to Investor Fuel Podcast. I’m your host, Leonardo Prada. And today I’m joined by someone I’ve been looking forward to chatting with. His name is Maia. Is that correct, Yves

Yves Maia (02:10)
Maia correct.

Leonardo Prada (02:12)
Alright, perfect. Who’s been making serious moves in the real estate industry? Okay, ⁓ if glad to have you here man I think our listeners are really going to take something away from ⁓ how you’re approaching ⁓ the real estate business ⁓

Yves Maia (02:30)
Thank you for having me. I’m excited to be here today and discuss some of the strategies we put together and what it is that we do for real estate investors.

Leonardo Prada (02:39)
Perfect, perfect. So let’s dive in. So first off, ⁓ people who may not be familiar with your world, can you please give us a short version on what’s your main focus these days?

Yves Maia (02:53)
The main focus that we have here today is really helping investors on a day to day and guiding all compliance matters and structuring needs for whenever they’re about to get into any investment. say an individual is looking at a potential deal, whether it’s a commercial, ⁓ real property or residential, whether it’s for short term leasing or long term leasing, we take a look at what the deal is. We help them structure the entity that’s gonna represent them.

Leonardo Prada (03:00)
⁓

Yves Maia (03:20)
in that deal for holding both holding the real estate as well as for risk mitigation and of course compliance with local laws and regulations as well depending on what it is that they’re doing of course.

Leonardo Prada (03:33)
That’s good. That’s good. And what markers are you operating in right now?

Yves Maia (03:39)
Our primary focus is in the state of Florida actually. We work within the entire state of Florida. We do have some deals that we’ve dealt with outside of the state of Florida, but really Florida is our main focus currently.

Leonardo Prada (03:52)
All right, love it, love it. ⁓ I like Florida. I used to live in Florida for a period of over nine years. Love it. Know ⁓ their culture, everything is good. So love it. Now, ⁓ what caught my attention about you was the way that you actually ⁓ comply, all right, with your consulting business.

Yves Maia (04:01)
Nice.

Leonardo Prada (04:19)
And can you tell us about, you know, being the guy for the investor?

Yves Maia (04:25)
Sure. ⁓ Well,

when the investor shows up at my doorstep, they have a deal in mind. They say, want to work. I found this building, and this is the opportunity that I have. Ultimately, I don’t engage on the part of understanding whether the deal is the right one for them or what their

profitability might be in that. They already show up with that in mind, correct? But the point here is it’s when do I step in?

I step in at the moment they’ve decided I’m going for it and I need to make sure that I structure myself accordingly. So we sit down, we have a discussion about how they’re gonna structure everything, where they should register their entity, what state they should register the main entity, if there’s an accessory entity within the state that the property is in. ⁓ Most cases, like I said, being here in Florida.

what kind of structure they should use, what legal structure they should consider, what tax structure they need to consider based on their situation so that they minimize their tax liability and also maximize their protection, of course. We discuss any licenses that are needed. Typically, that’s going to go into a situation where they’re doing short-term rentals or perhaps if they’re dealing with the commercial sector, if they have a commercial building, they need to lease it out. Well, there might be a few items that they need to consider here, especially in the state of Florida or other states.

Leonardo Prada (06:06)
Bye.

Yves Maia (06:34)
⁓ And then protection right we deal with insurance as well So the guy the question might be what type of insurance is it that you need for that for that property? Do you need a dwelling form? Do you need a homeowners form? Do you need? ⁓ complete separate ⁓ Property insurance because of the operation that you have within that building it might be owner occupied if it’s a SBA loan so depending on the situation we we put together an entire plan and how they’re gonna operate in the future and

then we execute.

Leonardo Prada (07:06)
Right. Perfect. Perfect. Actually, that’s not easy. You know, not these days and in Florida, trust me, not even.

Yves Maia (07:13)
No, no, it’s tough.

I’ll tell you this, Leo. It’s tough to find ⁓ somebody, honestly, and I don’t say this to toot my horn. It’s the truth. It’s very difficult to find individuals that are able to connect the pieces in all these areas because there are multiple areas, right? Here we call them the four pillars of doing business. You have your legal area, your financial, your licensing and your insurance. That’s the basic foundation of a business. Any business, not only real estate investing.

Leonardo Prada (07:28)
you

Yves Maia (07:42)
⁓ And it’s very difficult to find an individual that you can rely on to connect the dots with all of these areas. So it’s a very, ⁓ it’s a very unique approach to doing business in general, as I say, in general, because that is the foundation of doing business.

Leonardo Prada (08:00)
Okay. And that’s where you actually come in, right? You are the guy that actually makes all the dots. Am I right? Perfect. Perfect. And tell me something is what’s been the key to keeping that machine running smoothly like you do.

Yves Maia (08:06)
That is correct. That is correct.

Well, first and foremost, of course, it’s been years of work and experience in the industry, right? We’ve been in the industry for, we’re going on 10 years now, so it’s been a decade of doing what we do. But most importantly, it’s actually a tool that we’ve put together, which ⁓ is a structuring tool, a wizard for doing exactly this, which helps us out. We’ve compiled a lot of data over the years, put it together into a tool that anybody can use really and figure out what is the best way to structure their entity.

and ⁓ be able to protect themselves, right? Be in compliance with federal, local, and state governments.

Leonardo Prada (08:52)
Exactly. Now I know that every operator I know has a moment where things got real. Maybe a deal that went sideways, you know, or a time that they had to pivot fast. ⁓ Do you mind sharing one of those moments?

Yves Maia (09:09)
⁓ Sure, let’s see. We’ve had situations where perhaps lending was going to go sideways, which is sometimes essential to a deal, right? And what’s funny is with lending, it’s just a bunch of check the boxes, right? It’s a matter of making sure that everything fits. there’s a lot of times that people qualify but don’t know how to actually do the process, right? And there’s a lot of legal jargon that goes into it. A lot of questioning about

all sorts of different things. ⁓ We’ve had investors show up at our doorstep that had basically found a good deal. They’re the perfect person for that investor. They’re strong. They can qualify, but they don’t have all their paperwork set up the right way,

They don’t have the entity set up the right way. They’re missing an opera. can be as little as an operating agreement, which is something very basic in doing business, which a lot of business owners have no clue that they might need for their LLC, or perhaps it’s.

you know, having some other sort of legal document that they needed. ⁓ It might be past ⁓ tax documents, communications with the IRS to ensure transcripts, et cetera. So it could be something very simple as that. And we’ve had numerous instances where that occurred.

Investor shows up at his doorstep about to lose a deal because they can’t finish securing the finance because they don’t understand what the bank is requesting of them. We have a deal like that right now, an SBA deal that, well, it’s the same situation, right?

So we’re having to communicate with the bank, get involved to make sure that all the documents, all their ducks are in a role in terms of the documents that they need so that the bank can approve them and then get going and seal the deal.

Leonardo Prada (11:20)
Alright, Now, actually, that’s the kind of stuff that people don’t talk about enough, you know. Sometimes when you get into this kind of stuff, I remember an experience that I had when I was living over there, a friend of mine, she was buying a house and she was not using any realtor, you know. So she came across those ⁓ same issues that you are mentioning, you know, like some tax reports, stuff like that, you know. So and honestly, it’s something

that most of the people don’t know how to deal with. And that’s when they search, for persons like you, you know, to, um, to connect all the dots, and help them, close the deal, uh, very smoothly. Um, okay. That’s actually very, very good. Thank you very much. Now, let me ask you this. Um, what are you most focused on solving or scaling next?

Yves Maia (11:53)
Yes.

Leonardo Prada (12:16)
in your business.

Yves Maia (12:17)
⁓ The number one goal for us really right now is to ⁓ assist, honestly assist as many people as possibly in terms of consulting and guiding them and ensuring them that they’re compliant with local, federal and state rules. So with that said, we utilize our system which is called STEPS ⁓ specifically for that to make sure that we are guiding everybody exactly on what they need to have prepared in their system in order to operate

⁓ accordingly and being in compliance with local laws, but also to protect themselves, right? Which is very important to not miss any deadlines, whether it’s renewing their business, whether it’s renewing a license, whatever the case may be. So that’s what we’re scaling right now is on that end, is the consulting side via our system that we have at the moment, which allows us to do this so wonderfully.

Leonardo Prada (13:09)
Alright man, hey that speaks, especially when you already got your consulting business in place. Now the next move can either compound things or create chaos depending on how you play it. That’s how I see it. Now I believe that a lot of people are listening ⁓ whether they are earlier in their journey or just looking to level up and I think they’ll benefit from hearing.

Yves Maia (13:23)
Yes.

Leonardo Prada (13:39)
You know, definitely this is something that when it comes to building relationships and growing your network ⁓ That’s you know what what makes the difference today, okay ⁓ and with that being said what what do you think it? It made the biggest difference for you

Yves Maia (14:40)
Hmm Man being readily available. That’s probably the most important thing out there ⁓ and also being able to take your time with people I think ⁓ in in the business world sometimes we’re too transactional We forget to get into the personal side of things and understand who it is that we’re dealing with And that is really in my opinion what creates the best connections with other professionals as well as clients, right?

partners, whatever the case may be. ⁓ And that has been the number one thing is a partner calls, they need you. That same way I need a partner sometimes. I call my partners, they’re readily available. They’re willing to answer the call, send me a text message, whatever the case may be, take a little bit of their time when they didn’t expect to in order to help me answer a question, whatever it may be. Because in the end of the day, when you work with

partners which everybody needs other professionals to work with. Nobody can do everything alone. Everybody needs help is the reality, right? So when you work in conjunction with other professionals yet for your partners, you’re going to go a little bit out of your way. You’re not going to, you’re not going to be stingy with your time and greedy with your time. You got to be willing, right? To be available, to be transparent, to be that partner. ⁓ that way everybody grows, right? There’s business for everybody in the market. So ultimately,

Leonardo Prada (15:39)
Exactly.

Yves Maia (16:04)
being available has been the number ⁓ one tool, think, in my arsenal with anybody, right? With any, again, a partner or a client for that matter. ⁓ That’s probably what I would say is the most important thing out there.

Leonardo Prada (16:19)
All right. No, I totally agree with you because that’s something that you definitely can fake, know, your availability. Being available is something that you cannot fake. You know, you can fake a conversation, you can fake a word, you know, but being available for everyone, you know, that’s something, know, relationships are everything in this in this kind of space right now. All right. That’s good. Ifs, ⁓ before we wrap up, you know, if someone wanted to reach out, connect with you, maybe

Yves Maia (16:28)
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Yes.

100%.

Leonardo Prada (16:49)
collaborate or learn more about what you’re doing, what’s the best way for them to reach you out?

Yves Maia (16:56)
I’d say the best way for them to reach out is via email. ⁓ That way we’re able to set everything accordingly for the future, ⁓ which is at Yves at the steps dot I O that’s Y V E S at the steps dot I O.

Leonardo Prada (17:14)
Perfect man. Well listen, I appreciate your time, your story and your perspective. Alright? We need more people in this space who are doing it the right way. So thank you very much for being here with me. Alright? And for those of you tuning in, if you got value from this, make sure you’re subscribed. Okay? We got more conversations coming with operators just like Yves ⁓ who are out there building real businesses. So we’ll see you on the next episode.

Yves Maia (17:42)
Thank you.