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Show Summary
In this episode of the Investor Fuel Podcast, host Skyler Byrd interviews Louis Critelli, a seasoned realtor specializing in high-end real estate in New Jersey. Louis shares his unexpected journey into real estate, his focus on luxury and waterfront properties, and the diverse clientele he serves, including celebrities and successful entrepreneurs. He emphasizes the importance of networking and building relationships in the industry, as well as understanding the unique needs of clients looking for privacy and comfort. The conversation concludes with insights on starting small in real estate investments and the significance of emerging neighborhoods.
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Investor Fuel Show Transcript:
Louis Critelli (00:00)
I have had celebrity clients. We’ve ⁓ worked with Queen Latifah, we’ve worked with Mary J. Blige, we’ve worked with John Valentin of the Mets. The list goes on and on, ⁓ different people that we’ve worked for. I just worked for a rapper ⁓ who we sold a home to in northern New Jersey, which was a lot of fun. Because it was totally outside my comfort zone and music style and stuff like that. So you have those, right, which is great. But the people that you really enjoy working with is the guy that you met who started a business. I worked for a guy who cleaned And he got bought by $240 million by another companySkyler (02:16)
everybody welcome to the Investor Fuel Podcast I’m your host today Skyler Byrd and I am joined by Louis Critelli and I’m very excited to talk with Louis he is you know he has been a realtor in high end real estate in the Jersey area for for many many years I’ve got a lot of questions for him so Louis thank you very much for coming onLouis Critelli (02:38)
problem. My pleasure. think I might have been doing it just maybe a little older than you.Skyler (02:44)
maybe but probably I’m a little older than people think which isn’t a bad thing. ⁓ Yeah so first of all Louis tell everybody just a little bit about your background how you got into real estate you know how you how long you’ve been doing it things like that.Louis Critelli (02:59)
Sure. So actually it was by accident. I’ll tell you the truth, Skyler. It was by accident. I graduated Villanova University in accounting and I went to graduate school, had my MBA in accounting, went in big eight accounting. So it was really nothing that I intended to be in ⁓ originally. And it was something that we started doing on a part-time basis, never thinking that it would amount to this, but I was fortunate that I found my niche and something I was passionate about. ⁓We wound up working for a normal, a large national company, growing, learning, and then eventually going on my own in 2005 and had the company ever since. And we’ve had different, different relationships with that. We started on our own, then we partnered, which we could always talk about later, but we partnered with another company and that was an exciting thing. And now we’re back to being an independent because the market is rapidly changing the way real estate is done. And we just kind of want to move and be fluid.
at the changing market.
Skyler (04:00)
Absolutely. And when did you start specifically focusing on the high end market itself?Louis Critelli (04:05)
Right away. You know, I remember, I remember it doesn’t take, it doesn’t take too long to, to figure out you either are going to be a volume based agent or a volume based, whether you’re working with developers, you’re to be volume based. And that’s good. This, there’s nothing wrong with that, but, you’re going to be in luxury space, which is a, it’s a expensive space to be in advertising wise and stuff. But when it, when I realized I was going to do it, Skyler was, I went to a convention.And I remember watching all the award-winning people going up there. And there was guys there, I did 300 transactions this year. And he was the number one guy in buyer-controlled sales or seller-controlled sales. And then at the end, was the money makers. And here was the top 10 money makers. And the last person, the one that got the most money for the whole company, and you were like, your mind was blown how much money she made. She did three transactions, only three.
One of them was a $50 million house and she was out in Northern California and she double ended it and then she did another one. And that’s when I realized like, you know, I could, I could do the same thing. I can make the same amount of money with a little, I thought a little less effort and a little more time. You know, that’s kind of how we got into that space. And from then you just have to change the way you do business. You have to go from being an agent who’s online to somebody who’s in every
charity event, every social event, networking with high-end people, and you have to change that focus. And we have done that over the years.
Skyler (05:41)
absolutely absolutely and let me ask you who who would you say are your main clientele now are you serving investors are you you know individual buyers what does that look like for you at this pointLouis Critelli (05:52)
would say honestly, I was saying to you earlier when we spoke off on the night, that I guess the investors come from everywhere and it’s not who you think.I have had celebrity clients. We’ve ⁓ worked with Queen Latifah, we’ve worked with Mary J. Blige, we’ve worked with John Valentin of the Mets. The list goes on and on, ⁓ different people that we’ve worked for. I just worked for a rapper ⁓ who we sold a home to in northern New Jersey, which was a lot of fun.
because it was totally outside my comfort zone and music style and stuff like that. So you have those, right, which is great. But the people that you really enjoy working with is the guy that you met who started a business. I worked for a guy who cleaned
How about that? And he cleaned airplanes. had a service that vacuumed airplanes and serviced them when the people came in.
Skyler (07:28)
wow.Louis Critelli (07:33)
And he got bought by $240 million by another companythat
Cleans airplanes. I had another guy that’s my client. just sold a home to I’ve sold several homes to him, one in Florida and you he’s bought one in Florida. I didn’t sell that one to him, but one here in Colts Neck, another one in Red Bank and he has a place in Manhattan. He was an insurance guy who just, know, his father was an actuary. He grew up in the insurance business. He wound up growing the business to the largest company in New Jersey privately held.
and he just sold it for 163 million upfront and another 93 million over the next three years. If you met him on the street, you would just think the nicest guy, you would never know he has money. So the answer to your question is very varied. Could be a guy who started a plumbing business and just blew up and sold it to the Wall Street people, to builders who are investors, to people who are looking to do Airbnbs. We’ve done it all. We’ve done it all.
Skyler (08:34)
awesome. You gotta love thesleeper money that’s out there. ⁓
Louis Critelli (08:36)
Yeah, yeah, yeah. And it’s finethat the people that have that money, the people who really, really have big money, you don’t know they have big money. You know, they’re driving the Volvo. They’re not driving a Ferrari. They’re driving the Volvo because they have a Rolls Royce at home. You know, that’s the way that you would never know.
Skyler (08:54)
Yeah.Yeah, no, absolutely. And what they used to have a show a while back, what was it? Next Door Millionaire or something where they explore those people that you’d never know they had money whatsoever. Yeah. No, I love that. And
Louis Critelli (09:07)
You we had anopportunity to be on a million dollar listing, New York. I’ve been on a couple episodes of that. You know, we’ve done a lot of fun stuff. They asked me to do a show. ⁓ It was going to be called Selling New Jersey. We actually declined the show on a Wednesday and they gave it to someone else on a Friday. But yeah, you’re right. You’d be very surprised who the people are. And the ones you see on TV, the flashy ones, the models and the millionaires and actors, that’s great.
Skyler (09:10)
Okay. Yeah.wow.
Louis Critelli (09:35)
But the people who work in our business are really networked with wealthy people by going to golf outings. If I ever played golf, I’d be retired right now.Skyler (09:44)
Yeah. See, that’s why it’s a great game.Absolutely. So, so Louis, let me ask you, with your business now, right? What are you focusing on? What type of properties? What does that look like?
Louis Critelli (10:35)
What I love to, what I’m focusing on mostly is I love the water. Anything around the water, anything to do with the water. So waterfront properties is my new focus. ⁓ We always have done them. And we’ve done very good volume doing the waterfront property, very high end homes. But I really want to do more of it. ⁓ Somehow I got, when you do a certain business and you’re with a certain client, then what happens? The buyer that you get,for that house winds up being your next customer, hopefully, right? If you do your job the right way. And so you kind of get stuck in this doing one particular type of thing. And so we really specialize in luxury market, but then we do a lot of new construction. And I’m even taking on a project in new construction that I think I mentioned briefly is, know, builder bought a property, buys a piece of land. do land acquisition for a builder, a flipper, you know, investors.
And then we subdivide the properties and then sell off the homes or sometimes we sell the lots, but mostly in New Jersey, we’d go in the red, uh, build on those lots ourselves, the developer. So I think we’re focusing on new construction, waterfront and the luxury market in houses do a lot of horse farms. We’ve done that in the past, not as many of them around anymore as when I started, but, but that was my, my initial way that I got into the business was selling horse farms and farms.
and then subdivide them, doing land acquisition for builders, and then having those builders build on them and getting the listings. And that was the deal. The deal was it was a market where there was no inventory. Couldn’t get inventory. So the deal that I would make with the builders is, if I bring you a project, I’ll bring them to you all day, but you have to give me the business back. And any builder that says I’m not comfortable with that, they were done. We just couldn’t work with them.
Skyler (12:21)
Yeah, yeah,it’s no matter what, it’s still a relationship business. So yeah, absolutely.
Louis Critelli (12:26)
Yeah, yeah. Well, the last thingyou want to see is you don’t want to see you do all the hard work and then you give it to the builder and then the builder hires your competitor to market the properties. You know, that would just kill you. So that’s the thing.
Skyler (12:35)
Yeah.Yeah,
absolutely. All right. And I know obviously you’re based in the New Jersey area, but from what I understand, you’ve got connections not just across the country, but internationally as well, correct?
Louis Critelli (12:51)
Right. New Jersey, great thing about New Jersey, I know you’re from Texas, so it’s a totally different thing. We have partners in Texas, and I know how far you guys drive for everything, but even in California. In New Jersey, where we are, we’re centrally located, Jersey shore, close to the beach, but in horse country. So if you look at the state of New Jersey, I can get anywhere in the state of New Jersey in an hour, pretty much anywhere. Or maybe like if I had to go to Atlantic Cape May.Or it might be an hour and 15, but I can cover the whole state if we want. But if a client of mine says, hey, look, we’re looking to sell our home here in New Jersey, and I’d like to go, we just had one. just sold a home in Millstone, New Jersey for a couple that had come from Portland, Oregon. So I referred their home in Portland. We sold their home in Portland. They moved during COVID to New Jersey, where I sold them a 13,000 square foot house. ⁓ They fixed the house up. We sold it last year.
They made a nice profit and they want to be they retired and they just decided to call me up one day and said sell it for me and we want to move to leone france so we made a phone call to our partners in in france actually made a call first to someone because i needed interpreter you know everybody but everybody in france speaks english the point was that i wanted to make them comfortable right i want somebody to kind of talk to so.
Skyler (14:09)
Okay, yeah.Louis Critelli (14:19)
we’ve referred people to france we can refer people anywhere in the world you want to go anywhere in the country and those relationships referrals it’s a two-way street i have to of course refer business they meet the people through conferences to different you know different events and and have to earn their trust and i’m very proud of that because you know that just means if they trust you enough to refer their business or other rapper i mentioned earlier was from atlanta a referral from atlanta from a group of people who just work in the in the hip-hop industryYou know, so, you know, Yep. So anywhere you want to go, we’ll move you Skylar. Where do you want to go?
Skyler (14:52)
Absolutely.Let’s see. Apparently,
I don’t know. I was going to say Russia, but let’s not go there. Really test to see what you can really do. ⁓ There you go. All right. So no, but the reason I bring it up, mean, it just seems like that can be such an important aspect of being in your market, right? And being able to refer people out to
Louis Critelli (15:03)
Yeah.That one I have to pass. No connections in right there.
Skyler (16:07)
you to the right companies and and and right agents elsewhere if you need to again i think it’s all part of building relationshipsLouis Critelli (16:12)
We call that afeeder market, right? So New Jersey is an enormous feeder market. If you think about it, everybody, way back when, when my grandparents came here, and still to this day, what happened? Immigrants came into Ellis Island. Now they come in different ways through immigration. And they come in, they settle in Manhattan, and eventually find the suburbs and the shore and stuff like that. But then once they…
Skyler (16:17)
Yeah.Louis Critelli (16:37)
do that, then they start moving other places. And for us, Florida is a big feeder market for us. So we can definitely refer down to Florida to, I think, 55 partners down in Florida that I can refer you to anywhere in Florida. And so we really do move people from New Jersey. It’s a great starting point and great place to get work and high paying jobs. And then people have secondary homes or investment properties in Arizona or Carolinas. So wherever you want to go.Skyler (17:03)
Yeah. Yeah.Absolutely. All right. And let me ask you, with the clientele that you have, you know, just as kind of a fun question here, what are some of the, you know, ⁓ what are they kind of looking for? What’s something kind of unique that stuck out to you about a client?
Louis Critelli (17:24)
the most unique thing that a client was looking for. Well, yeah, that’s a good one. I’d say a lot of people are looking to disappear. I’ve heard that word a lot, I want to disappear. I think that a lot of these people, ⁓ if you would have talked to me five years ago, I probably would have been one of those people. You’re talking to people all day, or they’re working very hard, or they’re on Wall Street, and they’re just, the stress level is very high. ⁓Skyler (17:33)
Okay.Mm-hmm.
Louis Critelli (17:54)
You know, ⁓ and they just want to go somewhere. They’re just like you and me. They just want to go somewhere where they can spend time with their family and not be bothered, you know, and maybe just kind of blend in a little bit. And I think I hear that a lot. hear that a lot. mean, you know, they can buy anything they want, right? They can have all the pools and the tennis courts and they can, they can, you know, ⁓ they can buy the boats. And I mean, so that’s not something they, they know they could buy that, but what they can’t buy that you have to find them.is they have to find the property that makes them feel like they’re comfortable just being themselves and not always being on the radar. And I think that’s something people will ask for, a unique thing you said, I think I…
Skyler (18:34)
Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, I was kindof hoping you were going to say somebody had like, you know, really requested a bowling alley in the the in the house or something like that. ⁓
Louis Critelli (18:41)
⁓ OK, so I got all right. If you want to really you want to really wantone that’s out there. So I have a client that has a 13000 square foot house. I can’t tell you who it is, ⁓ but it’s on it’s on 50 acres and he has a house that has a he had a Tiger Preserve on 400 acres in Texas that he just he kept to save Tigers and so in his house he has two bowling alleys, three pools, one with a glass dance floor.
and he has a lifestyle replica of his favorite tiger that had passed away. That was a very unique house. But yes, so there’s some people, I’ve had people that have all sorts of theater rooms and things like that, but that was probably one of the more unique ones that I could think about was walking through his house and him saying, so you want to see my stuffed tiger? mean, that was it.
Skyler (19:15)
wow.Cheers.
yeah there you go that’s
I was looking for see the first answer was a very heartfelt very nice answer well thought out I I had to get you to more of the more of the unique
Louis Critelli (19:40)
Yeah, that’s fun one. You know, there’s another funone too. We went up to a house in New Jersey, a place called Ramapo. It was called Darlington Manor. You can look it up. Just go into New Jersey and put Darlington Manor. And the guy had a barber shop. He had, of course, a wine room. Everybody had a wine room. But he had some cool things like a barber shop and he had some other unique stuff like that. that was the first time I saw massage rooms and
But he wanted it to be, he couldn’t really go anywhere, I guess, without being recognized. And these people, sometimes they can become recluses, you know? And so they just have to have everything in their home. It’s kind of sad sometimes. Sometimes it’s kind of sad. But yeah, those are the cool things, though. Yeah, I’ve seen everything. But the cars, I’m a car guy. I’ve been in houses of clients of mine that have several million dollars of cars. There was one that held 50 cars, had a trophy room.
Skyler (20:13)
Okay, yeah.Mm-hmm.
Louis Critelli (20:38)
and then a whole observation room. when you went in there, he wanted it to feel like you were at a car show. So you had his 50 cards lined up and then he had a whole room that people could watch and he had popcorn makers and trophy cases and it was pretty cool.Skyler (20:53)
Now, there you go. That is pretty cool right there. Yeah, no, I love that. All right, well, Louis, we’re kind of coming up on time here. And before we go, if we have anybody looking for high-end property in the New Jersey area, how would they be able to get in contact with you? What’s the best way?Louis Critelli (21:02)
Sure.Well, you guys, you always can reach out on critellirealtors.com, which is easy, Critelli, last name, realtors.com. And then any social media, I’m on as Louis Critelli. Very simple. And so we do everything though. If you have investors that are looking to really kind of find their starting, that’s the important thing. That’s something we didn’t mention. A lot of the people that are my wealthiest clients,
did not start as my wealthiest clients. were builders who were building one-offs. They bought a piece of land for me that I was selling, and then we fixed it up and we flipped it and they made money and they moved on, and now they’re selling much larger things. So I would encourage your people to start small and to look into what I call emerging neighborhoods. Don’t go looking in the neighborhoods where you expect it. Look at the emerging, and I can help them with that. They’ve reached out to us.
Skyler (22:04)
Excellent. I love it.Well, well, Louis, thank you very much for coming on the podcast here and and for all of our listeners out there if you have got something of value from this podcast, please hit subscribe. We have got more interviews like this coming down the road all the time and we will see you all on the next episode.
Louis Critelli (22:09)
My pleasure.All right, guys, have a great day. Good luck to all of you.
Skyler (22:25)
Thank
