Investing in Colombia Real Estate: Cash Flow, ROI and Building a Local Team

Bob Miskinis (00:00)
The market got to be so crazy in Colombia and so good that I paid my property off in like a year and a half. And then everything after a year and a half was was passive income. And so, you know, that return on investment is nothing you’re gonna get over here in the United States, you know.

Putting down $190,000 and in a year and a half getting your hundred ninety thousand dollars back and then having passive income after that.

Scott Bursey (01:52)
Welcome back to the Real Estate Pros podcast, powered by Investor Fuel . I’m your host, Scott Bursey And today we’re sitting down with Bob Miskinis from Diversity Real Estate Investments. Bob isn’t just looking at the bottom line, he’s made it his life’s work to ensure that minority communities

First generation families and working class individuals finally get a seat at the table. Pros expect a powerful conversation today about how purpose driven real estate is changing the game and how you can be a part of that shift. Bob, welcome to the show.

Bob Miskinis (02:28)
Thank you, sir.

Scott Bursey (02:29)
It is just wonderful having you here. And for our listeners who may not be familiar with your journey, please help us get up to speed on how your career ignited and where you’re pouring your fuel now.

Bob Miskinis (02:40)
Okay, great. I mean, I started off actually in the nonprofit world. And so I started and ran a nonprofit for about 10 years for at-risk teenagers. So I was working with kids that were homeless and prostitutes and gang members and stuff like that. So I come from that background of a social service background. and seeing everything that I saw, you know, it it it just really changes you. You know, you kind of see how people are really kind of start off at a at a disadvantage a lot of times. And so

after running that organiz starting and running that organization for 10 years, I ended up leaving and ended up getting into real estate. My father was in real estate residential for a period of time, but then ended up being into commercial real estate. Never really paid attention to it too much when I was a kid. It wasn’t like something I wanted to do, but I always kind of had a keen interest in it. So you know, one of my friends who had been a real estate agent had said that I really had a really keen eye for some of the, you know, things around real estate and said, Hey, have you ever thought about that as a

as a career and I thought, you know what, that might be something I might be interested in. And so that’s kind of like how it started my real estate career.

Scott Bursey (03:41)
Thanks for highlighting that, Bob. It’s incredibly inspiring to hear how you turned that vision into such a tangible reality. And Bob, you know, what really caught my attention about you was the way you’ve been able to turn the concept of diversity into a concrete, actionable investment strategy that lifts everyone involved. And on that note, curious to know, what do you see as your biggest internal strength when navigating these underserved markets?

Bob Miskinis (04:09)
I mean, I think my my biggest strength is really just giving people a seat at the table. You know, diversity is it it’s not something that just happens, it’s an intention. So you really have to be intentional about diversity. You know, a lot of times people will be like, well, there’s nobody joining, or there’s nobody of different diverse backgrounds involved in what I’m doing. You’ve actually got to go out and seat those people. You know, you gotta give them, you gotta make it comfortable for them and have them a seat at the table before they’re gonna engage. So, you know, what I learned through my work at the in the nonprofit world was

You know, you’ve got to make I I used to tell everybody in in the group I wanted my group to look like Noah’s Ark. I wanted two of everything in my group. Okay. We used to have a big, large Thursday night group. And I used to say, I want somebody from a a very obscure background to walk into my group and feel comfortable sitting in that in that room with everybody else at that point. Not that they just can’t wait to get out because they feel like they didn’t belong. So I kind of transferred that over into my brokerage also. And so I’m very intentional

about making space for different views and making space for different cultures and understanding different cultures and how you actually like, you know, you you know, people just move in different ways and it’s not bad or good or anything else. They just move in different ways. And being able to understand that, it makes them a lot more comfortable. So whenever you’re dealing with them, you know, it’s it’s it it makes it a lot easier.

Scott Bursey (06:13)
How you keep that group sharp day to day?

Bob Miskinis (06:16)
like I said, it’s just intentional all the time. It’s continually seeking, it’s intentionally making people feel comfortable because you know, they’re not going to do business with people that they don’t feel comfortable with. And so, you know, one of my agents, you know, she’s she’s from Korea and she only works in the Korean community. And, you know, being sure that you know they have they have different challenges the way that they do business. You know, they don’t do business, they do business a lot of times the same way they did it in Korea, but they just transferred here to the United States.

But understanding that it might not necessarily be the way that we generally do business, but it’s okay. You just gotta like adapt to that and then, you know, make them comfortable in order to, you know, have them get what they need.

Scott Bursey (06:54)
Really appreciate that insight, Bob. And you know, we’re interested to know what’s a common gap you see in the industry that you’re actively working to to bridge right now.

Bob Miskinis (07:04)
I mean, I think it’s you know, it’s been amazing to me whenever I go around the different real estate investor groups and everything, that I see that there’s such a young group of individuals now getting involved in real estate. It’s just amazing to me that I see, and I’ll go to an event and I’ll see like they can’t even drink at these events. Yeah, they’re like 18, 19 year old kids or whatever at these events and they’re wholesaling. And I’m like, what is going on? Like this is this is like really crazy to me, you know. But they’re successful and they have the drive. And so

Not discounting people like that. You know, a lot of times people be like, they’re so young, you know, they they they can’t offer anything or whatever. Well, if they have the drive and if they have the knowledge or whatever, they can bring something to the table as well as somebody who’s 50 or 60 years old can bring to the table. It doesn’t really matter. So not discounting people just because of what they, you know, what they present to you initially. you know, and I think a lot of people actually do that. You know, they’ll look at them and they’d be like, I can’t get anything from them. They’re 18 years old or whatever.

But they may actually have a lot of knowledge that you don’t actually ne necessarily have. And so really just being open at all times to all different kinds of people and all different experiences in order to like, you know, help yourself as well as helping others.

Scott Bursey (08:15)
Speaking of the younger generation, where do you see the biggest untapped potential for them?

Bob Miskinis (08:19)
You know, I think just letting them know that in you know, real estate has always been and and maybe this is just me dating myself a little bit or whatever, but you real estate used to be, you know, the sixty year old lady who was doing real estate, you know, driving around in her Cadillac or whatever, you know, showing houses or whatever, right? So that was like the image of what a real estate agent was. So being able to let younger people know that there is a place in the industry for them.

And that they can be successful. You know, one of the things that’s important through diversity real estate (08:19) is that we started a program, it’s a scholarship program. So I always said that, you know, if I had gotten into the industry, I didn’t get into the real estate industry until I was like 40 years old. So, you know, I often said that if I would have gotten in when I was in my early twenties or middle twenties or whatever, how much more successful I would have been if I would have actually gotten into it at that point. And so we saw the need for that. And so we actually started a scholarship program.

for young people to get into real estate and then to also introduce them to investing.

Scott Bursey (09:17)
Love that angle. And Bob, digging into the potential pitfalls, what is one misconception about investing in minority focused areas that you’d like to correct?

Bob Miskinis (09:28)
mainly that they can’t do it, that you know, that that you need a lot of money to make money. You know, in order to do a deal, you need a lot of money. And that’s not necessarily true. You know, one of the things that whether it be in the investing part of of my brokerage or in the residential commercial side of the brokerage, you know, we’re always really big on big in building generational wealth. You know, I come from my grandparents, I’m only you know, came from Eastern Europe, you know, and so I’m only second generation here in the United States.

So having that experience of what it’s like to be so close to not, you know, to only being semi second generation here, seeing that, you know, sometimes the opportunities aren’t there, but but if you work hard enough, you can create your own opportunities and you can be successful. You know, my grandparents came here with nothing, absolutely nothing, and you know, didn’t, you know, died with basically nothing, but they instilled in my in my father and my mother those

you know, those different values and and the and the hardworking ethics and everything that they had in order to make themselves better. And then they instilled that in us. So my grandparents necessarily, you know, weren’t extremely successful monetarily, but what they gave to us actually enabled us to be that way. So you know, so really, you know, if for you know, for minority communities or really for anybody, just letting them know that, you know, there is a place for them and there is a way.

You can just get around it. You just have to be willing and be perseverant and you gotta like really want to do it.

Scott Bursey (11:30)
How can we better educate the the folks that they don’t necessarily need a lot of money?

Bob Miskinis (11:37)
That’s a really good point. Cause I talk to my agents a lot of times about education. Because, you know, everybody looks at the real estate market as, you know, the market is really bad. Nobody’s buying houses now or nobody’s doing this and nobody’s doing that. And I’m like, you know how many people are out there? You know, or there’s too many real estate agents out there, you know, so I can’t compete or whatever. You know how many people are out there that have never bought a house or don’t think that they can buy a house? You know, a lot of people from Central America and and South America, you know, they have to

They have to buy property in their countries with cash. There is no such thing as a loan. So a lot of those people come to this country thinking that they can’t buy a house until they have all the cash in their pocket to actually buy something. And so just going out and educating them that there’s such a thing as a loan and you can get a loan. You don’t have to put all of the money down. You know, they’ll stuffing money in their mattress, you know, waiting to collect $300,000 to buy a house. You know what I’m saying? And it’s it sounds funny, but it’s crazy, but it’s really true.

But just getting out there and educating them that you don’t have to do that and you can actually build and you know, you can get a loan and and and use those resources that you actually have to get ahead and start building equity. So then you can take that equity and then start investing and then creating some kind of generational wealth down the line.

Scott Bursey (12:50)
That’s such a huge point, Bob. Thanks for clarifying that for our pros. And let’s switch gears to the future. What is the most critical strategic move you’ve seen now or you’re making that you’re implementing to scale your operation?

Bob Miskinis (13:06)
One of the things that we’re really big on at at Diversity Real Estate Investments (13:06) is, like I said, working with investors, but also working with investors to give them options. You know, there’s there’s a lot of options out there for you. you can choose whatever works best for you, but I want to just be sure that you have all your options that you can actually choose from. One of the biggest things that I’ve gotten into in the past four or five years is investing internationally. So sometimes when the market here is not so great, there may be a return on investment really good somewhere else.

Money spends the same everywhere, right? I mean, it doesn’t matter where you make it, it’s still gonna spend the same. So, you know, you just gotta have a little bit of you know, a little bit of how can I say faith that that, you know, that you can go, you can do it. It’s maybe different in in other countries the way that you buy real estate and and the way that you invest. That doesn’t make it wrong. It’s just a little bit different. But the money still spends the same way. You know, I bought my first property in Columbia like four years ago.

And my return on investment, you know, I paid cash for the property because of course in Colombia there’s no loans. And so you had to pay cash. The my numbers came out to be that I was gonna have to it’s gonna take about four or five years to get my money back and to start making passive income after that.

The market got to be so crazy in Colombia and so good that I paid my property off in like a year and a half. And then everything after a year and a half was was passive income. And so, you know, that return on investment is nothing you’re gonna get over here in the United States, you know.

Putting down $190,000 and in a year and a half getting your hundred ninety thousand dollars back and then having passive income after that.

Scott Bursey (15:18)
Really appreciate the transparency on that, Bob. And on that note, where do you see the international market landscape in let’s say the next five years?

Bob Miskinis (15:27)
I mean, every country is different. You know, I mean it’s it’s just it’s really you can’t, you know, we right now we’re working in Colombia, Dominican Republic, Costa Rica, the UK. those are our main markets that we’re really working in right now, Mexico a little bit. And every country is different. You know, everyone has their challenges, every one of them has good things and bad things about them. And depending on the kind of investor that you are, you know, we kind of show you where is the best place for you to go. Our website kind of lays out some of that, some of the

the challenges and the and the and the good things about some of the different countries that I mentioned as far as like investing internationally. So like if you have a lot of cash and you can pay cash, someplace like South America is great because you know your return on investment is a little bit more, but you have to come up with all the cash. But maybe you don’t have as much cash to put down. Maybe someplace in the Dominican Republic is a little bit better because you can actually get a loan and you don’t have to put as much money down to start off with. So that may be a place that you might want to direct your investment towards.

Scott Bursey (16:20)
That’s a huge distinction. And Bob, it’s clear you’re staying ahead of the curve. What does your professional network look like right now?

Bob Miskinis (16:27)
I mean, you know, I’m all about talking to everybody. You know, like I said, everybody has something that they can offer, you know, and and you know, a good example is, you know, I I do I know Colombia pretty well, but you know, I just talked to somebody recently talking about the commercial lending in in Colombia and how it’s a lot better right now to put money into commercial projects. you know, there’s no equity that you’re building in it, it’s straight loan to these people that are building like hospitals and shopping centers and

And buildings and stuff like that. So you’re lending money to them, but it’s like a straight 12% return on investment. You know, they’re giving you back. And so, you know, so like being able to guarantee that, you know, when I start getting into the flipping business, you know, you were making 10 to 15% return on investment on a project. Then it went all the way down to like 10 and then eight. And then sometimes you’re getting less than eight percent return on investment for everything you’re doing. So

Instead of doing that, maybe you’re lending money out, just lending the money directly straight to somebody in a country like Colombia for a commercial project and you’re just getting straight twelve percent return on investment.

Scott Bursey (17:27)
Thanks for sharing that. And Bob, our pros want to get your take on this. If you had to distill your approach into one piece of deep dive advice for someone looking to build a high impact portfolio, what would it be?

Bob Miskinis (17:41)
It would be to be open to every opportunity. Don’t don’t pigeonhole yourself into only doing one thing. You know, don’t say I’m only gonna do, you know, buy and holds in, you know, North Texas or something like that, because you’re really limiting yourself and there’s so many other opportunities out there for you. You know, when I first started flipping, I was doing it in the Dallas Fort Worth area, but then I saw that you got a lot better return on investment in San Antonio.

And so San Antonio was a market that it would toss it cost a lot less to get into because the price point was a lot less. And you know, you were, you know, so if you didn’t have as much money when I was using my own cash, I can go down there and I can purchase something and make a good return on investment. All it means is I had to build a team in San Antonio. So same thing with Colombia. When I bought my first investment property in Colombia, everybody’s like, How do you do that? How do you manage it? I built a team. You know what I’m saying? So so I now have a team in Colombia that whenever I have a property that’s there.

They’re my team there that takes care of everything that I need to have take care of. So, you know, everybody looks at sometimes they look at roadblocks and they think, okay, that’s as far as I can go. I look at the roadblocks, I jump over them and I see how I’m gonna how I’m gonna, you know, solve that problem and then just solve it. Everything can be solved.

Scott Bursey (18:52)
Thank you for being so generous with that advice. And Bob, you’ve been very generous with all of your words of wisdom here today. But is there any additional thoughts that you’d like to leave with our pros?

Bob Miskinis (19:02)
I would just say that again, I’m such a big proponent of diversity. You know, give people a place at the table. You know, they have a lot to offer. Their experience gives them a lot to offer you and you know, your team, your brokerage, your business, whatever it is. And and to me, bringing everybody together and having the different perspectives just makes everything a lot richer. And so, you know, I would just say be sure to give everybody a chance. and and like I said, in it it

If it happens like it did with my business, it’ll just continue to grow and grow and grow and flourish.

Scott Bursey (19:34)
That’s powerful. Thank you for that, Bob. And for those of our listeners that want to keep this conversation moving, stay in your lane or collaborate with you, what’s the best way for them to reach you?

Bob Miskinis (19:45)
you can go to the website, which is diversityrealestateinvestment.com and you can get a hold of me there. you know, or through social media, through Facebook, you know, and and and I and I’m open. One of the things, you know, coming from the background that I did, I like to teach. You know, I loved it, I like to teach. And I’m very, you know, one of the things about our brokerage is is that, you know, we don’t expect anything. All we’re we’re giving all of our knowledge to each other for free. There’s nothing that we’re gonna say, we’re gonna charge you for this or this or that or whatever else.

It’s always about we just want to share because it’s all going to come back to you eventually. Right. So, you know, if you give it away, you’re going to get a lot in return back again. So, you know, if anybody has any other questions or how you want to invest internationally or how, you know, you want to be a part of a a brokerage that has this kind of mindset, you know, I would love to talk to anybody and and and share with them how that can happen.

Scott Bursey (20:32)
Thank you for that, Bob.

And Bob, I know our listeners are going to want to always have a front row seat whenever you speak. Thank you so much for joining us today on the Real Estate Pros podcast.

It was a distinct pleasure.

And for our listeners, we appreciate you. If you receive value from today’s episode, please subscribe. We’ll be filling your tanks with a lineup of elite guests, just like Bob, who are accelerating and setting the pace for the rest of the industry. Until next time, keep your standards high and your vision clear. We’ll see you on the next episode, everyone.