Mastering Real Estate: Marc Blair’s Journey and Key Investment Tips

Dylan Silver (01:32)
Hey folks, welcome back to the show. I’m your host, Dylan Silver. And today on the show, I have real estate entrepreneur, Marc Blair. ⁓ Out of Michigan today, but by way of central Florida. Marc, welcome to the show.

I always ask my guests at the top of the show how they got into the real estate space.

Marc Blair (01:57)
Well, thank you. I’ll make it short and sweet. I was actually ⁓ combating the idea of getting into real estate. My dad’s been a real estate broker for 40 something years. I had promised myself, I’m like, I’ll never do this roller coaster lifestyle that he’s into. so I grew up watching it. I saw everything ⁓ and I wanted something more stable. I wanted to be an attorney or a banker or something like that.

So I actually started working in a bank and I ended up buying my first property, Downtown Toronto. Ended up flipping it nine months later for my annual salary as a profit. And my dad looked at me and he said, are you sure you don’t wanna do real estate? I’m like, man, but I love the freedom. I was really into traveling. I had gone to high school overseas and this was exciting now when I could see the opportunity.

Dylan Silver (03:37)
Alright, but you were overseas and you had traveled a lot.

Marc Blair (03:43)
Absolutely. So I was, I traveled thoroughly over Europe and Asia. I’d gone to British high school for like four years and you know,

Marc Blair (03:50)
I wanted to keep traveling. wanted to keep like, you know, doing what I could do as a single person, you know, at that time. So real, it was a ticket.

Dylan Silver (03:59)
Yeah, I love to travel myself.

And I tell people, you know, there’s no better opportunity to expand the possibilities for what you can do than travel, right? You could go do lots of education. You can go to lots of different events. But going to a different place geographically, culturally, will blow your mind like nothing else will.

Marc Blair (04:25)
Right, and it opens up your perspective to look at life really differently. You see people living completely different in other countries and it makes you really appreciate. ⁓ After my trip to Asia, I felt like when I came back to North America, I felt like I wanted to kiss the ground. You I loved where I was at. I loved my life, but I loved traveling at the same time and I loved having the perspective and experiences of other people. But home is home.

Dylan Silver (04:53)
For me, what was really the difference maker was going abroad, seeing dollar arbitrage, traveling to developing countries, seeing the things that I valued in the United States were actually maybe even hazardous in these other places. If you’re driving around with a nice luxury car, wearing a nice watch, and having a chain around your neck.

potentially hazardous in some of these areas, right? So when I came back, it really gave me a different perspective. And I thought that the things that I was striving for, lot of, frankly, the material things that I really valued, really, really valued, like the car that I had and have, 2018 Dodge Challenger, right? I was so proud of this car. Then I came back and I really looked at things differently. And so traveling for me really changed my entire perspective.

But for you, as someone who is from the banking space going into real estate and kind of seeing your father and saying, I don’t want to do that. But then you have this great deal where you flip and you make your annual salary. It must have been a big seismic shift in possibility and realizing, well, maybe let me give this thing a whirl here.

Marc Blair (06:09)
Yeah, you know, it was really about ⁓ the mindset. So, you know, I did a stabilization in being done work at 4 p.m. or whatever the case was, and I’d be able to go on and do whatever I desired to do. I didn’t want to be working all the time and be on call. So even though that people talk about having your own business and you’ve got a ton of freedom, but at the same time, you’re on call and you’re working a lot more hours. You’re doing a lot more investment behind the scenes that people don’t get to see.

And so if you don’t really know the amount of sacrifice that goes into creating that freedom, that essentially people are only, they’re only seeing that part of it. ⁓ So, you know, it was a big mindset shift for me because it was about accomplishing a lot more with a shorter amount of time invested and then turning that into really the life I desired to live. And that was really interesting to me because I had never really thought of it like that. I only looked at all of the negatives.

for him working all the time. ⁓ so that was, know, I wasn’t really, it wasn’t really speaking to me. I didn’t really want a lifestyle that was so like chaotic. You know, I wanted to have like a healthy balance. But you know, the cool thing is once you start learning your craft and getting good at what you do, you can actually start creating the healthy balance and you can customize that situation.

Dylan Silver (07:27)
100%.

I was just gonna say that. was gonna say…

The way that it sounds like your dad did it, he might have loved real estate and that was his jam. Or he might have felt like he had to work these hours, right? But there’s so many different avatars in the real estate space, especially today. And it’s only gonna get more interesting now with AI. But I’ve talked to so many people, bankers, doctors, attorneys, teachers, people who do other sales jobs, right?

people who have a business totally unrelated to real estate and maybe not entrepreneurial in any way, right? ⁓ But then they start getting into real estate investing and from there it’s maybe a hobby and eventually it could potentially overtake their income and then it becomes their full-time ⁓ occupation, if you will.

I think there’s definitely not a one size fits all strategy for this is how to be a real estate operator.

Marc Blair (08:29)
Absolutely not you you know once you start diving into it real estate look at I look at it like a large umbrella and There’s like 10 streams of income underneath that umbrella So what you really want to do is start somewhere get your feet wet get acclimated get comfortable To get your knowledge base strong as possible and build on that foundation So like when you start doing creative investment deals AI is a great backup tool to take away paperwork But AI is not a risk taker

So we still are able to do our job in a certain capacity with a certain skillset and gift that like a computer could not produce. When you work with a client and customize the solution to their situation and turn that into an investment opportunity, but also make it a win-win opportunity for the client in the situation, it’s incredible for everybody. Like I think problem solving is really the mindset to take on when you’re getting to real estate investing. And then you’ve really got…

Absolutely no limitation to grow your business.

Dylan Silver (09:31)
Yeah, problem solving, I think, is the great unifier of all real estate people. I’ve actually seen more problem solving in the real estate space. And I say this somewhat selfishly as a real estate agent and also an aspiring investor. ⁓ I think we have the most.

problem-solving type people out of any industry. mean, I’m also a software engineering student. think when people think of problem solvers and kind of high level people, a lot of times think of engineering, but I hate to say it to ⁓ people who are in the engineering. think, realistically, it has more problem-solving people and more people who are willing to tackle kind of other people’s stress and anxiety than almost any other industry that I’ve seen.

Marc Blair (10:51)
I agree. We take on a lot more. I mean, I’ve worked as a real estate agent. I’ve worked as a flipper. I’ve worked as a trainer for real estate agents. I’ve worked in brokerage restructuring of hundreds of real estate agents offices as well. So I’ve done a lot of things underneath the umbrella. It’s done property management. You kind of name it. I’ve done that because I always thought to myself, this commission roller coaster of real estate just doesn’t…

sit well enough with me when I’ve got to do a lot of other things in my life. And so I wanted to create other streams of cashflow, but I didn’t want to really leave my industry. Cause whenever I tried to add on another item from a different industry, because I was so plugged in and that’s really where my passion’s at, it was really difficult to like do a different job and do real estate at the same time. I just, anything I wanted to.

learn and then add to the revenue, it only made sense to stay underneath the umbrella.

Dylan Silver (11:50)
Yeah, yeah, I couldn’t agree with you anymore. think real estate, there’s so many ways that you could be a real estate operator. I think most people, when they think about real estate, they think about being a real estate agent. But you have right now more access than any other time to all these different creative ways where people don’t have to be a real estate agent, but they can still partake in a…

some type of a not necessarily traditional but a transactional nature of real estate, whether it’s wholesale if your state allows it, or you can do Airbnb arbitrage. hear this word lot now. It’s like a buzzword. hear it a lot, a lot. Airbnb arbitrage. You can even potentially JV with ⁓ people who own these Airbnbs and maybe they’re distressed as far as a landlord and say, look, I’ll manage the Airbnb. I’ll take care of all the hosting duties in exchange for

cut of it and you don’t need your license to do a lot of these things in most states. And so I think when people think about you know a real estate career and I think well I don’t want to open doors for people or I don’t want to be you know showing lots of people different homes I don’t want to be out there like that there’s lots of different ways where you could where you could get in and you know you could also if you’re have a some type of a nest egg you could also partner with people who are experienced flippers or ⁓

Marc Blair (13:03)
Thank

Dylan Silver (13:16)
experience with short-term, mid-term, long-term rentals and start acquiring a portfolio that way and you can be a silent partner.

Marc Blair (13:23)
Absolutely. It’s just so endless though. Like you can get super creative. ⁓ I like the idea of seller financing, because that’s one of my favorites, because you have to analyze the factor saving money on the loan origination cost and the process and the time and the energy.

There’s just a lot of opportunities like when you’re when you’re going to what you’ve probably seen things where people are buying businesses on SBA loans and pumping up cash flow using that cash flow and just buying more real estate because that’s hedging the protection of inflation on our dollar and it’s hedging the protection for just you building that equity and having that access to that to that I call it a savings account. So a lot of people think of it like you got a liquid cash and that’s good, too, but

depending upon what your life goals are, you can start segmenting those investments and set them off for a purpose. So a lot of people buy investments and buy their life insurance with the income. So a lot of people do all kinds of creative thinking. Like you just gotta really get in front of people who have mastered these crafts and then they’re gonna start giving you their, what I’ve learned in 25 years and then you gotta make it your own.

Dylan Silver (14:31)
The one caveat that I have about the real estate space, think, is maybe because we haven’t always had AI, right? There was a lot of, I would say, like safeguarding of industry secrets. So I’m a wholesaler. I’ve done about 20 or so deals. And before I got into wholesale,

The wholesalers made it seem like these are our contracts. These are like gold mines. You know, we’re not going to give these out. Like, you got to pay good money for this. Right. And now that I’m on the other side of it, I’m like, I don’t even really know if that’s a contract that he had written with an attorney. I don’t know why this is being safeguarded so heavily. Was it just because they didn’t want liability of, you know, them?

Marc Blair (14:59)
Mm.

Dylan Silver (15:12)
unofficially practicing law or something like this. I couldn’t tell you, but what I do know is the information right now is so readily available for people to get into real estate that you don’t have to have, you really don’t have to have lots and lots of information to get in. What you need to be able to do is network, right? You need to be able to meet some people. You need to be able to go to these events. And I tell people this, don’t worry, don’t worry about

learning every X and O. That’ll come, it truly will, it’ll come. If you do this for long enough, if you stick with it for two years, you’ll learn ⁓ enough to get a deal done. The harder part is just continually showing up, continually meeting people, continually exchanging contact information with someone who could change the trajectory, not just of a deal or your business, but truly of your life.

Marc Blair (16:45)
I agree. I think it’s all about building your team on the backend. So the people you partner up with, the people you look up to and staying consistent, nothing’s gonna happen without hard work. Like you said, remember those experiences, perspectives you learned by traveling. When I went overseas, you see the family unit like work so unified. You see them take care of their parents. You see this cool stuff and you see the value in what they get out of that. They’re saying like my kids are learning

from my parents right on site. And I’m not saying you all have to do that, but what I’m saying is that when you gain those perspectives and you go to somebody else who’s mastered it or done it for a long time, yeah, you’re gonna start having to hang out with attorneys. You’re gonna have to start learning legal ramifications and benefits in the right way and changes and ⁓ fine tuning your purchase agreement so that everything makes sense and you’ve got a template that’s gonna keep you in a good spot. And you gotta do your business correctly, cause it’s all reputation based.

And when you encourage other wholesalers and other individuals, investors to share deals and do JVs, business expands for everybody. Cause sometimes I might be the buyer. Sometimes I might have the contract. So it’s not always a good, not every product or every home you find is a good fit for you. ⁓ The network’s going to pay off tremendously. I think that’s where it’s really at.

Dylan Silver (18:06)
That is the key. I said this on earlier podcasts.

If I could have changed one thing about my approach to real estate, it would have been to not be so intimidated by the people who made it seem to me at least that I had to know all this information or that I had to have the right connections and that I had to understand, I’m in Texas, so Trek contracts are promulgated forms, and instead just literally gone out and started going to these events. I would have said, hey, I’m Dylan. I’m an aspiring real estate entrepreneur.

or investor and I’m here to meet some people and they would have been like, wow, it’s cool that you’re here. And instead I kind of tried to read all the books and understand every strategy before I even had ⁓ any deals in sight, right? And I look at it and I say, well, I probably could have saved myself like a year and a half of time on the journey if I had just gone out and met more people.

Marc Blair (19:03)
I do agree with you. I think most of the learning that I had was on site right away. Like the first deal I did, I actually didn’t mean to do that deal. The first deal I bought when I was a banker, I was gonna live in that property. I had no intention of turning it into rental property. But after I realized that, you all my friends were on the West side and all the events were kind of catered to the other side of town, by the time I decided to live there and try it out, I was like, it’s not really as convenient as I thought, but I love the downtown lifestyle.

When I ended up renting it out for a while, I started to realize like, I don’t really have a lot of patience for the renting either. I think I’m gonna sell it. But when I had checked out the value, all of it just started making sense. But the cool thing was, even as a new person, I had several options. I could have rented it. I could have, you know, I could have sold it. I could have done whatever or I could have lived in it. So I had several options. And what I realized was that it gave me freedom because I had several options. I could have a monthly cash flow or I could have had cash upfront.

So real estate in itself is all about getting in front of people, like we’re designed to help each other. So the more we get in front of networking, we go to these events, the main purpose is someone’s gonna open some kind of open door opportunity or they’re gonna open up your perspective. And those two things are gonna keep us growing faster. And reading books is wonderful and you should do that. But the actual design face to face, I think the elevation of that is by far better.

Dylan Silver (20:30)
Marc, you know what is interesting about Real Estate Networking is, it was surprising, right? Because I’m a podcast host now and a realtor, right? But I didn’t ever consider myself an outgoing person, nor did I consider myself someone who was particularly good in any of these situations, like meeting new people and so on and so forth. But then I was able to experience proof of concept.

in real estate through seeing how meeting someone could make me money, could open up doors, could get me a deal. And so I started, I was like, maybe this is a skill. Maybe it’s not just who I am and my makeup, right? But maybe this is a skill I can learn.

And I started to see that it’s almost applicable to any career path. Like any career path, there’s people that are saying, you know, well, he knows the right people or, you know, he got in good with the owners or whatever the case may be. And I now look at it I’m like, yeah, he knows the right people. He got in good with the owners. Like it may be intrinsic to him, but these are actually skill sets that if I was to go into a different career path, I could transfer from…

Marc Blair (21:25)
Mm-hmm.

Dylan Silver (21:40)
real estate because I learned how to do it here.

Marc Blair (21:43)
That’s so true. I feel like real estate is like ⁓ industry military training in a way, right? You learn all the hard stuff you did with a lot of difficult situations. You go through a lot of stress and you’ve got to start learning how to balance everything and you got to learn how to let stuff roll off your shoulders and not stress about it. Learn that the transaction and the situation is going to start to play out whether you get worried about it or not. Like you got to learn all those things quickly because

you gotta remain healthy. That’s the most important thing. You’re not gonna enjoy any money you’re making if you’re not feeling good. And ⁓ I love the fact that real estate is so versatile. It does allow you to go to many different avenues. And I’ve seen incredible realtors become like incredible attorneys and judges because they’ve gone through all those key experiences to be able to handle tough situations. So.

Dylan Silver (22:16)
Yeah.

Marc Blair (22:37)
Real estate really opens up a lot of doors though. And I don’t think a lot of people understand that. you are a relationship manager for life, like pretty much. And if you’re not, those people don’t really seem happy. don’t really seem like they have, like they seem either they’re miserable or they like to be alone. I mean, sure, I guess you could choose that, but we’re not really designed to be that way. We’re designed to be around each other. We’re designed to grow off of each other. We’re designed to learn from each other. Like that is our original design.

So, and I think real estate is so exciting because it fulfills that, like through and through.

Dylan Silver (23:11)
Marc, we are coming

up on time here. do want to ask you though, ⁓ two biggest lessons that you’ve learned from real estate and then from banking, one from banking and one from real estate.

Marc Blair (23:25)
Okay, so with banking, I’ve learned that one of the key things about being successful in that industry is knowing your numbers above all emotion. Like don’t mix your emotion and your numbers together. There’s properties and situations you’re gonna like, and just don’t mix those situations at all, no matter what. So knowing your numbers is key and staying current with those numbers is key too. The next thing I’d say is one of the most important things I learned in real estate was don’t be afraid to go try it. Like I started signing

⁓ new construction contracts and the builder had allowed me to do so. And I kept doing it to such a point that some of my clients were other real estate agents. And because I wasn’t afraid and they were like, this is new. So we don’t want to really try this. And so my clients that were the other realtors, they were only becoming my clients because they were afraid to try it. So then that let me sell like hundreds and hundreds of new condo units because they were afraid to try it. So the best advice I can give you is do it ethically, learn what you’re doing, but.

Don’t be afraid to try it if it’s an opportunity right in front of you and there’s nothing really telling you you can’t.

Dylan Silver (24:31)
Marc, before we head off here, where can folks go to get a hold of you?

Marc Blair (24:36)
So, know, we have, my website in Florida is sunnystateteam.com. We’re located in Jupiter. so, you can reach me there. My phone number is 561-504-4982. You can email me anytime at marc at sunnystateteam.com. I got one of those original emails with Gmail as well, like 20 years ago. So it’s condoboss at gmail.com.

And you can reach me there too. So I do a lot of coaching with investing. I do a lot of coaching too, with realtors who don’t understand investing yet or have dabbled into it. And they’re, they’re kind of scared. So we show them how to approach it ethically, how to evaluate it and how to, how to talk to their broker correctly. And we can engage in that conversation. So if your brokerage is, you know, kind of lacking and not working with realtors or working with realtors that are investors or

working with client-centered investors thoroughly, we come in and share insight on how they can do that.

Dylan Silver (25:38)
Marc, thank you so much for coming on the show here today.

Marc Blair (25:42)
Thank

you so much for having me. This was an absolute pleasure.