Miami Market Mastery: Learn from Hilal Borque’s Expert Experiences

Dylan Silver (00:01.356)
Hey folks, welcome back to the show. I’m your host, Dylan Silver, and today on the show I have Hilal Borque in Miami, Florida. And it’s really a pleasure to have you on the show here today, Hilal.

Hilal Borque (00:15.531)
No, no, same here, pleasure, guys.

Dylan Silver (00:18.346)
It’s interesting having you on both because I’m jealous whenever I have anybody on the show here from the South Florida area, Miami area, as I want to be out there. And then also because you have such diverse range of experience. Before we hopped on here, you were mentioning all the areas that you have experience in from insurance adjusting to real estate broker to you mentioned lending as well. How did you get involved in all these spaces?

Hilal Borque (00:46.517)
I’m one of those, okay, I’m one of those that I don’t mind reading books. And I’m one of those that I don’t like depending on other people, which resulted in my curiosity as to how things work, what is what, and I ended up, I said, you know, I’m buying this home, paying this much commission, buying that one, that much commission, why not get a license? Same thing, I have all these clients, they wanna finance, I send it to these.

I give a couple names of the brokers to them. I never hear back. I’m like, why aren’t these people qualifying? What’s going on? Then I check in. I tend to see in the market, majority of the people, well some, they’re only using one or two lenders, not more. So they’re only at the mercy of whether they’re approved or not by those lenders. Well, there’s multiple lenders. Can be off market, know, flip.

Dylan Silver (01:21.144)
going way back. Yeah.

Hilal Borque (01:41.737)
Lenders there can be you know, everybody has some specialty There’s a lot of lenders that does a lot of things and I was talking to you earlier You even said that you have you know someone that actually does second paper lending even so I’m I Wanted I was curious about it. So I said, let me get this license get deep into it and learn who’s good at what? So if I have a client I have option of two or three or four that I can give it to them or submit the file so so they move faster rather than

Dylan Silver (01:55.309)
Yeah.

Hilal Borque (02:10.869)
giving it to this one that doesn’t handle it or that won’t qualify because they don’t do non QM let’s say but this one does things like that or this one doesn’t do for a national but this one does so that only expedited the financing part of it and also it resulted in you know closures now a lot of people now what I see in the market in Miami about 40 percent is buying cash well you can give them an option to kind of divide that in separate

Dylan Silver (02:36.206)
Mmm.

Hilal Borque (02:40.193)
down payments and sell them more than one even.

Dylan Silver (02:44.076)
I think it’s interesting, you know, how many people, especially people who are not in the real estate space, kind of go to one person or maybe one or two people, and that really colors and shapes their whole perspective on, you know, mortgages.

Hilal Borque (02:57.933)
That’s what I mean. And some people are scared of another. mean, one thing that most people are scared of 30 years, that’s a long time. Well, there’s ways you can cut it off. Like you adjust your prepayment penalty accordingly and you make extra payment towards your principal while you’re making a regular payment, depending on the program you’re in. There’s ways that 30 year can be, although in print it’s 30 years, but you can pay it off faster.

Dylan Silver (03:05.571)
Right.

Hilal Borque (03:25.409)
staying within your prepayment penalty guidelines and end up paying a lot less total interest I would say, you know, the total interest cost because if you close 30 year loan in 15 years, 20 years, you end up paying a lot less overall. there is a way, so I think the problem is not only locating the correct lender for these people and they get rejections and what happens once they reject it, they had only 30 days, 40 days to find the lender.

Now we need to ask for an extension. What if the seller says, I’m not extending. What if the right condition is not in that contract, they can use it, lose a deductible. And then there is a lot of outside factors and these are all interrelated. That’s why I said, let me get this license. Let me get that license in case there’s a question with my license. I can depend on my license to answer these questions and I can be up to date on what the rates are, what the plans are or programs are.

Dylan Silver (03:53.453)
Yeah.

Dylan Silver (04:02.51)
100 %

Dylan Silver (04:08.768)
Okay.

Dylan Silver (04:16.845)
Right.

Hilal Borque (04:22.207)
That would kind of filmate the whole hassle of trying to find one as far as a lander.

Dylan Silver (04:26.442)
I want to do the same thing. Hello. I said I got got it. I got my real estate license in April. Really, you know, two to three months ago. And I decided to do it because I was a wholesaler and am a wholesaler. That’s my passion. And I really feel like I have a niche in that space, because they’re solving a lot of problems, right? People who are dealing with, you know, foreclosure, probate issues, a death in the family, something uncomfortable. And we’re able to come in and provide solutions either creatively.

cash offers, help them move, where otherwise they may get nothing out of the situation, right? And so I decided I wanted to be a realtor because I was interacting with realtors so often.

And the feedback that I was getting was like, you’re just a wholesaler. You’re just a wholesaler. And I was like, I’m not just a wholesaler. I have all these ability to do these things. So now I have the perspective of someone with a real estate license. And as you open, as you know, Halal, as you open these doors, there’s more rabbit holes to go down. So now I’m like, well, these people aren’t getting qualified. Why is that? What’s going on here? I thought that they made enough money. They have decent enough credit. What’s going on? So now I’m like, well, maybe I got to go get my, you know, RMLO, my, my

originated license.

Hilal Borque (05:37.121)
What it is is, financing is not based on the income of these people. It’s the risk that the lender wants to take and every lender is different. Now, you can tell someone, do you want to finance this condo? They can say, no, I don’t want to get into condo investing, but I would be more comfortable with this. Or if I’m doing it, it’s only 50 % versus 80 % on this. If you ask someone, do you want to do this? Like it varies, like even hard money.

they’re asking for certain things, extra things. every lender is different. Every risk, everybody’s risk taking methods are different. That’s why as many lenders you’re familiar with and their products and they don’t stay same anyways. You get a call or a message saying, look, now we’re offering this, now we’re offering that. just by itself, putting up with one lender, getting updated on that, you have.

50 others, imagine the amount of emails we get every day. It gets confusing. But at least if we can kind of organize ourselves as to which lender is within what guidelines, average wise, or what plans they’re offering, it kind of eliminates the phone calls be directed to them for that specific type. Let’s say non-QM need, I can have so many. There’s non-QM, but there is non-QMs where, with the lawsuit.

Dylan Silver (06:50.668)
Yeah.

Hilal Borque (07:00.443)
or whatever, every it’s all different, you know, some does non-qan but the other one does non-qan with those condos with the lawsuits or things like that. So as long as you’re organized upfront and you have that list on the chart, it does help. Of course, you’re disclosing all this with each parties, every mortgage company you sign up with, you disclose that you own a real estate company as well, blah, blah, blah, all that.

Dylan Silver (07:03.787)
everything.

Dylan Silver (07:18.316)
You strike.

Dylan Silver (07:22.19)
have to.

Dylan Silver (07:27.638)
You strike me, Halala, someone who really has a passion for learning. Otherwise, how could you get all this information, right? What areas recently, or maybe currently, are you looking at and say, you know, I am interested in this. I gotta learn more about this.

Hilal Borque (07:42.089)
Honestly, do I want another license? I have so many continuing education classes that I have to take on my birthday month that I don’t know if I want to get another license, but what I think I’m hearing gearing more towards too is the wholesale market and the YouTube.

Dylan Silver (07:58.636)
Really?

Hilal Borque (08:00.469)
Because I do have the access of the list of the properties and I want to start my YouTube myself. I want to talk about real estate. I want to talk about mortgage or insurance claim or whatever. I’m licensed in all of them. So why not? I think it’s time. So coincidentally, I think we intercommunicated with you guys and here we are. And this is like my first time. Something like this. Not that I was on account before, but I think I’ll do that every week YouTube thing where it’s done.

Dylan Silver (08:03.971)
Yeah.

Dylan Silver (08:12.995)
Yeah.

Dylan Silver (08:22.114)
Here we go. You’re out there, Will.

Dylan Silver (08:28.322)
The consistency is key. I’m one of four co-hosts, I believe, with the show here. And so we really try to get as much good content out there as we can to develop a brand. Halal, you’re in Miami, very competitive market, maybe the most. What has been your…

strength that you could say, what would be your feedback to someone maybe starting out, giving them advice on hey, how do you build a brand and how do you get awareness for who you are in a competitive market?

Hilal Borque (09:04.833)
Like I said, I like recreating wheels in any industry on moon I brought in one of actually the largest chain of Turkey to here when I first got into real estate as a franchise I was their first international franchise then I continued under my name after I brought them to Wall Street Journal For free we had a we were on the cover of a mansion part of Wall Street Journal I also represent another firm here, which is the only antibacterial hospital

Dylan Silver (09:28.494)
Mmm.

Hilal Borque (09:35.015)
in my country and we have universities over there. So I always, I like being pioneer on things. So I’m one of those feeling towards accomplishment versus the money part, it should be opposite, but it’s just getting it done. Doesn’t matter how hard it is, you know, because you’re bringing a brand that nobody knows of and you’re actually there. I mean, how many people, after how many years even, even couldn’t make it. So.

Dylan Silver (10:00.0)
You’re starting it from the ground up.

Hilal Borque (10:04.403)
I like accomplishing. think I’m doing some things right and I’m not an 8 to 5 worker. If I have something to do at 12 at night, a laptop is on my lap and I’m working on it. So I think that’s another thing they need to be doing. Communicating to people, being aware of the market, following the trends, meeting people because you never know who will ask for what, like what they will need.

You may be at a restaurant next table talking about buying a house and you can say, look, you need something. Here’s my card. I’m not shy to give away my card to someone sitting next to me talking to the next person next to him that he’s interested in buying. So I think being outgoing as such, not be shy about it does bring in. And then it’s who you know actually, you know, also does matter.

Dylan Silver (10:48.28)
Yeah.

Hilal Borque (10:57.791)
I think I was fortunate that I’m not showing I can knock doors and say, look, this is what I’m doing. This is what I want to do. Things like that. And once you are front about yourself to people and show them what you can do and bring the value, show the value to them, they do pick you to work with you because once they start seeing results.

Dylan Silver (10:58.124)
The most important. Yeah.

Dylan Silver (11:11.086)
Mm-hmm.

Dylan Silver (11:20.49)
You mentioned that you’ve worked with international investors. I’m very curious how this looks because you’re in really a hotbed for international people, international in general, in Miami. And so how does international investing work and how has it worked in your business?

Hilal Borque (11:41.055)
I guess 99 % of my business comes from World of Metal.

as I was featured in many places. So even people I don’t know knows me. I mean, out of the blue, an architect calls me and tells me, look, this engineer knows you. I don’t know the person, but there’s a lot of them knows me. Remember, I’m in this market and many others for also insurance claim stuff. Attorneys, I’ve denied enough claims where.

Denial letter said my signature on it. Attorney’s known me. I’m an insurance judge as well. So I know a lot of people. A lot of people, well, I know meaning I’ve interacted with them, but do I physically, no, but yes, I’m sure a lot of people I’ve communicated to within the past over the phone or via email or via mail for the purposes of so that’s how it goes. I mean, you do right things. It’s a small, as big as it looks, it’s a small market. People hear about you.

Dylan Silver (12:19.79)
Yeah.

Dylan Silver (12:33.048)
Yeah.

Dylan Silver (12:40.746)
I agree, know, they may not know exactly who, what the face or who you are, but they know of you, right? They’ve seen the name, they’ve seen the signature, or maybe they do. And that’s how you get your name out there. I’m curious, while pivoting here, in your business today, you you’re doing so many things. You mentioned adjusting. You’re also a broker, if I’m not mistaken, down there.

When you’re looking at how do I scale my business or what area do I pivot to and what’s the most important thing, how do you evaluate what’s worthy of your time and how do you not dilute your time so your attention isn’t scattered, right?

Hilal Borque (13:22.847)
Well, honestly, chasing the businesses when it’s downtime for claims. Claims, I love claims. I mean, not that I like damages for people, but I just love helping and being there for the people. So literally, if there’s a hurricane season and I do have a big assignment that I’m running, usually I end up leading them anyways. If I want to, I would take a field assignment, but I’m not doing any of that anymore. I literally sit down and manage who’s out there and things like that.

Dylan Silver (13:33.816)
Sure.

Yeah.

Hilal Borque (13:52.863)
or I do the litigated or complex stuff and manage those people. I stay in and I’m on the phone, laptop for about 15 to 18 hours a day, seven days straight, two, three months. Now, how is what’s happening to my real estate or my mortgage business? I can always do, I already have realtors working for me. They can always run all that for me. Mortgage would be the only one that I would need assistance with, which data can be obtained and then.

Dylan Silver (14:12.472)
Yeah.

Hilal Borque (14:21.257)
All I need is review and confirm and sign off on it. I feel good. I like multiple tasking. Otherwise, I wouldn’t be able to stay here like 34 years. Remember, I came here when I was 14 by myself. My parents paid for everything, whatever, but my whole family is over there. So I wouldn’t be able to stay here this long otherwise, you know, if I didn’t occupy my time with things that I like doing.

Dylan Silver (14:26.903)
This scene is-

Dylan Silver (14:47.744)
Is it fair to say that you like to work hard? You like to work hard?

Hilal Borque (14:53.993)
I don’t know why, yes. You know, I would never be able to sit home and just sit home and go shopping. It’s one of those where I like getting it done if I can do it.

Dylan Silver (15:04.43)
I tell people that if you find something that you’re passionate about that also makes you have some kind of economy of your time, like you can control what you’re doing, and there’s an incentive component when it comes to how much money you can make, and you like it, well now that’s what you need to do, right? So you found not one, not two, but really three avenues, things that you like.

ways that you can help people and they can also, you you’re in control of your time and in control of your money.

in ways where other people might not think about it that same way. Right. Like for instance, Halal, I just went to my real estate school, you know, three months ago. And one of the things people talk about is getting their first listing, getting their first listing. Right. So if I have my wholesale business, which I do, and then I also have the real estate as an agent. Right. And I’m on this podcast. I may be not on your level, Halal, but I am doing a lot of this.

Multiple similar types of activities. Yeah, it’s like one leads bleeds into the other probably in your business as well Like I’ll talk to someone who might not be a great fit Maybe as a wholesale because maybe they want market value But I can list their property or I maybe I see somebody their homes way too distressed So I really can’t do much for it from a listing per se maybe but I can

potentially wholesale if the situation is right for it. And so I think when it comes to kind of how these businesses coalesce and intertwine, it’s probably a home run for you.

Hilal Borque (16:36.169)
throughout.

Hilal Borque (16:42.699)
I mean, what it is is more like, like I said, I like learning it myself because if there is a question this way, can say, okay, this is the answer for it rather than hold on, but I don’t know what I’ll get you someone who’s licensed in it because I’m one of those altumans for them to that person. But if I’m licensed in it, I have enough information about it. I can, you know, I can step up and say, look, this is what it is. I would be more comfortable because remember ultimately,

Dylan Silver (16:56.558)
Yeah.

Dylan Silver (17:07.98)
Yeah, this is the explanation.

Hilal Borque (17:12.031)
It’s not the money off commission, whatever we’re making or points we’re making out of it. It’s what we’re bringing to the table for the client and just become like a one stop shop. So he doesn’t have to do with 10 other people. He can say, Haley, that’s why ultimately they end up trying to Haley, let me talk to you because, know, we can be there for them for things like this. And then that’s one, that’s my weakness. need to kind of put it, you know, another step that before they get to me.

Dylan Silver (17:40.866)
your time.

Hilal Borque (17:41.641)
go through that like that one person before they get to me, know, so that I have more time delegation on.

Dylan Silver (17:46.986)
Do you have a booking tool that you use or are you not onto that?

Hilal Borque (17:52.039)
Literally, call, they text, you know, it’s not, I don’t, it’s not even a booking call because you’re dealing with Europe, they’re eight hours ahead. So literally, you’re gonna call at 3am or whatever it is, you know, so it’s not like you can control and remember these guys, I mean, these people, they’re usually business owners or things like that. So it’s like, it’s when they want it. You know, it’s not like

Dylan Silver (17:54.082)
I need you to it, yeah.

Dylan Silver (17:59.458)
They’re eight hours.

Dylan Silver (18:04.002)
This is true, what can you do?

Dylan Silver (18:14.552)
Yeah.

Hilal Borque (18:16.129)
when they have the time or they remember about it, they call you. It’s not like I can say, hold on, I’ll give you an appointment for this. The guy may be on France that day, he won’t be available. So it’s like, you never know.

Dylan Silver (18:28.598)
You never know, I can imagine the sleep isn’t always available for you. You’re probably answering your phone, you say, gotta pick this up, this is France calling me, I gotta go take this call, I can only imagine.

Hilal Borque (18:38.849)
Well, it’s okay, I can pick it up, but then the cat wakes up, then he needs, she needs to sleep. By time she sleeps, she wants to go in and out of the room and like, you more than that each time.

Dylan Silver (18:46.57)
I know.

Do you see a lot of people doing a similar niche that you’re doing, working with the international people in Europe? Or is this something very specific that really only a handful of people are doing? Because I don’t really, we get international, but I haven’t seen…

And again, I’m only operating on a certain level. haven’t seen lots and lots of international investors coming into Dallas from what I’m seeing here. But of course, Miami is like the international hotbed. how big is the community out there for folks who are working with European investors?

Hilal Borque (19:23.265)
I’ll tell you this, mean majority of the foreigners they come in with cash anyways because in not many countries you have 30 year mortgages they end up buying cash anyway so they do have cash. So when they come in it’s usually cash purchases just to make it easy and for providing them diversification I figured I would get the mortgage licenses well in case they want that option we have that available because not everybody has $300,000 cash or

They only have 100,000 cash, but he wants to finance or, know, it just, like I said, I don’t want to just serve one market. I want to reach everybody and help everybody. So.

Dylan Silver (20:03.926)
Yeah, I think, you know, it’s fascinating to talk with folks like yourself because it seems like a different world, right? I talked before the podcast here with you that it seems like wherever people are in the country, once their business gets to a certain size, especially if they’re young enough, they move down to Miami. So I said, man, there’s something in the water down there in the real estate space. There’s just high level people down there. I’m a little jealous of all. I’m a little jealous.

Hilal Borque (20:25.909)
I mean, the fact is there’s a lot of cash buyers from New York, California, international markets. I mean, ultimately the luxury segment is booming right now. The market, the price is actually maybe going up even on luxury segment. On the condos or certain homes, maybe there is a lot of inventory out there for them. So the price may be affected, the interest rates.

Dylan Silver (20:40.077)
Yeah.

Hilal Borque (20:54.463)
maybe affected with all the global changes. Remember, I mean, they’re hearing, they just, I read news about, we just saw an alien here. Or I read news about there’s wars over there. Or this country says we’re prepping for World War III. I mean, there’s so much happening in the world. Is it gonna really happen? I really think it’s not gonna happen. I think they’re trying to create some thing in front of people where people are more scared to invest. remember, we’re all going to Bitcoin.

Dylan Silver (21:10.382)
so much.

Hilal Borque (21:23.329)
and everything. Even we have what five points in our Federal Reserve. A lot of banks are going towards using that. Yesterday I read our mayor announced that Florida is going to accept gold and silver I think as an exchange of funds in the state of Florida now. So it’s not only dollars or coins or now we have dollars and so. So man 2005

Dylan Silver (21:25.57)
Yeah.

Dylan Silver (21:45.066)
Hmm. Buy some gold, right?

Hilal Borque (21:52.859)
It was quick like all these changes boom boom boom like you know like you don’t know which direction to look at now Obviously ultimately all this changes affecting what lenders are doing they’re like okay now we’re doing this now We’re offering this now. We’re offering that believe it or not. They you got some lenders now just financing out of their bitcoins people may have bitcoins they can

Dylan Silver (21:57.708)
Yeah.

I feel you.

Dylan Silver (22:10.072)
DSCR loans,

Hilal Borque (22:21.877)
get money out of their Bitcoin without converting that to USDT or a dollar. Now there are some lenders offering that literally. They temporarily get that Bitcoin, put it to their own wallet. If it’s one Bitcoin, they put two or three Bitcoins from them. And then as the guy pays them back, they release the Bitcoins they’re holding in their reserve wallet. Like even that’s out there today. So who would think of digital currency would buy you a $50 million home? Well, it does.

Dylan Silver (22:52.238)
You need to get yourself a bitcoin. I don’t know what else to tell folks. You gotta get onto a bitcoin.

Hilal Borque (22:55.049)
And you got lenders that actually provide that to you. the risk factor or taking the risk did change. The definition of risk has changed.

Dylan Silver (22:59.352)
Yeah.

Dylan Silver (23:06.006)
Absolutely. It’s an interesting world. Interesting world we’re walking into. Hello, we are coming up on time here. Where can folks go to get a hold of you?

Hilal Borque (23:07.561)
a lot going on.

Hilal Borque (23:16.545)
www.borquegroup.com B-O-R-Q-U-E group g-r-o-u-p.com or our office line 305 699 3073 borquegroup.com or my phone number would be it my email would be again borquegroupreality at gmail.com B-O-R-Q-U-E g-r-o-u-p realty at gmail.com

Dylan Silver (23:47.576)
Thank you so much for coming on the show here today.

Hilal Borque (23:50.721)
pleasure. Thank you for having me over. I hope we were able to help some of the interested folks about what the market is doing or what is out there, what kind of help is out there. I would highly recommend them to use a broker or a realtor in these transactions because it’s not only, okay, it’s only this much. There’s a lot in the small prints that they need to be cautious of, but there’s a lot of products out there as far as financing as well.

Dylan Silver (24:17.493)
Absolutely.

Hilal Borque (24:20.501)
that we can help both with.

Dylan Silver (24:23.701)
Absolutely.

Hilal Borque (24:24.097)
It’s also a board game group realty and working group mortgage. Those are my companies that I.

Dylan Silver (24:30.702)
Thank you so much. Thank you so much.

Hilal Borque (24:33.193)
Okay, thank you. Pleasure.