Miami Real Estate Unveiled: Michelle Gonzalez’s Journey and Insights

Dylan Silver (00:02.072)
Hey folks, welcome back to the show. I’m your host Dylan Silver. And today on the show, I have a real estate broker investor invests in commercial land, also involved in the restaurant space and the real estate side based out of Miami, beautiful Miami, Florida, Michelle Gonzalez. Michelle, welcome to the show.

Michelle Gonzalez (00:21.985)
Dylan, thank you for having me.

Dylan Silver (00:24.0)
It’s great to have you on the show here, Michelle. I always like to start off at the top by asking folks how they got into the real estate space.

Michelle Gonzalez (00:33.37)
Well, I don’t want to sound corny, but ever since I was a young girl, I would see open house signs and I would tell my mom, hey, let’s buy this house and let’s go in and take a look, which was very odd, you know, I think for an eight-year-old girl. But I really decided when I was about 21 to go and pursue that dream because it still interested me, real estate in general, the architecture.

the the landscape, the whole the whole city just it really interested me so I went and I got my real estate license at 21 and the rest is history.

Dylan Silver (01:11.15)
And so that was still Miami, Florida, right?

Michelle Gonzalez (01:14.232)
Yes, I am a unicorn. I was born and raised in Miami, Florida, and I still live in Miami, Florida. I love Miami, Florida. I don’t think I’ll ever move here unless if I decide to go to Italy. But, you know, I don’t know if that’s going to happen.

Dylan Silver (01:27.662)
That’s a different ballgame entirely. I’m from Northern New Jersey, we have a natural, I’m in Dallas now, but we have a natural affinity for Italy, all things Italian, lots of Italian culture up there. I want to talk about Miami in general, because I think, and I don’t know what it is, I suspect it’s the weather, it’s the water, and it’s also just a lot of hustle that people from all across the country and even the world

Michelle Gonzalez (01:31.642)
Yeah.

Dylan Silver (01:53.942)
seem to try to focus their business at some point in time, like 50 % of the real estate entrepreneurs that I know that have scaled to a level are either batten around the idea or have moved to like South Florida. What’s in the water in there in Miami, Michelle?

Michelle Gonzalez (02:06.724)
Yeah.

Well, I’m going to say it’s the flavor. The flavor of Miami really is like no other. I am a foodie, but the culture, this is a melting pot of cultures. About 20 years ago, my husband says Miami is the Riviera of the United States. And I said, honey, please never repeat that. That doesn’t sound.

very good. I Miami was on the map, but not like it is today. So today I say, you know, my husband was right. Miami is a Riviera of the United States because our beaches are open year round. Yes, it’s hot, but it’s hot in a lot of other countries, other cities and states. The real estate market has always been very vibrant and attracting, you know, we’re kind of in an area where we’re really attracting South America. We’re attracting Europe.

We attract Canadians, we really are poor, know, we ship, our cruise ships kind of, go everywhere around the world. We really have a lot of flavor. We have a lot of, not just tourism, but we have tech, we have finance. Our real estate market, like you said, is booming and it has been, so.

Dylan Silver (03:20.268)
Let me tell you Miami story and maybe forgive me for my ignorance here, but I kind of grouped Fort Lauderdale and Miami into the same area because whenever I fly out of the country, I’m going to one of those three airports, right? And so when I was in downtown Fort Lauderdale, I said, my gosh, this is the nicest place ever. This is February of this year. Streets were so clean. I was seeing lots of retired people and also younger people. Everyone was talking to each other, got nice cars everywhere. It was like a Tuesday.

Michelle Gonzalez (03:31.554)
Okay, yeah.

Dylan Silver (03:49.422)
Restaurants crowded. I said, what a vibe. And then this woman came up to me, heavy Long Island accent. Heavy. I can’t even replicate it. And I’m from there. She was like, you know, hey, honey, you want some flowers? And I was like, oh my gosh, because I was like, what was the last time I heard that accent? And I was like, do I know you? Where are you from? So she was from a similar area to where I’m from. And I just, couldn’t say no. So I ended up getting a flower in the middle of February. And I just remember thinking,

Michelle Gonzalez (03:49.711)
Okay.

Michelle Gonzalez (04:07.022)
Yeah.

Michelle Gonzalez (04:18.105)
That’s great.

Dylan Silver (04:19.63)
Um, actually if people know Fort Lauderdale, there’s, I don’t know exactly what road it is, but there was this sculpture of this businessman holding a briefcase, but his torso is like, I would say, partitioned, or it looks like a puzzle piece. And so you can kind of see through him. Yeah, and I said, this is just the vibest, vibiest area in the country right now.

Michelle Gonzalez (04:35.162)
Uh huh. I think you’ve seen it. Uh huh.

Michelle Gonzalez (04:42.892)
Yeah, it’s probably the Las Olas, Las Olas in Fort Lauderdale. You basically go from downtown Fort Lauderdale to the beach. So it’s like one road and you have like the best of both worlds.

Dylan Silver (04:50.435)
Yeah.

Dylan Silver (04:54.402)
I was saying, my gosh, I have to, and I understood it at that point, because it was February. wasn’t the middle of the summer. wasn’t, yeah, it was phenomenal. I had frozen yogurt. I said, this is so great. Does it ever get lost on you living there, you know, kind of these things? Does it ever become old hat?

Michelle Gonzalez (04:59.738)
Yeah, and that’s a great time. It’s a great time to be.

Michelle Gonzalez (05:13.29)
No, it really doesn’t. I love to sometimes get lost in different neighborhoods because you living in New Jersey or even in Dallas and Texas, there’s always you can’t cover all the terrain if you live there your entire life. So I do love to see old neighborhoods that maybe, you know, go down and then they’re revived. They’re they’re now like I just drove this morning before podcast. I drove through North Miami.

And I really saw this and I said, this is booming. This is booming. Like I’m going to see this area be transitioned. It’s going through a revitalization. So there’s new developments and old neighborhoods that are just, you I’m going to sound like a millennial or a Gen Z. It’s popping. You know, these neighborhoods really are attracting new families and they’re attracting new businesses. And I really love to see that.

Dylan Silver (06:09.11)
And also man, the fittest population that I’ve seen of people. Everyone was running. I said, it’s hot outside and everyone, I don’t know exactly where I was, but I was in some beautiful picturesque cafe. There was like boats behind me and everyone was running. And again, it wasn’t like middle of the summer, it was February. And I said, man, I gotta start running. So I literally like packed up my stuff and went for a run. And I was like, yeah, this isn’t so bad. And I just thought, what an, very fit.

Michelle Gonzalez (06:35.32)
No, it’s nice. We’re a city. We’re healthy, believe it or not. We are healthy.

Dylan Silver (06:38.918)
my gosh, I said that we I guess it’s a thing where if you’re in a city You’re supposed to be maybe more fit because you’re walking all the time. I’ve lived in Boston I grew up 27 miles from Manhattan. I’m in greater DFW lived in San Antonio, but I will say Miami takes the cake There was more fit people per capita than anywhere else that I’ve ever seen

Michelle Gonzalez (07:00.186)
I mean, you know, we’re a pretty city, not just our landscape, our architecture, but the people are pretty. mean, so my son is 23 and, you know, we’ll travel somewhere and he’s like, you know, the people in Miami are a little bit prettier than they are in this city or in this country. And I’m like, you know, it’s funny that you would notice that, but yeah.

Dylan Silver (07:19.694)
There’s competition. mean, before we hopped on here, you brought up a point which I think really encapsulates that area, which is it’s not just, you know, snowbirds. I’ve heard that term people coming from cold climates down. It’s not just retirees. It’s like a hub international. You have people all over Latin America, people from all over the world know Miami. It’s a I would say a top tier city in the world and known as much at this point.

Michelle Gonzalez (07:45.659)
That’s very accurate. the Miami Board of Realtors, do a lot of, definitely they dive into demographics. They dive into the the logistics from different VPNs all over the world. So every month they’ll come out with a list of like the top five cities or countries that are looking into Miami real estate. And so it might be Columbia, it might be Argentina, it might be Germany.

So, you know, we’re attracting so much talent, let’s say, from different countries around the globe, and even China, Japan, Canada. So we really do attract, we are a multinational city, we’re a melting pot, like I said earlier, to the biggest extent possible.

Dylan Silver (08:33.314)
I want to pivot a bit here, Michelle, and ask you about getting an advanced degree in real estate. So you got a master’s degree in real estate. This is a new concept to me. I had maybe been aware of it, but I haven’t spoken with someone. How did you decide to go down that route? Was it something you always wanted to do? And then what was it like going through that process?

Michelle Gonzalez (08:55.3)
So actually somebody asked me about like 2013 that would you be interested in getting your masters in real estate? And I said, no way, why? Right, but never say never. I did end up going Florida International University, which is here locally. They have a one year program and it’s a masters of science and international real estate. And I was doing residential real estate. So I had heard about commercial, I knew about commercial, but I didn’t really know how to break into it.

So I said, you know what, I should get a master’s. not? It’s here locally. It’s a one-year program. They have online, I go in person and I did the program. It was great. And it really helped me. say that my master’s in real estate made me well suited for the commercial real estate fight because the education, the connections that you make in the program are amazing because there’s a board that mentors the students.

I was 40 when I went to the program and I said, Oh my gosh, I’m going to be the oldest one there. No, you had kids that had just graduated out of college and there was, you know, 60 and 70 year olds on the program. And it really dives into a lot of different niches. It dives into like a business, a construction. It dives into the legal, you know, some of the students were considering going to law school or getting a master’s. And after they did the master’s, they decided to go to law school. So I really felt that it helped me dive in into

what I wanted to do in the commercial world because there’s so many niches in commercial real estate.

Dylan Silver (10:29.794)
That’s a lot of educated people, masters in real estate and then a law degree. Watch out, right? People are going to be doing some deals. So you’re involved in the restaurant space as well. You’re involved in shopping centers. And I think, you know, we talked a little bit. You’re a foodie. I love all types of food. My mother is part Japanese, so I grew up eating sushi. I love sushi. Probably a lot of sushi out there. Probably a lot of good sushi out there in Miami.

Michelle Gonzalez (10:34.65)
I know right? That’s the truth.

Michelle Gonzalez (10:54.618)
Uchi. Have you been to Uchi? Uchi is from Dallas. If I’m not mistaken, they have one in Dallas and they have one in Miami and it’s amazing. So sorry to interrupt you on that.

Dylan Silver (10:59.754)
Uchi, I have not al- I’ll Google it.

Dylan Silver (11:07.03)
huh.

Dylan Silver (11:10.732)
No, that’s okay. You gave me the plug for a good sushi restaurant. Anyone can interrupt me for that. I’ll also say here, know, Texas does a lot of things really, really well. Sushi tends not to be one of them. So I’m definitely going to check out Uchi. But I noticed Miami had some unbelievable spots. I want to talk about the restaurant space and getting involved in that space. When you’re brokering these types of deals, when I think of restaurants, I’m thinking typically they’re in shopping centers themselves.

Michelle Gonzalez (11:24.484)
Good.

Dylan Silver (11:40.608)
So in many cases, is it that space that you’re brokering or in many cases, is it a whole shopping center and then finding maybe tenants and so on and so forth or these types of deals? Break this down for me.

Michelle Gonzalez (11:55.163)
So it’s a little bit of both worlds per se. For the most part, the restaurants look to lease a space within a shopping center or, you know, like in downtown, Brickell, like the, any area that’s vibrant, that’s where everybody wants to be at. But, you know, the suburbs do great here as well. So typically it’s a lease and it’s usually like a 10-year lease with renewals and different brands. You have to think about the exclusives in the shopping center.

On the purchasing side, there’s not a lot of single tenant restaurants where our clients can occupy, but there are deals, like triple net deals, like Chick-fil-A, which tends to be a bigger cavalry, but we have Popeyes, or you have coffee shops, Starbucks, you have any type of single tenant.

Dylan Silver (12:38.158)
Yeah.

Michelle Gonzalez (12:47.05)
Those are also investment opportunities that I share with certain clients when they sell a property and Just yesterday I met with a client which owns an amazing restaurant. He owns a real estate It’s in coconut Grove, but he’s like what am I gonna do with this money? And so I showed him a few options on it Well, you know you can buy this Arby’s or you can buy This Starbucks and you kind of are still in the food world, but you just your hands off. You don’t have to worry

Dylan Silver (13:07.277)
Yeah.

Michelle Gonzalez (13:14.092)
about the staff, the cooking, you know, they’re taking care of the property while you’re just kind of collecting some money on that investment. So we do both, we do leasing and we do sales.

Dylan Silver (13:23.906)
Hmm.

So Starbucks doesn’t own the land underneath it.

Michelle Gonzalez (13:31.834)
Typically they don’t, no. No, they typically don’t. usually they have what, when you have a lease, Starbucks is able to deduct that, that those payments on their taxes. they, owning the real estate is a big investment, right? So instead of owning the land, they’ll buy more, you know, or open more locations with that, that money that’s tied into the real estate. don’t want

Dylan Silver (13:34.008)
Huh.

Dylan Silver (13:41.897)
Okay.

Dylan Silver (13:57.154)
So an interesting land play is you could buy Starbucks properties and then they pay you,

Michelle Gonzalez (14:04.674)
Right, so you buy, you like land, you told me that you like working in land, so you buy the land, you then reach out to Starbucks and see if they’ll be interested in that site. You’re gonna have to buy the land and then you’re gonna have to do the investment of building it out for them, but it’s all the deal, art of the deal and the negotiation. So that’s a really great money making. And then you bought the land, you put the Starbucks, and then you can sell it. You can 10X it.

Dylan Silver (14:07.608)
Yeah.

Dylan Silver (14:32.524)
These land plays, think, specifically coming from working with investors in the fix and flip world, I’m in DFW, Dallas, Fort Worth, Metroplex. And one of the things that we see out here is because of the cost of materials, because you could get a pre-owned home for maybe $50,000 cheaper than a brand new stick-built home, a lot of people are saying, well, let me just get the new home. How much money am I really saving?

We’re seeing a lot more people going into, I would say, ground up construction, new builds, and land plays, RV parks, modular homes, all different types. I’ve even seen luxury RV, luxury RV where people have restaurants and attractions and all types of things.

Michelle Gonzalez (15:15.908)
Yeah.

Michelle Gonzalez (15:21.422)
Yeah, yeah, definitely there is, there’s a lot. just saw a great little development of container homes. Really cute. It’s like friends that just put together and they made like 20, 30 container homes and they’re, I don’t know if they’re renting them or selling them, but it’s great to see the creativity in real estate. I always say you’re never going to learn real estate in a day, a year, 10 years, know, 20 years. You’re always learning. You’re always

things are changing. met a woman which does luxury student housing. And her approach to luxury student housing is buying homes that are obviously within walking distance to the university. And she just makes them luxury. know, some of these kids, like her son goes to Tulane and another one goes, think to Stetson. so they’re coming, these students, these kids are coming from, you know, 10,000 square foot homes, let’s say.

Dylan Silver (15:53.582)
Hmm.

Michelle Gonzalez (16:16.48)
and then they’re living in a dorm and she’s created these houses where they’re living in like four to 5,000 square foot houses. But she has a cleaning lady that comes or, and I don’t wanna sound like this is snobby or anything, but there’s a market for these kids that want to live or the parents that want the kids to live in these homes. And then she’s created.

like a group of parents, like a chat where the parents kind of talk to each other because, you know, my kids are in college or just graduated, but, you know, when you send your kids off to school, you’re left like, are they getting home? Are they partying, you know, 24 seven? And so she’s created this great little niche. And so I love to see creativity in real estate, which is, you know, part of the change.

Dylan Silver (16:58.679)
Yeah.

Dylan Silver (17:08.012)
I’m a big fan of that and I’ll tell you why. Yeah, maybe inaccessible to most people, but if you’re sending your 18 year old off to school, there’s so much that can go wrong, right? They’re on their own for their first time. Maybe they feel isolated. Maybe they feel lonely. They’re in this small dorm. They’re not even cooking their own meals, right? Everything, everything. I mean, you’re in Miami. Everything is expensive for most people. But if you have an, I don’t know if people can work. If you have a arduous workload, if you’re in, you know,

Michelle Gonzalez (17:26.426)
Right, exactly.

Michelle Gonzalez (17:30.904)
Yeah.

Dylan Silver (17:37.102)
engineering school or whatever. It’s a lot of work, right? So then if you have a place which is a home, a nice area, I wouldn’t be shocked at all if people felt more relaxed, if they can cook some of your own meals. On top of that, you have, I would say, probably better outcomes. I don’t know, I don’t have any stats to back that up, but I wouldn’t be shocked if people who are in these scenarios are doing better in school because they have their own area.

They’re not having to deal with, you know, lots of noise from being in like dorm halls and, and so on and so forth.

Michelle Gonzalez (18:07.934)
And that’s a great perspective because the noise, she doesn’t allow parties. So after 8 p.m., there’s no parties. And she said one time she did have some of the kids had a party and she made them go to the neighbor’s houses, clean up their yards and apologize. So it’s almost a little bit military, but you know what? It’s instilling the importance of those kids to be good neighbors, really, you know, to be cognizant of the noise and being good people.

Dylan Silver (18:36.546)
You know, something else that I thought about while we’re on this conversation, Michelle, is if and when I have kids and they go off to school, one of the things that I’ve kind of thought about is, you know, they’re going to be in this area for four full years. And if I have the money, God willing, to send them off to school, I might also look at just buying a rental property out there and then they live in it for four years. And at that point in time, four years later, maybe I’ve already got some equity in the deal.

So at the end of the four years, I could potentially sell it, God willing, or if not, I hold onto it and it’s in a college area. It automatically becomes a great opportunity for rentals and lots of people, of course, with kids and similar to this, you know, maybe an easy situation for to go into.

Michelle Gonzalez (19:23.31)
Yeah, no, mean, listen, you’re 100 % on the money. And I’ll just tell you a quick story as quick as I possibly can. My son is a COVID graduate. He graduated from high school in 2020. And so we live in Miami. He was going to Florida State University in Tallahassee. And I told my husband, said, we do real estate. I don’t want my son to be paying rent. So guess what? I found these like…

Townhouses for townhouses, great investment. The cap rate, it was like a 10 % cap rate because of the time and it really walking distance. And my husband’s like, no, the market’s not doing well, it’s COVID. I don’t want a bunch of students living in the property. Well, guess what? We didn’t buy it because I didn’t move forward and say we’re buying it. And fast forward a year later, my son and his friends decide to move.

guess where they decided to move to? That property that I wanted to buy. That one property that I wanted to buy. Yes. And you know what? If we would have purchased it, I think it was like 1.5 million for like four units. I think that it traded like two years later for like 3 million or 3.5, something crazy. Yeah. Yeah. So

Dylan Silver (20:22.954)
Where? That one?

Dylan Silver (20:38.402)
get out of here. But the the concern was of course that you’re going to have tenants that may be a little bit raucous and then with covid we don’t know what’s going to happen. So you had a lot of unknowns there. But I mean now that we’ve been through that Michelle I mean barring some truly you know Armageddon type of thing. I mean it doesn’t really get worse than a moratorium on rents and you know people not going to work and all this other type of thing.

Michelle Gonzalez (21:03.982)
Thank

Dylan Silver (21:06.306)
So if homes can appreciate in that climate, I think it’s a safe bet in others. Michelle, we are coming up on time here. Where can folks go if they’d like to maybe reach out to you or if they have questions or if they’d like to learn more about the commercial space? Where can folks go to reach out to you?

Michelle Gonzalez (21:11.524)
I’m sorry.

Michelle Gonzalez (21:25.21)
Sure, so I appreciate it. My phone number is 305-582-4352 or they can send me an email at mg for Michelle Gonzalez at FLfirstreality.com and our website is floridianfirstreality.com. My Instagram, I have a personal Instagram and a business Instagram and a foodie Instagram. So my personal Instagram is Michelle underscore Gonzalez at

Sorry about that. Michelle underscore Gonzalez underscore CRE and our Instagram is Floridian first realty.com. I’m sorry. That’s my website. Floridian first realty is our handle on Instagram.

Dylan Silver (22:09.91)
What’s the foodie one? I think a lot of people will be interested in the foodie one. I’m interested.

Michelle Gonzalez (22:12.026)
Okay, love that I love that Floridian dot foodie on Instagram Floridian dot foodie

Dylan Silver (22:21.89)
I want to ask you a quick question before we wrap here. TikTok seems to be the place where I’ve found more good restaurants than anything else. I can go online, I can do this. If I just search the area TikTok maps, know, Ft. Lauderdale, Miami, Dallas, San Antonio, New York, you not only get the area, you’ll get like these amazing professional videos from influencers and people posting. Are you seeing a lot of that in the foodie space with TikTok?

Michelle Gonzalez (22:50.17)
100%. We’re actually on TikTok as well as Floridian First Realty and we’ve taken like a fun approach to it. And we have friends and family that are just like, what are you posting again? Cause we’re laughing so hard, right? So TikTok has created definitely a new space and yes, the Instagram reels and the TikTok videos are amazing. And the influencers are really killing it, providing some good spaces to visit.

and to frequent.

Dylan Silver (23:20.846)
Michelle, thank you so much for coming on the show here today. Congrats on all your success and to your future success. Thanks for coming on here, Michelle.

Michelle Gonzalez (23:29.423)
Thank you so much for your time and the opportunity.