Real Estate Deals, Referrals, and Closings: Ed Jarvis on Winning Long-Term

Edward Jarvis (00:00)
you gotta make stuff happen. You can’t sit and wait for somebody to do it for you. And it you know, it doesn’t happen. The attorneys don’t do it, they’re not gonna run down to the town and

Who they can push buttons on. Title Company, sometimes also challenging. I have, you know, with title company I use on a regular basis, if if they use somebody I know and they’re great. And sometimes they can solve problems. And you need to be in the business to solve problems. If you can solve problems, you can make money. You can’t solve problems, it’s a problem. You gotta have Ghostbusters.

Freddie Steen (02:01)
Hey everyone. Welcome to Real Estate Pros Investor Fuel Podcast. I’m your host, Freddie Steen, and today I’m joined by someone who almost needs no introduction at all. I’ve been looking forward to chatting with none other than Ed Jarvis, who’s been making serious moves in the real estate space. Ed Jarvis, glad to have you here.

Edward Jarvis (02:26)
Good to see ya. Good to see ya.

Freddie Steen (02:28)
I think our listeners are really going to take something away from how you’re approaching real estate from someone who has been in the game over three decades and also has scaled other businesses as well, but primarily your real estate persona and your real estate acumen will be very helpful for our listeners today. So let’s dive in. So first off, for people who may not be familiar with the world, give us the short version. What’s your main focus these days?

What markets are you operating in? And is it true that you’re famous for a thing that our listeners might have heard of?

Edward Jarvis (03:08)
Yes, for sure. So I’m Ed Ed Jarvis, also known as Ed Cookie Jarvis. I’ve been doing real estate for 30 35 years and I do residential, commercial, anything related to real estate, land development, foreclosures, rentals, anything. There’s nothing that we are not affiliated with as far as real estate goes, and nothing we can’t accomplish. We can sell from five dollars to

50 million dollars, you know. And the great part is you never know who you’re gonna meet, right? It’s like it’s a big melting pot out there. I’ve one day I’m showing somebody for a small condo and you know, eighty-five thousand and the next day I’m showing something for Philly, fifty million. So and I work Nassau, Suffolk, Queens, and Brooklyn. so pretty much anywhere you want to go, I can go. There’s no restrictions on these wheels.

Freddie Steen (04:01)
What what caught my attention about you was

Freddie Steen (04:06)
Professionals where there are a lot of where you were able to really thrive is during COVID and being able to use your expertise over three decades of real estate in multiple facets. I was impressed by that. That’s not easy, especially in this climate. What’s been the key to keeping that machine running smoothly?

Edward Jarvis (04:32)
You know, I always say, you know, there was a guy named J.R. Ridinger one time and he said, You gotta keep people in the funnel. The more people you have in the funnel, the more likely you’re to do deals, right? And it seems like all the nuts when you put in the funnel with with with other nuts, the big nuts surface at the top because you’re not gonna not work. You know, and we have no choice but not to work because you got bills to pay. And when you when you’re working harder you got bigger bills. So you gotta just keep making money.

And you gotta keep helping people. And at the end of the day, you know, we do a lot of fundraising. I’ve raised over five hundred thousand dollars over the course of the last fifteen years for charities. And, you know, if you keep yourself in a public eye and you’re helping people, people are very happy to help you back.

Freddie Steen (06:02)
That’s very interesting. One of the things that our network and our audience is very excited about and curious about are the particular strategies that you were able to implore at the street level when a national crisis was in place. How did you stay insulated in real estate during COVID? Many of our operators have done different things, and we’d love to hear.

your COVID story and how you stayed relevant with your showings and some of the digital things that you did.

Edward Jarvis (06:38)
So COVID, I decided I was going to open up a personal shopping business. I’m like, you know what? I’ll meet a lot of people. And at some point they’re going to want to buy real estate, even if they’re not buying what I’m selling. So you give out cards everywhere you go. You I actually had a a coin jar in the in like 15 facilities raising money for charity while I was doing for Stony Brook Autism Research. So we raised like twenty thousand dollars through our little coin jugs and we also at the same time were selling lots of equipment.

So which would you know, cleaning products, anything you could think of that you couldn’t find was available.

Freddie Steen (07:13)
That’s the kind of stuff that may sound like it is off-brand for Real Estate Pros Investor Fuel Podcast. But actually, what you’re speaking of to me is you’re saying, and to our audience, I’m sure sees the same way. You are integrating yourself into community so that when you do have the opportunity to work in commercial or residential or financing, as you’ve said, you come across as.

More authentic. Would you agree with that?

Edward Jarvis (07:46)
I would say that’s the right word. I would say integrity, you know, availability and also to have access to things that people don’t have access to was a huge thing because I had a lot of people come into my place and they were like, Wow, this is like the candy store you know, they were like, We can’t find anything and we were happy to, you know, have a place to come in a nice neighborhood and just happy to be relevant, you know.

Freddie Steen (08:11)
Well, Ed, we we’d all have to admit if it’s about candy or food, after eating in Nathan’s Hot Dog Competition, we sure you’re the expert on that as well, right?

Edward Jarvis (08:21)
I’m the I’m the king. That’s awesome.

Freddie Steen (08:25)
That’s the kind of stuff in real estate that people don’t talk about enough. Honestly, it’s what separates the folks who just dabble from the ones like you who stay in the game long term. This is who we want to talk to. And let me ask you this: what are you most focused on solving or scaling next? What’s the next goal, real goal for a goal killer like Edward Jarvis?

Edward Jarvis (08:49)
You know what it’s funny because I used to tell my friends when I go to the eating competitions, I’m not here to wave at the crowd. I’m here to win, right? So I’m gonna go from zero to five hundred as quick as I can get there and stay there. Because you can’t. You know, at the end of the day, there’s times where you’re a little down or whatever, but you gotta just keep moving. You just gotta keep trucking and you just gotta keep fighting and fighting the fight until you get to where you gotta go. At the end of the day, you cannot stop in this business. You gotta be tenacious. I feel like a prize fighter, you know. that you

I I don’t want to stay down. I just got to keep coming back. Keep hitting me all day long, but it’s not going to stop me.

Freddie Steen (09:26)
Ed, that’s big, especially when you’ve already got the kind of community connections that you have and these decades of real estate experience, which is why we deem you a real estate pro. That next move can either compound things or create chaos depending on how you play it. So I have to ask, so I have to ask again, Ed. I don’t want you to to eat me here. Tell me in your mind.

Edward Jarvis (09:51)
Yeah, yeah.

Freddie Steen (09:54)
If you had a magic wand, where do you see that you’re in moving in the next year to six months?

Edward Jarvis (10:37)
To be honest with you, I have to be selling a minimum of, you know, six to seven houses a month. And I think I’m going to get more back into purchasing also because I just, you know, you just got to get funding to get somebody to, you know, spot you the money and you just got to keep rolling through it because at the end of the day, we all need money and nothing’s getting cheaper here, especially in New York. I don’t know where everybody else is, but it’s not cheap here. I’m sure California’s not cheap either because I look at the price of gas there, I’m like, whoa.

‘Cause it’s so expensive. But you know, like anything else, you you just gotta be ahead of the ahead of the curve. You can’t stop.

Freddie Steen (11:15)
Now, what you said was very interesting because what you’re saying is on top of what you’re doing on the bulk side, your financing, your commercial deals, your, you know, you’re a bit of a Swiss army knife like many real estate pros that are listening to this podcast and nascent real estate pros that are learning the game, wanting to to to dig in on the jewels that you’re giving us, Ed. So thank you for for your commentary there.

I know a lot of people listening either early in their journey or looking to level up. I think they benefit from hearing this. When it comes to building relationships, Ed, and growing your network of what you’ve done, what’s made the biggest difference for you?

Edward Jarvis (11:56)
honest with you, I would say my fundraising, I hate to say it, I think that’s pretty big for me. I did a lot of fundraising over the last bunch of years. And you know, when COVID got a little kind of kind of crazy. So we haven’t been doing as much because I work with the veterans, I work with so many different groups because there’s so many people in need. We’re all in need, you know, at the end of the day, it’s like you got to help people. You know, it’s tough because you get you got to help yourself too, but at the same time, you know, if you’re available for people, they

They seem to gravitate back to the person who helps them at some point. You know? Is it a perfect world? No. I gotta tell you, there’s many people in my lifetime that I’ve helped for 30 years and then they go, put my house up with somebody else. And you’re like, listen, it’s your it’s your loss. What can I say? I can’t help everybody.

Freddie Steen (12:42)
Let’s dig in on that because that’s a common occurrence that happens with everyone. Loves this industry of ours. How do you handle that to maintain a relationship that may be personal when they may work with someone else to do a deal that you know that you could execute even better? Help us out.

Edward Jarvis (12:48)
Yeah, it seems more.

It it’s not easy, I gotta say. There’s been some complicated situations where people just like out of nowhere, you’re like, Really? Like you’ve known me for forty years. Like how you know it’s a little like disturbing in some ways because you’re like, Listen, I’ve helped you for a million times doing a million different things. But it happens. What are you gonna do? I mean, it’s life. You gotta keep rolling, but it’s doesn’t mean your connection stays as tight with that person because you feel like they don’t trust you. And that’s kind of sad because you’re you’re working so hard to keep your trust and keeping your integrity and

And helping people and and always being there for them when they need you. So when they don’t use you, it’s a little sad because you’re like, what, you don’t trust me? Like now out of like after 40 years.

Freddie Steen (13:45)
And let me ask that that brings up another point that I think is crucial. How do you internally handle the weight of marketing yourself by yourself to your network of family and friends? When the fact of the matter is, in these instances when friends and family may go to other sources, there’s no consideration between us, there’s no contract written between us, but it’s kind of like that moral contract that we have.

How do you go about handling this weight? Because it really what you’re touching on, I believe, is marketing. What are the things in marketing that you have done outstanding, even outside of your ability in the community? I just want to hear more about that. There are a lot of people struggling with that.

Edward Jarvis (14:20)
Yeah, it is.

So I used to host events like once every two months. And it would do typically like fundraising. And there would be like small events and I’d auction off trips and TVs and all kinds of different, you know, items. And the objective was to raise money so we could buy stuff for the big charity events and donate, you know, baskets and stuff, you know, to help people. And sometimes we’d we would turn over maybe $20 to $35,000 in revenue from all these events. Now.

The only thing that I have from that is work, right? Because at the end of the day, it’s a lot of work. And most of it I did myself because you can’t always get support. So, you know, it costs you money. But in hindsight, there’s always somebody that will use you, that knows you and trusts you. And you know what? The good people will always use you and trust you. And the ones you don’t, they don’t. And you know what? There’s nothing you can do about it. You just gotta keep rolling and you just gotta keep strong and and say, Hey, listen.

There’s nothing I can do about it. Obviously, my relationship wasn’t as strong as I thought it was, right? So sometimes I get the best results from strangers. They’re like, man, you were so awesome. You did such a great job. And I that job would have never got done if I had anybody else. And that’s important to know and hear that like somebody appreciates you because it’s like being in a relationship of real estate. You want to feel loved by the person you’re working with.

Freddie Steen (15:49)
Explain that. Explain that to me.

Edward Jarvis (15:52)
When your clients tell you how much they appreciate you because you did a good job and you worked a little extra harder to get something done, to get a permit that was a problem, or you know, we fight for every little thing. I had a couple of closings last year that really were challenging nail biters, but I pulled every access to anybody I knew, any politician, any person I could use access to to get done, because you gotta get paid at the end of the day.

Freddie Steen (16:59)
I’m sorry, Ed, you just gave us a key and I have to put a pin right here. Tell us about the two deals that you’re speaking of. Give us a high-level view. What was the first deal that you spoke of that was challenging? What were the elements of that? How did you come out of that? And then what was the second deal? And in the second deal, I want you all to give us the key of how you absolutely thought the deal was gone and then you saved it. We’re all ears.

Edward Jarvis (17:27)
So so the first deal was in Nassau and it was on the North Shore and it was a a hoarder’s house. I mean, literally when I say hoarded, it was like stuff piled to the ceiling. Literally, and some places you couldn’t even walk through. That’s how bad it was. And you were like, wow, this is a little challenging. I’m not a small guy. So if I can’t get into the house, how do I see what it looks like? So I do I had to get a company, come in, one of my guys, and they empty the house.

And then we could s we also had to find stuff. So we were like mining through stuff coming out of the house seeing if it was anything important. Luckily, I was able to find all the important documents in one spot, like prior to them coming. And then you could unbury the place. So now we unburied the place. We had to move an oil tank. We had to move some other stuff that we had to get permits for. We had to like, you know, just so many different things that would have been a problem if we didn’t clean them out. The person who passed away in the house. So you’re like, you know, you just have to like gut carpets and

clean and just get the place where it’s semi-livable, but not perfect, but but manageable and not like, you know, gross. So, but again, sometimes, you know, you got to push these things and they’re a little challenging, but you got to just keep fighting the fight, right? Like every day. And I got it done and the buyer was thrilled and the seller was happy. And he was in Chicago and it was snowing there worse than here, which is crazy year, you know. I think it closed in like the beginning of one of our first snowstorms.

And then I had another one in in Setauket, like literally you go one block and you’re in a totally different neighborhood. And it’s like literally it was like the taxes like doubled, like literally went from 20 to 40 within one block, which is like literally the the back fence of the house. And this lady bought it and she was like I had like 35 buyers come to the open house over two weeks.

And I just felt so comfortable with her. And I said, I think this is the buyer. You know, I said to the owner, I go, they’re paying over full price. We’re should be happy with that. So that’s good. And they more than qualified. They were putting a lot of money down. They were putting 25% down on a $900,000 house. And they they were solid. They were fine. So they bought the house and they closed. And but they had it, we had issues with permits. And it was an open permit that the owner forgot about. And as soon as I got the title back, I’m like, We got a problem. He’s like, What’s the problem? I go,

Do you have an open permit? my God, I forgot about that. I closed the basement ceiling cellar. And so I’m like, we need to get on it. And then I got an approval from the town. But you know, to get paperwork sometimes can be challenging. Sometimes you got to, you know, play the game. So I called in a few calls to my local congressman and they gave me a supervisor’s number to call. And I I had the owner call the supervisor and said, listen, they promised us we would have that thing by Friday. Well, by Friday, I had it on my desk.

And I went and picked it up and I got it done. And the closing was the next week. And I gotta tell you, it wouldn’t have closed for at least three weeks if it wasn’t for me pushing them every day. Because you have to. It’s like you need the money. You’re talking a nine hundred thousand dollar house. It’s a lot of money when you’re the broker and the listing agent.

So you gotta make stuff happen. You can’t sit and wait for somebody to do it for you. And it you know, it doesn’t happen. The attorneys don’t do it, they’re not gonna run down to the town and

Who they can push buttons on. Title Company, sometimes also challenging. I have, you know, with title company I use on a regular basis, if if they use somebody I know and they’re great. And sometimes they can solve problems. And you need to be in the business to solve problems. If you can solve problems, you can make money. You can’t solve problems, it’s a problem. You gotta have Ghostbusters.

Freddie Steen (21:03)
Busters, Edward, if you had a magic wand for our audiences on the East Coast, for artists in LA, on the West Coast, that’s in the south, that’s in the north, that’s in the heartbeat of America and Ohio, right now, moving forward, are you more focused on residential? Personally, I understand you want to bump that up six, seven, ten houses a month. But on a on a more scaling side, what are you seeing commercial-wise that you want to execute?

in twenty twenty six and twenty twenty seven.

Edward Jarvis (21:35)
So, you know, it’s funny because recently I have a lot of clients that want to do commercial and they want to buy something big, you know, like for investment, you know, multifamily or like a little accord in the apartment complexes. And I could sell them pretty much anywhere. So I mean, even if it’s out of state, I have buyers that will buy out of state. I also have a global network because I work with Remax and Remax is in every part of the country. So they’re worldwide. So I can refer people anywhere in the world. There’s no place that I can’t hit, you know, because of working for such a global company.

So there’s no place that I can’t hit. Bottom line is you gotta be you’re like a dart. We gotta just keep throwing them in the right direction and getting them the right person on the other end so they can help them buy a house. And commercially, there’s a lot of good stuff coming up. There’s a lot of auctions going on right now. So some people don’t even know about them, you know, like big commercial stuff, like 50 million. You know, so there’s a lot of little stuff and there’s a lot of big stuff. And sometimes it’s not here. People will buy like complexes out of state.

Because they’re cheaper and the rents are not bad and they are less. So they’re in affordable areas like North Carolina or South Carolina and Tennessee and Knoxville and Texas and different places. California’s a different market. It’s like ours. We’re they’re more expensive than even we are.

Freddie Steen (22:52)
You mentioned several of the markets of which our audience is in. Would you give a couple keys to persons that are like you, maybe armies of one with deep real estate knowledge, real estate pros? Can you give a couple keys moving forward of where you see opportunity and where you may see an opportunity?

to build with other people.

Edward Jarvis (23:23)
I mean, at the end of the day, you have to have people with money to to buy stuff today because you can’t depend on just the mortgaging field because of you know, if you buy a fifty million dollar property, you’re not going for too much mortgaging because it’s just not ex it’s not available. And, you know, not everybody qualifies. But there’s a lot of people with a lot of cash, deep pockets that’ll buy everywhere in the globe. You know, even the islands, you know, sometimes they’ll be like, Hey, I want something in Puerto Rico. Okay, we’ll take care of it. At the end of the day, I don’t do it, but

Somebody else will because there’s always somebody. And listen, I I love other brokers in other states that want to refer business. I’d love to refer them some business. I would love that business. Honestly, the more the merrier. You know, I’d send people all over the globe. Doesn’t matter. You know, the end of the day, you just got to make money. You know, and I I love a good referral. 25%. I’m in. You know, for somebody that’s a real estate trender, you know, you can’t be obviously you can’t be not a real estate person, but you got to be a real estate person. But if there’s plenty of business that people could refer.

If they knew you, who you are.

Freddie Steen (24:27)
Listen, Ed, this has been a dynamic conversation. I appreciate your time, your story, and your perspective. We need more people in this space who are doing it the right way. And thanks again for being here. And for those of you turning in, if you got value from this, make sure you’re subscribed. We’ve got more conversations coming with operators, just like Edward, Cookie Jarvis, who are out there building real businesses.

We’ll see you on the next episode. But before we go, Ed, can you tell people how to get in touch with you?

Edward Jarvis (25:04)
So the easiest way is my cell phone number, 631-580-7634. You can also reach me at [email protected] on my email website. At the moment I’m in renovation mode.

You can always look again. You could also You could also look me up as Ed Cookie Jarvis. We’ll take you to my website also for my eating site, which has all my other links.

Freddie Steen (25:25)
Sorry, please.

And again, I will end by saying I appreciate your time, your story, and your perspective. Again, we do need more people like you in the space. Again, for those of you turning in, tuning in, if you got value from this, make sure you’re subscribed. We’ve got more conversations coming with operators just like Ed Jarvis, who are out there building real businesses. We’ll see you on the next episode.

Edward Jarvis (26:01)
You soon have a great day. Everybody stay safe.