Real Estate Investing with a General Contractor’s Edge | Andrey Cunha

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Show Summary

In this episode, Dylan Silver interviews Andrey Cunha, a general contractor and mortgage professional from Fort Myers, Florida. They discuss Andrey’s journey into real estate, focusing on fix and flip investments, the various asset classes he works with, and the nuances of commercial contracting. The conversation also touches on the real estate market in Fort Myers and offers insights for aspiring contractors and investors.

Resources and Links from this show:

• • • Investor Fuel Real Estate Mastermind
    • Investor Machine Real Estate Lead Generation
    • Mike on Facebook
    • Mike on Instagram
    • Mike on LinkedIn
    • Andrey Cunha’s Phone Number: (954) 888-8788
    • Andrey Cunha on Instagram

  Listen to the Audio Version of this Episode

  Investor Fuel Show Transcript:

  Andrey Cunha (00:00)
  Well,

  I couldn’t really honestly do commercial until I really have cash enough to get into those contracts because a lot of people might have the hand man expertise or have the trade expertise to get into that. Commercial is more slow on the payments, it’s more requirements as far as insurance and license and everything. But when you get enough money to get in and start contracts, it’s definitely the way to go, definitely.

  Dylan Silver (01:59)
  Hey folks, welcome back to the show. Today’s guest is a general contractor and mortgage professional based out of Fort Myers, Florida. Please welcome Andrey Cunha. Andrey, welcome to the show.

  Andrey Cunha (02:12)
  Thank you, I appreciate it to help me. Thank you.

  Dylan Silver (02:15)
  It’s great having you on. I always like to start off at the top, Andrey, by asking folks how they got into the real estate space.

  Andrey Cunha (02:22)
  Well, that’s a good question, actually. ⁓ I originally was born in Brazil, got in America in 1998. So then I was ⁓ trying to buy my first house. of course, ⁓ English was my first challenge. And I was living in the great Boston back then. Yeah. And I saw a very hard shift to get it. And in another way, I tried to see that it was an opportunity for me to learn and get professional.

  So by 2000, I got my license as a salesperson. did work for quite a few years for Remax. And after that, I signed my home brokerage and get my license for the mortgage as well. So then I get it both. And then after that, I started to do a lot of flips, know, buy rehab, selling and everything. So then that’s what ended up to me get into the construction business. So I got my general contractor license.

  Dylan Silver (03:17)
  Did

  you have a background at all in contract work? How did you feel comfortable taking on flips?

  Andrey Cunha (03:23)
  Well, I had a problem 10 years doing myself with GCs with the subs guys and then rehab and some remodels. Then I started to learn, I got into school, of course, it wasn’t too easy to get everything. So then, yeah, so then it would take a little while, but I got there.

  Dylan Silver (03:43)
  I think one of the interesting things about the fix and flip world is there’s so many different types of investors that you’ll see. You’ll see the people who do their own. kind of their own general contractor but then they’re not necessarily the deal finder. So then you’ve got to partner with someone who is the deal finder. And then you also see the people who may be involved in the trades themselves and they might be a repair that comes too much. And in which case they decide hey we’re going to buy this deal rather than ⁓

  rather than submit a repair estimate, would you consider selling it? My background was as a wholesaler, so I would find all different types of people in different states of distress, from losing their home for financial to a death in the family to divorce, so many different reasons, and then find an investor for that property. When you were involved in the flips yourself and acquiring them for yourself, did you have partners or did you really do all of it as a one-man show?

  Andrey Cunha (05:27)
  I had a partnership with him then, I just didn’t have as much. It was very difficult to, at certain point, to convince someone deals, convince someone to bring cash. A lot of investors, are really refrained to do that, even saying we got to track proof and everything. So I wasn’t really… ⁓

  on that side. But I did a lot on my own. I did a lot of wholesale. just actually wholesale one here right now in Mark, not Mark, but Naples. And that was a pretty sweet one. Get in the morning, flipping it same day. So we got very sweet money on that one. But yeah, you’re right. each investor has your own ⁓ unique ⁓ sort of to get the deal done. You know, we got a guy’s call for getting the mortgage. We did the mortgage and sometimes we can have the

  the bank funding, the 100 % of rehab or sometimes half or sometimes none, you know, and sometimes they just want a wholesale, they just get a fee for that, you know, someone has the cash ready to invest and then pay for the rehab or the loan for everything. ⁓ And of course, a guy like me or others like, you know, like to hand everything, you know, I don’t do many, many houses, but I do good deals in each home. So that’s what I’ve been trying to do, dot by dot.

  day by day and get a good money out of that. So leveraging my license, leveraging my expertise, my labor, quality labor, we get an amazing crew here right now in Southwest Florida and Central Florida doing a lot of rehabs, a lot of remodeling, doing amazing custom teachings on my rehabs and we get value on it. So when you go sell, you sell something really nice and people pay top dollar for it. So that’s the

  do a good job, get out permitting for every single job, never miss the permitting stuff, all compliance with the cities and build apartments and everything. I very can’t put that because it’s pretty valid to the property after that fact, you know? So you buy something to stress, you buy something maybe with fraud, you know, even probation, you buy a probation, you know, someone needing to sell, date for a divorce, death and a claim or something. That property might not be in a good condition

  So you want to make sure you put permit, you do all but the boots. And that is value on the property. That’s value. Someone get the records when the roof is being done properly, get permit inspected and everything open and close the permit. That’s a package we offer to every single home I do, wholesaling or selling mainly on my flips because we offer warranty on those homes. So we buy a pack for warranty, structural, roofing, appliances. And a lot of the works we do

  offer extended warranty with this insurance company’s rebuy. So I think that’s part of the success I’ve been doing here in Southwest Florida because that. think everybody’s buy for a hundred, they know they buy something solid.

  Dylan Silver (08:31)
  I want to ask you about the asset classes that you’re involved in also the verticals right. So you’re a general contractor ⁓ your mortgage professional but also an investor yourself right. So different different you know asset classes different verticals but all related as a general contractor specifically. Are you working a lot with for instance commercial or single family or is it all over.

  as far as what type of assets you’re working on.

  Andrey Cunha (09:00)
  We do a lot of commercial, yes. Mainly, let’s say out of 10 jobs, mainly, Prop 9 will be residential and one commercial. Whatever the size of the contracts we got on commercial large, so mainly like a million, two million. In fact, we’re doing right now, Pickball Place. It’s a main franchise, not franchise, it’s a corporation, but it will be a franchise. are franchising there. They open 150 nationwide. We’re gonna do eight of those in Florida. Each contract’s like eight,

  million so it’s going to be $16 million and met of six months. But on a residential it’s more like you know smaller so we not deal with the big numbers but we do guess probably 80 % in borough contracts on the residential and 10-20 % on the commercial yeah.

  Dylan Silver (09:47)
  Did I hear it right? Was it pickle bone? You’re doing some pickle bone?

  Andrey Cunha (09:50)
  And doing a pickleball place. Yeah, this people from Texas, they are open nationwide and they’re going to open 150 nationwide and eight out of those is going to be Florida. It’s a pickleball. It’s a pickleball world, I believe. Yeah, I will.

  Dylan Silver (10:00)
  Can you say the name of it or no?

  whole world of pain.

  Andrey Cunha (10:45)
  Big Bowl Kingdom. Yes, it is. ⁓ The brand I can share. It’s not a problem. I don’t think it’s going to appear on the camera, but it’s right here. are in fact, so if you can see it. ⁓ we have a we’re to build eight of those here in Florida. Pretty nice. Really excited. ⁓ It’s a national brand.

  Dylan Silver (11:01)
  Good night.

  Are

  Are they combination? I know some of these pickleball places are beautiful. I was a member of one when I was living in Texas.

  Andrey Cunha (11:18)
  Yeah, they are from Texas, actually from Great Dallas. So this one is totally indoor. So they just have the big warehouse. It’s probably like about 10,000 square footage. And we’ll build in everything, Pinellas Park.

  Dylan Silver (11:31)
  Incredible. I want to ask you about getting commercial contracts. As a general contractor, you mentioned, you know, there’s a ratio, maybe nine out of 10 are in the residential, but you’ll do commercial as well. For folks who may be in the general contract in a world like yourself and are looking to get more involved in commercial, if you think back on your journey, what advice would you give folks who want to get more involved in commercial?

  Andrey Cunha (11:58)
  Well,

  I couldn’t really honestly do commercial until I really have cash enough to get into those contracts because a lot of people might have the hand man expertise or have the trade expertise to get into that. Commercial is more slow on the payments, it’s more requirements as far as insurance and license and everything. But when you get enough money to get in and start contracts, it’s definitely the way to go, definitely.

  You can get it, you know, like this one’s too

  million, but I mean, have come up front with a lot of money and wait 30 days to get paid. So that’s one downside when you’re not prepared. But if you are prepared and know what you’re doing and knowledge enough, get the whole license and plans, I think is a really way to go. It’s just maybe you started with the trades and starting to get in maybe, you know, painting, flooring, a lot of things that can be done. not necessarily have to put it hundreds and thousands

  dollars out front but yeah if you can get into it with some money upfront and then we need the 30 days to get paid always it’s very slow they don’t come up like in the kitchen remodeling get 50 % up front so it’s not working like that the payments as much as just lower than you think that it’s sometimes more than 30 days you know

  Dylan Silver (13:17)
  I want to ask you get a little bit granular, Andrey, and ask you about the commercial space in general. You mentioned it’s cash intensive ⁓ for contractors. For folks who are looking at positioning themselves as contractors in the commercial space, one deal can really be a big game changer. mean, you’re mentioning you’re building out multiple facilities for ⁓ this pickleball business. I think when a lot of folks think about, well, hey, we need one

  you know, commercial residential apartment complex, or we need one ⁓ flex space ⁓ commercial retail, maybe. If people are in that mindset where, we need one deal, we need one deal, we need one deal, is it better for them, would you say, to be focusing on, hey, we need to find as many investors as we can be? Or should they be focused maybe on expanding more of their business elsewhere and then

  through word of mouth effectively, bumped into someone that might be able to put them in contact with the commercial people.

  Andrey Cunha (15:02)
  I think it’s a lot of lead generation, a lot of platforms out there. ⁓ We got Construction Connect, HubSpots. ⁓ They are offering a lot of leads for subs to beat on it, GCs to beat on it, a lot of platform you can go in. But again, ⁓ you have to have a proven track. that’s why if you never did like me in the beginning, I got one. Ujjai Kare in the Keys, what not that big.

  was direct with the owner. were able to manage the payments much easier than a big contract. So then you do one, you do two, and then you do three, and then eventually you get track on it when you send in a bid and you put it, you know, what have you done over the year or two years in the commercial space. And then they started slowly getting you deals, not for the price, sometimes not the price though. Sometimes they were more looking for someone really able, capable.

  willing to jump in and do the job because these people don’t play games. They put a penalty daily if you delete. They put a penalty on this, penalty on that. You can get in serious trouble if you don’t get things done properly because you got a contract with the rich people and they’re looking for the contract being 100 % fulfilled. And then if you don’t fulfill the contract or you messed up and delayed this because your subs don’t show up because there’s this and that.

  you probably can get in trouble as well. It’s the same way you might be good financially, but you might get yourself in trouble as well. But yes, one nice contract like $16 million if you based on literally 10 % net out of there is at 1.6 million.

  Dylan Silver (16:49)
  I think, you know, hearing you talk about this, think a lot of people, ⁓ listeners on this show and elsewhere…

  are probably very interested in hearing this information because when you think about the journey for a general contractor and I think that term can be a wide spectrum right. Ultimately a lot of people say well I just need one commercial deal. Hearing you talk about the granular steps where they get the lead as well as the fulfillment process the reasonable expectations you got to have cash up front. I think this gives people a point. Hey this is probably where we need to get to. I want to pivot a bit here Andrey and ask you about ⁓

  Fort Myers in general. love Florida. I love Florida. I’m a big Tampa guy. I’m a big Miami and Fort Lauderdale guy. know Fort Myers and we were talking before the show here is what about 100 miles south of Tampa roughly. ⁓ What’s the market like out there. Is there a lot of interest from investors in Fort Myers in general.

  Andrey Cunha (17:47)
  Yes, it is Southwest here in Florida between Naples and Tampa. It’s growing a lot. So Fort Myers unique because if you live out of Miami, truck loads, my own port and having every great sport, the trucks get out of there for distributions and everything. So people tend to build here because here is much closer to Tampa, Orlando and go from other maybe states out of here. So then we have a lot of commercial opportunities here. We’ve been seeing a lot.

  of warehouses, flats every day, everywhere. I sometimes you go in the street the next day, you start a new development there. It’s big market here for commercial. Yes, definitely there’s a lot of opportunities from Naples all the way up to Tampa Bay.

  Dylan Silver (18:35)
  Well, ⁓ Andrey, we are coming up on time here. Where can folks go if maybe they’d like to reach out to you? Maybe they’d have a project they’d like your feedback on. Where can folks go to get in contact with you?

  Andrey Cunha (18:45)
  Yeah, they gave me a in the 9-5-4-888-8788. Pretty simple number. And my name is Andrey Cunha, out of Dream Remodel Construction. And I’m here in Southwest Florida, assistant every Florida if you need to, no problem at all. But mainly here out of Fort Myers, helping you in any project you want. And then eventually any finance. If you guys need it, finance as well. We do construction loans for ground up, we do fix and flip loans, we do DSR loans, it’s pretty popular.

  loans as well. So yeah, I’ve been working hard here to keeping the bills up and trying to do my best in a day by day here in Florida.

  Dylan Silver (19:22)
  Andrey, thank you so much for coming on the show here today.

  Andrey Cunha (19:25)
  Thank you, Don and I highly, highly appreciate it. was a pleasure and honor to be on your show and I hope to be at again some point soon.