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Richard Advani on Buying Small Businesses Cheap, Commercial Real Estate, and Scaling Beyond Rentals

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Show Summary

In this episode of the Real Estate Pros Podcast, host Dylan Silver interviews entrepreneur and investor Richard Advani. Originally from Southern California and now based in Oklahoma City, Richard shares his journey from buying a $27,500 duplex in Buffalo to building a diverse portfolio of real estate and businesses across more than 10 states. He explains how his background in the mortgage industry gave him unique market insights and helped him identify profitable opportunities. Richard also discusses his growing interest in commercial and industrial real estate, the benefits of investing in businesses alongside property, and how demographic shifts—such as retiring business owners—are creating opportunities for entrepreneurs to acquire established businesses at discounted prices.

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    Investor Fuel Show Transcript:

    Richard Advani (00:00)
    if you guys think logically, how many of us are single family investors, millions of us? How many of us invest in businesses? It’s a very small percentage. And what’s been exciting for me is there’s virtually no competition when you’re buying these businesses or commercial properties. ⁓ at the risk of ⁓ breeding more competition for myself, I urge you guys out there.

    You guys that are experienced single-family home investors like myself, start looking at some businesses and some commercial real estate. It’ll really surprise you.

    Dylan Silver (02:04)
    Hey folks, welcome back to the show. Today’s guest, Richard Advani, is a real estate investor, developer, home builder, serial entrepreneur, and professional race car driver. Born and raised in Southern California, but now based in Oklahoma City, he has extensive real estate holdings in over 10 states and has been investing in real estate for 20 years. You can find him online at richardadvani.com. Rich, thanks for taking the time today.

    Richard Advani (02:28)
    Yeah, thanks for having me Dylan.

    Dylan Silver (02:30)
    Now Southern California, was that where you got your start in real estate?

    Richard Advani (02:36)
    ⁓ It was where I was born and raised. The first rental I ever bought at 20 years old was a duplex in Buffalo, New York. So, across the country.

    Dylan Silver (02:44)
    Okay.

    How’d that deal go about?

    Richard Advani (02:48)
    Well, it was a horrible experience, ⁓ being a car guy, when I was 20 years old, I got in the mortgage business and I had $10,000 saved up and I wanted a new G35 sedan. And I’m like, what would Rich Dad do? I’d read the book two or three years earlier. So instead of putting this $10,000 down towards a car, I looked for a rental property and I ended up on a

    I laugh now I chuckle because it’s a $27,500 fully occupied duplex in Buffalo, New York.

    Dylan Silver (03:23)
    $27,500 to buy it?

    Richard Advani (03:26)
    Yep,

    yep. Yeah, and I put like 10,000 down, I got a 15 year fixed for 17,000. And

    Dylan Silver (03:34)
    Hold on, how

    is this possible? That was cheap even then, right?

    Richard Advani (03:38)
    Yeah, mean, Buffalo was, you know, a depressed market, for lack of a better word. And this is post financial crash. you know, 2007, 2008. So, oh, yeah, yeah. And for me, that was when I had the ability to start investing. Right. Luckily, was after everything had crashed.

    Dylan Silver (03:43)
    Okay, I got it, I got it.

    People are bleeding.

    Richard Advani (04:00)
    But yeah, I was running out of a thousand bucks a month and I’m like, okay, fast path. I’ve got life figured out and reality set in. I chuckle now because you needed a roof and shootings and everything that you could imagine. I still fell in love with real estate and I knew that was my fault, not real estate’s fault. But like a lot of us investors out there, we chase cash flow initially, right? And we let that be the guiding force and we all make mistakes.

    Dylan Silver (04:28)
    No question.

    mean, how did it go managing with that deal? Were the tenants very good? I mean, I can imagine across the country it’s not always easy.

    Richard Advani (05:24)
    Yeah, no, the tenants were horrible. I mean, it was constant turnover and you know, they’ve got six people living in there. Some people living in the attic, some people living in the basement. I mean, it was it was what you would expect from a $27,000 property in a market like Buffalo at the time. You know, it’s funny that same home today’s worth, you know, 200 grand. So, you know, if I would have held it held it till now, like like any real estate, right, even with

    Dylan Silver (05:26)
    ⁓

    Richard Advani (05:51)
    I think real estate’s amazing because it allows mistakes if you hold it long enough, right? You can make mistakes and still come out the other end positive,

    Dylan Silver (05:55)
    That’s a good point. Win.

    Now, I know that you’re involved in a number of different businesses. We were talking before the show, believe, a pizzeria, ⁓ rental cars, wedding venue, laundromat. At that point, though, if we’re going back in time to when you bought that duplex in Buffalo, was real estate your full focus outside of the mortgage space?

    Richard Advani (06:19)
    It was. I ended up focusing my lending business mortgage wise and working with real estate investors and grew to be one of the top lenders nationally and spoke at real estate events. so yeah, real estate became now, albeit when I bought that first duplex, I was 20, right? So I was still learning clearly what I was doing at that point, but I made real estate my focus from that point out. I made it my life.

    Dylan Silver (06:44)
    Now, walk me through, if I could get into the mindset of where you were at at that point in time, were you looking at deals every day or were you really having people come to you? Because you’re in the mortgage space, you’re a lender, so I’m sure you’re reviewing deals and you may think, hey, that may be one that would fit my buy box. How were you coming across deals at that time?

    Richard Advani (07:08)
    That’s a great, great question. actually tell people it’s almost like insider trading, Well, so firstly, except all legal, but firstly, I made it my mission to get to know providers across the country that cater to buy and hold investors like myself ⁓ as a lending partner, right? And there weren’t many lenders doing that. So it grew very quickly. you know, fast forward a couple of years, I’m doing, you know, a hundred deals for a team in Florida or a hundred deals in Oklahoma.

    As the lender, I have access to so much data that most people don’t have, right? And that’s the insider trading partner I was mentioning. The biggest thing preventing most of us from getting that first deal is just that fear, right? And it was easy for me to not be fearful because I had all this data and if I did 10 or 15 loans and I looked at the appraisals and I looked at the lease agreements, I was like, okay, I need to buy one there as well, right? So it made it very easy for me to go all in on.

    Dylan Silver (07:51)
    Yeah, it is.

    Richard Advani (08:06)
    real estate at a very young age. And, you know, eat cup of noodles if I had to, to get that next deal, right? Everything came.

    Dylan Silver (08:14)
    Were you looking at multiple different markets? Did you do more deals in Buffalo? I know you’re in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. Now, were you looking at deals in the Sun Belt as well?

    Richard Advani (08:25)
    I was looking at deals all over. mean, at the end of the day, where I was doing a lot of lending business, where I established those relationships is where I was buying, right? And I would go out and visit those markets as well as the lender, right? And as the lender, let’s say you’re selling homes in Texas, I would approach you to establish a relationship as your lender. Well, guess what? I would buy a home or two from you, right? Talk about value adds. There was no one else doing that. And then when you’d refer clients over to me, I had

    an intimate knowledge of your market. I had already purchased your product. I had visited, right? So there’s a lot of value I created as a lender slash real estate investor.

    Dylan Silver (09:06)
    Walk me through Oklahoma City, how’d you get out there?

    Richard Advani (09:09)
    So I invest this, know, kind of similar to what I’ve been mentioning. I developed a relationship ⁓ with a builder I met at a real estate event 15 years ago. Started doing business with him, bought four properties myself in Oklahoma city about a decade ago. And for the better part of the last decade, he calls me a couple of times a year to try to get me to move out to Oklahoma and partner up with them. He’s a little older gentleman. after… ⁓

    10 years of coming out and doing a little diligence. I came out and actually spent 45 days out here at the end of 2024 and determined that it was something I was willing to do. So yeah, moved with my wife and daughter. Just like that, it happened very quickly.

    Dylan Silver (09:53)
    couldn’t have been any more different as far as staying in the states, right? Southern California to Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, right?

    Richard Advani (10:34)
    Yep, big, big change for a lot of people. I actually love it. My wife loves it as well. The sense of community here is incredible. ⁓ And, you the weather’s not as bad as people make it out to be. But it’s it’s it reminds me of California when I was a kid, right? Kids still play outside. You go to restaurants, no one’s on their phones. You know, it’s it’s just different. But we we really enjoy it.

    Dylan Silver (10:42)
    That’s true.

    Hmm.

    I actually didn’t know that. I’m surprised to hear that. I think that that’s a testament to, like you mentioned, the community that is out there. Now, are you seeing the urban sprawl? If we just look at Oklahoma City specifically, are you seeing the urban sprawl of Oklahoma City expand? Is the city getting larger itself?

    Richard Advani (11:20)
    It is, and it started in a big way, nothing like what’s happening obviously in Dallas and Fort Worth, right? That’s craziness. But it has, and Oklahoma City’s growing. It’s one of the few markets in the last 12 to 14 months that have actually gone up marginally while everyone else went down marginally. And I say marginally because we were like, oh, real estate went down last year. like 2 % in a lot of markets, right? So, whereas we went up.

    Dylan Silver (11:28)
    Yeah.

    Richard Advani (11:46)
    one, one and a half percent. So it has really good fundamentals, which is what attracted me to it as an investor, you know, 10 to 12 years ago. What’s been fun for me though, as a business owner and as an entrepreneur is just living in an investible market, right? I don’t come from legacy wealth, investing in California is a pipe dream. You know, you can’t go by a strip mall or a business without spending crazy amounts of money. So that’s, that’s been fun since I’ve, we’ve come here.

    Dylan Silver (12:02)
    Yeah.

    Do you have ⁓ asset classes or segments of real estate, be it single family, small, multi-family, multi-family, retail, office, industrial, that you’re particularly bullish on or that you like reviewing deals in?

    Richard Advani (12:32)
    It’s funny you said that because I now own almost all of those asset classes. I started buying commercial May of last year, starting with an office building. Um, and I moved very quickly. I, I, I, uh, a mom and pops investor, right? have single family homes all across the country and, um, commercial definitely excites me. And I wanted, I want to learn as much as I can about it. Cause I want to start building commercial and offering that to.

    mom and pops investors like myself as opportunities. So initial plan is, let me acquire a bunch in each category where I’m really bullish on. And what I plan to start developing this year is that industrial kind of mixed use, you know, work condos, as you call them, the 1200, 1500 square feet has an office in it. Also a big shop door. And

    I see that as a future in terms of needs of where the general world’s going and the economy is going. But also I see it as a unique opportunity for investors just because look, most of us are never have even thought of owning commercial. It’s just a whole different animal. And if we had the opportunity to buy commercial packaged almost like residential, you know, and 150, $200,000 entry costs to buy a unit.

    a steel building, right, that generates a double digit return, I think it would be very appealing to the market. So that’s a big focus of ours moving forward.

    Dylan Silver (14:02)
    There does seem to be a lot of interest from so many different folks.

    in industrial. And I’ve heard it for a number of different reasons. I’ve heard people say, oh, you know, increase in online retail is a big thing, but then you also need, you know, storage and you need warehouses and, know, know, folks like the Amazons, you know, are needing industrial space to have their warehouse facilities, right. But we’re seeing more and more of that. And so what I think used to be a really niche sect of real estate is

    now becoming something that even smaller investors are looking into.

    Richard Advani (15:22)
    Exactly. It’s just foreign and scary for us, right? So what I’m gonna try to do is package and bottle it to where it’s similar to what we do. It’s easy like buying a single family home. The only difference is, you know, the cap ex on these are so minimal because they’re just.

    you know, steel buildings, you know, with you don’t need to worry about wood and rod and things falling apart eight, 10, 15 years later and appliances and all that. So that’s what’s appealing for me. And also the value add that commercial gives that real estate doesn’t, right? If you increase cashflow, that increases the price and you can sell it for a profit or you can cash out of it for a profit. So it adds a whole nother element.

    Dylan Silver (15:54)
    Yeah.

    Now I also know that you’re involved in some other businesses. The restaurant space is a new one, right? Because people often say restaurants are one of the hardest to be in and I don’t know the statistics, but I’ve been told that it’s challenging to run a successful restaurant. How’d you get into that space?

    Richard Advani (16:21)
    Man, if you would have asked me even six months ago, if I would ever own a restaurant, I’d tell you, heck no, never, right? Just like your knowledge, my knowledge is 99.9 % probably fail and the ones that don’t fail later. ⁓ But I had an opportunity come across my desk and it’s really what we always hear about on podcasts and YouTube, right? The baby boomers and there’s no one to take over their businesses and a lot of them are just about to turn off the switch and shut down their business. And I had an opportunity brought to me that was similar.

    an established restaurant, 32 years. And I was looking for all the reasons not to buy it. But I had the numbers in front of me. I had the P &Ls up for three years. And after searching and searching and searching, I couldn’t find a reason not to buy it. And what was interesting for me was the seller, him, it wasn’t like, to me, I bought it 20 cents on the dollar, literally. And for him, it wasn’t giving me this crazy deal. It was,

    Hey, I was about to turn it off. So even 20 cents on the dollar is a bonus to me, right? And that’s how the baby boomers are thinking, because no one wants the business, right? ⁓ And the kids don’t want it. And their alternative is turn it off or watch it continue to prosper, even if it means selling it at a fraction of what market value is. So yeah, I closed January 2nd of this year. So I’m about two months in and ⁓ it has exceeded my expectations.

    very blessed to where that owner still, he shows up like four days a week, right? To re-look at the P &L, make sure everyone’s doing their job, because it’s part of his soul, you know? So it’s amazing, and I love pizza, so who doesn’t?

    Dylan Silver (18:02)
    I mean, come on now. Now, when we talk about buying businesses, I know, you know, I mentioned earlier, you know, rental car, wedding venue, restaurant, laundromat. Are there key factors that you look for that would determine, you know, if something is a goodbye?

    Richard Advani (18:24)
    I mean, yeah, I’m looking at cashflow, also I because compared to California real estate’s cheap here, I try to focus on businesses that own the real estate they’re on. That’s a huge factor for me. And that’s really where you’ll get the good deal because, you know, the seller, the owners are looking at it almost a little less two dimensionally, right? They’re looking at their total price where I’m looking at. And most of them, they’ve been in business a long time. The real estate’s paid off.

    So what I’ve seen is a lot of times you can buy the real estate at face value or less and get the business for free, right? And that satisfies them as well. But I’m open to any type of business. In fact, the gentleman who’s been helping me bring me some of these deals, he’s like, what are you after? I’m like anything and everything. As long as it’s a crazy good deal. If you could think of two right now, then it’s not good enough, right? You need to bring me the crazy and I will perform.

    We’ll buy anything and everything if it makes sense, you know. ⁓

    Dylan Silver (19:27)
    It’s got to be

    bought for the right price. I mean, it’s the same thing in real estate, right? You can, especially if you’re doing strategies like fix and flip, right? You can, you know, appreciate it however much you want, but if the market doesn’t support it, ultimately it’s going to come back to, well, what’d you buy it for? And you really got to buy it for, especially right now, you have to buy it for the right price. We are coming up on time here though, Rich. Any new projects that you’re working on and then, you know, what’s the best way for folks to reach out to you or your team?

    Richard Advani (19:42)
    Mm-hmm.

    Absolutely. ⁓ I mean, all kinds of new projects. I would maybe wrap by saying is, if you guys think logically, how many of us are single family investors, millions of us? How many of us invest in businesses? It’s a very small percentage. And what’s been exciting for me is there’s virtually no competition when you’re buying these businesses or commercial properties. ⁓ at the risk of ⁓ breeding more competition for myself, I urge you guys out there.

    You guys that are experienced single-family home investors like myself, start looking at some businesses and some commercial real estate. It’ll really surprise you.

    ⁓ If you guys want to get a hold of me, richardadvani.com is my website. There’s a contact me form on there, or I think we’ve got our phone number listed as well. But yeah, appreciate the opportunity to be here and share with you guys and share my passion for real estate.

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