Scaling Rental Portfolios and Finding Opportunity in Texas Real Estate

Robert Astacio II (00:00)
So she said if you want to qualify for something like an FHA 203K, can, you know, you have three and half percent down that you have a lot bigger buyer pool and you know you can get an approved contractor with FHA and ⁓ or with HUD and ⁓ that will allow him to sell better and the idea she gave him was to just take out the boilers. So by taking out the boilers you know you already have them.

Quentin (00:31)
Mmm.

Robert Astacio II (00:36)
You know, they’re already, they’re brand new, they’re, good to go. They’re working, just take them out. And then you can have a contractor that you hire through the, you know, the program and then they could just put them back in and then you pay them a small fee. You know, it, it, saves him time and it gets his deal going, you know, and I think that was very creative of her. And so, you know, something that people don’t traditionally think of when it comes to like, for example, creative financing, you know, because.

Quentin (00:38)
there.

Robert Astacio II (01:05)
It takes the money aspect out of the equation and is focusing more on the logistics,

Quentin (02:43)
Everyone! Welcome to the Real Estate Pros podcast. I am your host Q Edmonds. And as I always say, I’m very, very excited to be with you today. I am excited to have my guest with me. We were talking a little bit and I’m glad and happy for him to come and kind of take you into his world. ⁓ Man, this guy, he’s made some incredible strides in the commercial real estate and investing.

He’s been landlordin’ over seven years with seven years of experience, owner, manager, general manager, partner. I mean, this guy has done a lot. And so I know you are going to benefit from his unique lens. And so I’m excited to introduce you to Mr. Astacio. How did I do, man, on that last name, brother?

Robert Astacio II (03:34)
On point.

Quentin (03:36)
On point. Listen, y’all need to know I was practicing. I was practicing, y’all need to know that, but I’m telling you anyway. But I just like to put respect on people named Mr. Robert. And so I’m so excited, man, have you here today. And I know our listeners are going to take something away from what you have to say in your unique lens. so if you’re on mine, man, I just want to dive in. People may not be familiar with your world and what you do. So.

Give us like a main focus. What’s your main focus these days and what markets are you operating?

Robert Astacio II (04:08)
So currently I’m in like the Essex and Bergen County in northern Jersey, ⁓ very highly gentrified and ⁓ how do you put it, growing area as far as population goes. know, a lot of people are coming in from New York City and that’s where a lot of my personal portfolio is ⁓ concentrated in. And ⁓ as far as like syndications and the larger, you know,

commercial residential space. It’s mostly in Dallas, Texas. I like Dallas. It’s a strong market. I know it’s ⁓ slowing down quite a bit now. Austin, especially, is actually taking quite a bit of a hit. But I only see that as an opportunity. So ⁓ in about maybe one or two years time, you’ll probably see that market bottom out. And I’m going to be heavily trying to acquire more stuff over there.

Quentin (05:53)
Absolutely, man. love it. Some of the things we were talking about is, you know, how you can help people with tax advantages. And I don’t know if you want to talk about the repositioning of the business as well, but it seems like you are you are focused and got some some things going on that you’re trying to transition into. Is that correct?

Robert Astacio II (06:13)
Yeah, so as I was explaining to you earlier, this area is very tenant friendly and it just makes it harder to do business. And there’s also like, you know, things like, for example, state income tax, which I could easily avoid just by going to Texas or Florida or Nevada, you know. And it just made more sense business wise, as a business decision to like get out of here. And I’m in the process of doing that.

It’s been a little bit slow to transition because of the macroeconomic conditions. ⁓ I was under contract from my four family for 1.2 and that fell apart because interest rates didn’t lower as fast as we expected. And then when the tariffs took, you know, started to take effect and the negotiating ⁓ that kind of, you know, made people more tighter with their money. And it’s also been affecting like, ⁓ you know,

the speed at which I’m able to rent my units.

Quentin (07:16)
I get it, man, it’s that easy, especially in this climate, but I mean, you’re still moving forward, you’re still making moves. So mind telling us, what’s been the key to kind of keeping that machine running smoothly?

Robert Astacio II (07:30)
So I’m very hands-on with my business, especially like my personal portfolio. Like I do all my own self-managing and you know, I’m the one who’s doing the running around like even when it comes to like getting material. And I understand that’s probably not the most time efficient thing to do. I should probably leverage like some sort of project manager. My thing is, is like I was telling you before, like there’s pros and cons to that.

You you first of all, you have to pay someone to do that. And on top of that, they’re they can mess up. They’re not going to care the same way you care because it’s your business. And that’s fine. So for and for the time being, it makes sense because, like I said, I’m trying to reposition. So ⁓ when I get down over into the Sunbelt area and I’m looking for deals, I can scale a lot easier and function more ⁓ efficiently.

And then I can consider, you know, hiring somebody to do the day to day stuff.

I’ve just been trying to like, you know, ⁓ you know, be boots on the ground, just keep everything in line. Keep it, keep a tight ship.

You know, be a captain, essentially. And, you know, that means, you know, getting your hands dirty, rolling up your sleeves, grabbing yourself by the bootstraps and, you know, taking the helm because sometimes, you know, contractors fall short. They do things like wrong or incorrect, you know, because when you’re trying to quote prices and stuff like that, you know, you want to get the best price. But, you know, sometimes you sacrifice quality for price or you sacrifice price for quality.

And you know, have those trade-offs to make and on my own personal portfolio, I try to save as much money as I can so I can reinvest as much money as I can and try and save on taxes as well so that in the long term, because I’m sure you know the compound effect is the seventh wonder of the world. And in 10, 20, 30 years time, those little bit of savings, you know, they add up and a little drops of water make a mighty ocean. So.

And that’s how I’ve just been trying to run it, you know, as clean and tweaky and as well maintained as possible.

Quentin (10:22)
Yeah. Nah, man, thank you for that. It so well said. And I hate you, man, especially. It’d be nice if we can clone people. I mean, clone ourself, right? Clone ourself that somebody that think like that, that would make the same decisions that we make, you know, it’s hard. Sometimes relinquishing that trust, you gotta come behind somebody and clean up the mess. Sometimes it’s just like, just working double time. You know what saying? So ⁓ I get it. I get exactly what you mean now. I know you mentioned the 1.2.

Robert Astacio II (10:30)
you

Yeah.

Quentin (10:51)
$2 million deal that did not go through. And that’s something that we like to do here. We like to talk about times when things get real, right? When things go sideways, times when we have to pivot fast. And so you mind telling us a little bit more, about that one or another time when things kind of didn’t go your way? know, telling us a story like that?

Robert Astacio II (11:12)
So, ⁓ lot of the things that I’ve experienced, think are more like, kind of like, you know, not that they’re unheard of, like they’re more common. And, you know, cause I’ve only been doing this for, yeah, like about seven years, right? So a lot of the stuff I’ve experienced is, you know, stuff you hear on probably more or less in the space, but I do, I do maybe want to touch on some of the experiences my mother’s had since she’s been in the business 35 years.

I like to leverage other people’s experience, you know, because it saves me time and it saves me the trouble. And she obviously doesn’t want me to make the same mistake she did. actually, I have some notes here I could probably reference if you don’t mind. ⁓ one time ⁓ my mother had a…

⁓ a partner, ⁓ I won’t mention his name, but ⁓ he was having trouble selling a mixed-use building and that he did really nice and it was in a good area. I don’t remember what area it was exactly, but my mom gave him a clever idea and ⁓ the, for example, the idea was ⁓ he wasn’t able to sell his building and from what my mom can analyze is the fact that

for that particular building because it was mixed use, you’re going to need like 20 to 30 percent down and it was in a good area so it was very expensive. the way she looked at it was you have a very small buyer pool, like it’s very niche, especially for something like that.

So she said if you want to qualify for something like an FHA 203K, can, you know,

you have three and half percent down that you have a lot bigger buyer pool and you know you can get an approved contractor with FHA and ⁓ or with HUD and ⁓ that will allow him to sell better and the idea she gave him was to just take out the boilers. So by taking out the boilers you know you already have them.

Quentin (13:31)
Mmm.

Robert Astacio II (13:36)
You know, they’re already, they’re brand new, they’re, good to go. They’re working, just take them out. And then you can have a contractor that you hire through the, you know, the program and then they could just put them back in and then you pay them a small fee. You know, it, it, saves him time and it gets his deal going, you know, and I think that was very creative of her. And so, you know, something that people don’t traditionally think of when it comes to like, for example, creative financing, you know, because.

Quentin (13:38)
there.

Robert Astacio II (14:05)
It takes the money aspect out of the equation and is focusing more on the logistics,

right? The logistics of the process of getting people to qualify versus, you know, trying to look for people who have more money to put down, like 200, 300,000, whatever it is. So that’s one story. had a story with the, let’s see here.

Quentin (14:53)
Absolutely.

Robert Astacio II (15:18)
So my mom had a story with where she was, no, it was a client of hers was buying ⁓ the same parcel of land, but it had two different deeds. ⁓ And these are things that you don’t really see or even think of when you traditionally enter into the real estate space. ⁓ And another story I can give you is my mom had a client who was looking to buy a house.

Quentin (15:32)
Mmm.

Robert Astacio II (15:46)
who wanted good schools, but she didn’t want Newark. And what happened was they couldn’t afford anything else but Newark. And there was this house that was its property line. It was a Newark house, a corner of the parcel of land on the lot was ⁓ Bloomfield. And even though you only pay a small portion of taxes on that, her kids could still go to Bloomfield schools.

based on that pro rata. and there are a ton of different stories that like taxing foreclosures, for example. And I’ve heard stories like from other people, not necessarily my mom. And this also comes with the benefit of networking with people in the New Jersey RIA. You got to hear their stories too.

You know, they buy a tax lien for like, you know, back then at least for like five grand, right? And, you know, after two years they can foreclose and ⁓ get the property and then sell it on the market for whatever was left over. And that wipes out all other existing liens. So like, you know, bank liens and other stuff. The only thing that would come before it would be like maybe like a government lien, you know. I know that

Though they are just to update, they are cracking down on that because there are other states that rule that you’re essentially stealing equity from the homeowner and you cannot use the state as a system to gain profit. So there are changes in that space and tax liens are less attractive because of that, but they’re still very attractive because a lot of them, first of all, 80%, I think it’s 80 % of homeowners

redeem the lien. So, and if you know, you’re bidding down from 18%, which is, you know, legally where the bidding starts for most states, some states in some areas, it’s 25%. You know, you can get seven, eight or 10 or 12 % on your money just for owning that, that lien. So yeah, there’s, you know, I’ve heard of a ton of stories of like, you know, for example, ⁓

What is it? I’ve heard stories of… I remember when me and my mom, had this house on 4th Street. And I personally helped do the demo of the interior. And they had knob and tube wiring in the house. a lot of people don’t even know what that is, you know? And basically, back in like the late 1800s, like, what they used to do is they would run tubes for gas.

right? And they would power lamps. It was basically the old form of electricity, you know, and the gas would run through the tubes and into the house and power the lamps that were within the house before, you know, they had, you know, normal wiring. So, yeah, and I have a ton of stories. I don’t even know where to begin. And a lot of them aren’t mine.

Quentin (18:42)
Yeah.

Yeah. ⁓ man, you’d have said that

plenty. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Robert Astacio II (19:02)
Yeah, a lot of the stories aren’t mine because like I said, I haven’t been in

that space that long. A lot of the stuff I’ve dealt with is pretty cookie cutter.

Quentin (19:08)
Got you.

Got you. But now, man, I thank you. Thank you for sharing. I thank you for your unique perspective and your storytelling, man. I appreciate that. So let me ask you this. What are you next focused on solving? Like, what’s your next real goal?

Robert Astacio II (19:25)
⁓ I wanna be, I do wanna scale more and I also wanna be more hands-off and I wanna own my time, you know? So, I’m only 27 years old, but I think in three years, once like, you know, I reposition from here over down to where I wanna go, I can leverage, you know, other people’s time, other people’s money.

And, you know, I could scale a lot faster while also taking it a little bit easier myself and focus on other things that I would like to do, not necessarily. So I do like real estate, but I like it more as for the means it provides and what it can do for me more so than like genuinely enjoy it like as kind of like a sport, you know what I mean? So like, ⁓ I’m trying to, you know, scale and ⁓

What is it called? Delegate more.

Quentin (20:24)
Yeah,

No, absolutely, man. And I love it. think, I know you talked about kind of leveraging other people’s experience, right? Like, you know, when you got somebody who can come in and give you the experience to kind of save you time, it almost like catapults you, right? Slingshots you, right? So let me ask you this. When it comes to building relationships and growing your network, what’s made the biggest difference for you?

Robert Astacio II (20:53)
would say… I would probably say the relationships. I think that’s made the biggest difference. Because even my mother only knows so much. You can only do so much yourself. And the truth of the matter is, no matter whether you’re in real estate or venture capital, big tech, whatever it is, whatever space you’re in, you have to…

leverage other people and To build wealth you need other people to build wealth It’s enough you could sit on a gold mine, but if gold was invaluable if no one wanted it. It’s useless all right, and and like here like I’ll give a visual like you know this all this is is Cotton and linen and it’s 75 % cotton 25 % linen a lot a lot of people don’t know that

But it’s a means for barter, right? It’s a means for trade. It’s a means for exchange. But this is constantly being printed and losing value, right? So you need to ⁓ exchange with other people, not just money and assets and stuff like that, but experience and trade, because I’m not an expert in plumbing. I have to hire a plumber for that. And I want a good plumber.

Like even if I did know plumbing, I want someone who has experience and the knowledge and you know, the dexterity to work in that space. And that goes for any field, you know, it could be, you know, taxes, you know, I’m very, I’m very astute and I like to learn a lot about a little things, but that just makes it so that I can vet whoever I’m dealing with, who I want to do the work and to do it well, more efficient.

So because I can only do so much myself and I’m also down I’m also bound to make a mistake eventually and I’d like to have someone fact-check me

Quentin (22:59)
Yeah. So very well said, man. I definitely agree. And I love your perspective for sure, But listen, before we wrap, if someone wanted to reach out to you, connect with you, maybe collaborate with you, what’s the best way for them to reach out to you,

Robert Astacio II (23:14)
So ⁓ you can reach out to me at longhorninvestingllc.gmail.com ⁓ That’s typically the email I use for syndications and anything real estate related. And you can shoot me an email and we can work together. I’d love to explore that. I’m also on Facebook and Instagram too.

Quentin (23:36)
listen.

Absolutely, Absolutely. Well, listen, everyone. There he is, Mr. Astacio. Listen, man, I appreciate your time. I appreciate your story. I appreciate your perspective. Thank you so much for coming through, man. I appreciate you.

Robert Astacio II (23:53)
Likewise good to be here. Thanks for having me

Quentin (23:55)
Absolutely.

Definitely. And for those tuning in, you know what I like to say, you have to make sure you’re subscribed. We have great conversations coming up. You do not want to miss it. And so until the next time.