Scaling to 70 Deals a Year | Realtor & Competitive Eater Edward Jarvis

Edward J Jarvis Re/Max Best (00:00)
I became a professional speed eater.

that so many people would see me on Jay Leno’s show, on the news, on Al Roker or Katie Kirk or Diane Sawyer or whoever. I was in

I would walk into their living room and they’d go, hey, you’re that eating guy. You’re the guy that ate all the hot dogs.

So it was like a very easy, warm, neat marketing. And even on my card it says my commission won’t eat you at a house at home

Dylan Silver (00:18)
I’m kidding.

Hey, folks, welcome back to the show. Today’s guest is a Long Island based realtor and works closely with investors to help people achieve their real estate goals. Please welcome Edward Jarvis. Edward, welcome to the show.

Edward J Jarvis Re/Max Best (02:11)
Good morning, how are you?

Dylan Silver (02:13)
I’m great. Good morning to you as well. East Coast time. was in Texas last week and now I’m in Santo Domingo in the Dominican Republic. So we’re now on the same time zone. want to ask you about getting into the real estate space. I think a lot of times people will often see where people are on the journey but they won’t see how they started. How did you get into the real estate space?

Edward J Jarvis Re/Max Best (02:24)
Nice.

Actually, I had a girlfriend who

trying to buy a house, condo from this broker. And she says, you know, if I go direct, I could save some money. I go, no, because the owner pays the commission. I think that’s how it works. So I called the broker and I asked them. And as it turned out, I was building construction and I was doing cabinets at the time. And then it got slow. And I said, you know what, maybe I go get my real estate license. I kind of like selling houses. I kind of like selling things that are related to houses because I feel like I’ve been working on them my whole life.

So I got my license, I went to work for the guy that actually I broke up with the girl and I went to work for him. The first six months I sold like, I don’t know, few houses. And then the second six months I sold 26 houses in six months.

Dylan Silver (03:20)
So that first year you had sold a lot of houses in that first year. Were you anticipating that level of success or was it shocking even to you?

Edward J Jarvis Re/Max Best (03:29)
I knew a lot of people, so I wasn’t totally unaware. And you know, the more you got your name out there and people started feeling you, hey, you know, I can help him out, whatever. But I gotta tell you, people are not as loyal as they used to be because like people just do things and you’re like, hello, what am I, what? I’ve helped you 500 times on 500 different projects and you don’t even call me to sell your house. You put it up with some stranger, no financial gain to help him.

Dylan Silver (03:48)
and they go somewhere else.

So was this was this pre 2008 post

what time frame.

Edward J Jarvis Re/Max Best (03:58)
I was, I’m in 34 years, so I’m in like back in the late midnight, early nineties.

Dylan Silver (04:04)
As far as market conditions back then for people who might not be familiar, what was it like? Was everyone buying houses back then? Where was it easier to get mortgages? What was the market like in Long Island?

Edward J Jarvis Re/Max Best (04:14)
You

know, rates were like 10%. So they’re like complaining about six and I’m like, six and a half is not that bad. I got in, it was like over 13, I think. And at the time, you know, they used to bring you a book to the office. It wasn’t on MLS, like a computer. And then when they went digital, I was like, oh, I’m going to have to get a laptop. My first laptop setup was almost $4,800 with a case and a printer and whatever to go.

I go to a house and I got like an air thing and you know for my computer and they’re looking at me like I got seven heads. Wow, this guy’s high tech. He’s like, you know, and that thing is like obsolete. You know, it looks like a dinosaur compared to how fast they are now.

Dylan Silver (04:54)
You know, I think when people talk about tech and so many different things right now, kind of the buzzword is

AI. ⁓ A lot of times people will say, you know, what do I got to do to get integrated with AI or how do I make my my business revolve around or what can I do to get better with it? But real estate is always and I think forever going to be a contact sport because people want to know the person that they’re buying the home from.

Was there anything in particular that you did that first year? mean, 26 homes in the second six months that you felt like had a big impact in that first year?

Edward J Jarvis Re/Max Best (06:08)
Yeah, they won’t.

I feel I just marketed myself well the first six months, but it took time to get a groove of who to advertise to, places, locations. I was selling a lot of condos. At that time, I became the condo king the following year because every year after that, I was doing a minimum of between 35 and 70 condos a year. And then I was like, I gotta get into the house market because it’s a lot more money.

So I started selling houses and investment properties and I learned more about that. And then, know, how to, worked for a company that, you Remax and we do a lot of REO properties. So sometimes we have 200 houses in the pipeline waiting for eviction or, you know, tenant occupied, sell them, whatever. So, you know, it gets interesting, but it’s, you know, at least it doesn’t get boring.

Dylan Silver (06:59)
I want to ask you two different questions. First, you mentioned condos and then transitioning from condos to homes. But in an area like Long Island and the Greater Long Island area, of course, real estate is going to be more scarce than in some other areas. When you’re making that pivot and you’re seeing, you know, deal volume, are you thinking in your mind at that point in time? Well, I’m still going to sell condos. Or are you thinking, know,

Edward J Jarvis Re/Max Best (07:23)
Oh yeah, I didn’t

stop selling them. I just pivoted to add more stuff. I always say, when you go to the grocery store, the more you have, the more people buy, right? So it’s like, if you don’t have it, they don’t buy it, or they don’t know you sell it, they don’t buy it. So you have to be pretty much in every facet of real estate. So I’ve learned over the years, have somebody for everything. They call me the fix-it guy because if they got a problem, I fix it.

Dylan Silver (07:33)
That’s right.

And then

Edward J Jarvis Re/Max Best (07:50)
I’m like

the lighthouse, I’m six foot six. I just guide them to where they wanna go. Like, where do you wanna go? Give me a gauge and I’ll make it happen. I’ll keep you off the rocks.

Dylan Silver (07:59)
And then that’s right. And then when when you mention REO real estate on ⁓ properties. The typical investor I think may have some exposure to this but also may be more familiar with getting homes at the foreclosure auction or maybe more familiar with finding properties on the MLS. How does this interface the REOs with investors and how can investors purchase REO properties? Is it always at the foreclosure auction?

Edward J Jarvis Re/Max Best (08:26)
No, because most of them, believe it or not, we get, get, you know, a lot of them hit the steps and then get, you know, the bank buys it back. So they basically go to the auction, they buy them back because they need the write off. So they get the write off from the Fed or whoever they get it from, and then they put it back on the market. So, and if they, sometimes they fix them, sometimes they don’t. I’d prefer them not to fix them because then I get another house on the other end. If they fix them, then I don’t get the house on the other end.

Dylan Silver (08:50)
That’s right.

Edward J Jarvis Re/Max Best (08:54)
But I guess if there’s a lot of room for them and they say, well, we’re going to get penalized for not fixing it and we can make a lot more money, then they do.

Dylan Silver (09:00)
I want to pivot a bit here, Edward, and ask you about scaling a real estate business to 70 deals a year. I think 30 is a lot. 30 would be two deals a month, a little bit more than that. 70, did you have a team working underneath you? How were you able to handle the deal flow, lead generation, managing the closings, managing issues that come up with buyers and sellers?

Edward J Jarvis Re/Max Best (09:24)
70 deals was all me. And I had nobody helping me paperwork wise. In those days, paperwork was a little easier than it is now. I feel like they’ve added a lot of paperwork. I mean, I got to cut down a tree every time I go to do a deal. So I’ll be happy when they make it all digital. can check the box, check the box, know, it’s a little thing on an iPad and you can just check the box. That would be a lot easier. I’m sure there is something, but I just haven’t learned it yet. But probably soon with AI, I’m sure it’s going to be happening. But you know what happened was

Dylan Silver (09:34)
Yeah.

Edward J Jarvis Re/Max Best (09:54)
I became a, in 2001,

it just seemed right as a professional speed eater.

Now I’ve been out since 2008 but people still stop me on the side of road. Aren’t you that guy? Aren’t you the guy that ate all the hot dogs and ate all the cannolis, ate pounds of pasta?

Dylan Silver (10:43)
I want to ask you about the speed eating world. I grew up, know, Joey Chestnut, Takaru Kobayashi, Nathan’s hot dog eating contest. Speed eating seems like a difficult game to be in. How did you get into speed eating?

Edward J Jarvis Re/Max Best (10:58)
You know what the funny part is? It’s no worse than real estate. It’s like anything else. You have to practice and be at the top of your game all the time. I said to my friend the other day, go, listen, you think it was easy staying in the top 5 % of Long Island that easily, Nassau, Suffolk County for agents? It’s not that easy. You know, right now I’m at like 13, which I can’t even believe, but I’m like, you know, and there’s just not as much listing. So otherwise I would be much higher. And the goal is by the end of the year to get back in the top 10%.

So, but again, it’s just, you know, it’s just timing, you know, everything’s timing. If they drop the rate, my life would go back to normal. They drop it, I mean, they say in September, which is right around the corner, I pray that even if they drop it a half a percent, 1%, to like 5.75, the market would go berserk. It would be back to normal and I’d be happy again, busy, busy, busy. The busier I am, the happier I am. And I can give up any paperwork.

Dylan Silver (11:34)
That’s right, think a lot of people are hoping for that.

I want to ask you about working with investors and being a realtor. So I’m a licensed realtor, newly licensed, previously wholesaler, and I still have a lot of passion for that space, although it’s trickier to do it as a realtor now. In your perspective and working with all the investors that you’ve worked with, do investors typically by and large have a strategy for times like this, or are they really on the sidelines more or less and waiting for conditions to change?

Edward J Jarvis Re/Max Best (12:07)
Yes.

No, I think a lot of guys are on the sidelines because you can’t afford to buy something and overpay, unfortunately. And a lot of these processes are going to end users now because they can buy it and they can get it fixed with a rehab loan. And, you know, they could put 75,000 into it and now they own a house that’s worth, you know, $75,000 investment. And it’s still worth it because the prices are, you know, just there. But, you know, in the down market, it’s a little more challenging because you can’t, you know, put in 75,000 sometimes if you’re underwater. So.

Dylan Silver (12:52)
It’s definitely one of those things. think new builds you were talking about this before hopping on here. New builds is where a lot of people are moving towards and in Texas, which is what I can speak to, there’s a lot of incentive for people to look at new builds, especially comparing it to a flip when the flip might be, you know, $50,000 less. And you’re thinking, well, if I can get more or less a new home versus the old and the old is going to be $50,000, I might as well get the new. I want to pivot again here, Edward, and ask you about

Edward J Jarvis Re/Max Best (13:14)
right there.

Dylan Silver (13:21)
the competitive eating role, which I know very little about. ⁓ How did you get into that? And then what were some of your favorite memories from that game, right?

Edward J Jarvis Re/Max Best (13:30)
So

I was watching a competition on Food Network and it was a matzoh bowl eating competition. I’m like, that’s right back in our neighborhood. So I was like, you know what, they do like five or six qualifiers and they pick, you know, each guy, each person gets picked from each location. Then they pick like two runner-ups from all the, all the six locations. So I’m like, Ben’s Deli. I’m like, let’s go check it out. So we go to one year, my wife happened to be Jewish. I happen to eat matzoh bowls. So I said, let me see how they eat them. So I was watching videotaping.

And then I entered the one in Huntington Mall and was a Ben’s deli at the time. And so I tried it out. I ate like eight and a half matzo balls in two minutes and 50 seconds. They’re half pan a piece. But I was like literally putting them in my mouth hole and swallowing them, which is not that easy because they’re like concrete. So I’m like, and I lost. So I was like, all right, well, we’re gonna, we’ll look at the video, we’ll practice and then we’ll learn how to eat them. So then I went to the same place and I picked up like 13.

and I tried them and I ate them much quicker because I was cutting them in half. So sure enough, I can eat them much quicker, cutting them in half, boom, done, problem solved. I go to the next qualifier, I win. I go to the finals, they give you five minutes, 25 seconds. I ate 13 months of bowls in five minutes, 25 seconds. But they only give you one bottle of water, which is a mistake because you need water to swallow stuff. And you’re not gonna like drink out of the bowl, that looks a little awkward.

Dylan Silver (14:58)
Yeah.

Edward J Jarvis Re/Max Best (14:58)
while you’re on TV, that’s pretty,

pretty rude. So I’m like, what do I do? Right? You you run out of water, you run out of water, you got to figure it out. So, but the problem was I ended up going to overtime. But what they didn’t show you was the other guy in his bowl. He had lots of debris, but they took his bowl away. But I saw it at a later date. That cost me 2,500 bucks because I lost in overtime.

Dylan Silver (15:42)
Yeah.

Huh.

⁓ no.

Edward J Jarvis Re/Max Best (16:07)
And so I was like, oh, this sucks. ate six and a half pounds of matzo ball and I didn’t even win. And I lose $2,500. So I had this guy come up to me and he’s got a corn cob hat on him. like, what the hell is this guy? He was like an announcer or whatever. And he’s like, you know, kid, you have an agent. I’m like, for what? And he’s like, for reading. He goes, you know, there’s a circuit of eaters. Really? You mean I’ve been eating for free all these years? He goes, yeah, there’s a circuit of eaters, really. Yeah, sign me up, because I want to beat that guy every time he comes out. And guess what?

That guy never beat me again. And I made sure I punished him at all angles. I think I won like 13 events after that one event out of 15. And the two that I lost, I lost by literally ounces. So close.

Dylan Silver (16:49)
No kidding.

And

so as a competitive eater, I’ve seen so many different like physiques in the competitive eat. And again, I know very little about it, but I’ve seen people who are like ultra ripped up and muscular. And then I’ve seen people who look like they’re not training athletically. Is there an ideal like regimen for competitive?

Edward J Jarvis Re/Max Best (17:10)
They

say the thinner guys have an advantage, but I gotta tell you, in those days, I was kicking everybody’s behind and I was just taking them to town because I was a big dude and I had plenty of room and I told them I was hungry and focused and I didn’t come here to wave at the crowd, I came here for the win.

Dylan Silver (17:27)
What was it like at that point in time? mean, you mentioned people were coming up to you recognizing you. Did you know at that point that it was gonna be a great marketing funnel or was it something you just enjoyed doing and it just happened to be kind of a great opportunity?

Edward J Jarvis Re/Max Best (17:44)
It’s funny because I put my kids through college with my eating career. So that money basically paid for two bar mitzvahs. It paid for two years of college for each kid. It actually paid for third and fourth year for my daughter. My son, not so much, but I got the first two years, so now I’m paying for the last two years. But it was a lot of money. It’s a lot of money.

Dylan Silver (18:05)
Yeah.

Edward J Jarvis Re/Max Best (18:06)
Some months I’d

make $12,000 and I get free passage all over the country. was getting flown to Florida, to Las Vegas, free trips, free whatever. You know, it was a fun gig. I’m, you hey, by the way, you’re to be on Jay Leno on Thursday. Cool. like, you’re to be in Playboy. What’s the odds? Like, you know, I had a two, I said to my friends, I got a two page spread in Playboy. What does that mean exactly?

Dylan Silver (18:20)
That’s mate.

Yeah, that’s it.

How did this happen? This is amazing.

Edward J Jarvis Re/Max Best (18:34)
I got a full

page picture of me. went up, they photo-shooted me in Chicago. mean, with Carmen Electra’s issue, which is amazing, right? I love Carmen Electra. Recently, I bought her signed bathing suit and I’m gonna frame it with my article because I just think it’s appropriate to put the two of them together.

Dylan Silver (18:43)
Yeah

Yeah, I can’t. It’s amazing where life takes us, right? I mean, you talk about the competitive eating, you talk about flying all over the country, putting your kids through school.

Dylan Silver (19:02)
where can folks go if they want to reach out to you or if they maybe have a deal they want you to look at or if they’re looking at homes in the Long Island area.

Edward J Jarvis Re/Max Best (19:10)
They can call me at

They can also email me at bigadhomes at hotmail.com.

Dylan Silver (19:21)
Edward, thank you so much for coming on the show here today.