Stop Lowballing Sellers: How Joint Venture Real Estate Deals Create Bigger Profits | Logan Pulliza

Logan Pulliza (00:00)
Biggest needle mover first and foremost is just showing up. I mean, I think you can say that pretty much about anything. There’s so much to be said about planning, but you know, planning can get you stuck for so long and just a real big focus on trying to be perfect before you even get in that bat. And you know, how I started and I’ll I’ll say it to this day, is like I kind of just briefly skimmed over some wholesaling stuff and I just started

closing my eyes and swinging as hard as I could, having as many conversations as I could possibly get.

Scott Bursey (02:03)
Welcome back to the Real Estate Pros podcast powered by Investor Fuel. I’m your host, Scott Bursey. And today we are delighted to be joined by Logan Pulliza of Dakota Construction and Dakota Capital Properties, joining us to pull back the curtain on his process. Logan is a true expert in general contracting, specializing in off-market deal acquisition and distressed property turnarounds. Listeners, get ready to learn how

he balances rapid rehab strategies with the high quality standards that keep his projects on time and on budget. Logan, welcome to the show.

Logan Pulliza (02:39)
Hey, thanks for having me, Scott.

Scott Bursey (02:41)
It is just awesome having you here, my friend. And to help our listeners get up to speed, please give us the ninety second highlight reel of how your career ignited and where you’re pouring your fuel now.

Logan Pulliza (02:52)
Yeah. So I got started back in fall twenty twenty. Kind of like anybody that I guess wants to get into the real estate game, you see the stories and the stuff online. I actually got COVID and was locked inside for 10 days and there was only so much Netflix I could watch. I was working a standard corporate nine to five at the time and I was like, you know, I’m gonna take really utilize this time and deep dive into that.

More so through the mindset of like it was going to be a side thing and learned what wholesaling was. And I’m like, okay, well, I’m kind of you know, a sales guy already right now. Let me see what that’s like. And from that 10 day period of just understanding what I needed to do, I took the following month to gather some information, found a property that made sense, put the deal together and closed on it. And on that one deal made

half my yearly salary at that time, all within 30, 45 day period. And so I was like, I don’t know what this is gonna lead to, but as soon as that check cleared, I was like, I’m putting in my two weeks, I’m gonna do this. And so did the wholesaling thing for a little bit, and then you do that and you’re kind of like, “Man, there’s some good money in in doing the work instead of, you know, just moving the deal and, you know, cashing in just very quickly.”

And so partnered up with a a buddy of mine who I grew up with playing Pop Warner. We went to high school together and we got our own flip, hired a general contractor. It did not go well. Luckily, by the grace of God, the underwriting was so tight that after all the pitfalls and you know hurdles that we had to overcome with that particular contractor, we still came out ahead.

And it really prompted us to go get our own GC license because at the end of the day, it’s like, man, if we could just internalize the control and have it start to finish, then you know, I think we would be in a better spot. So that’s what we did and then did another flip and then another flip. And then as you know, most of the rehabbers know, there’s so many surprises that can be lurking behind drywall and under the floors and

what does the plumbing and electrical look like? And you start to sit back and you’re like, man, I don’t really like surprises. Let’s see what the new construction side of things looks like. And once we got into that, it was like, man, this is all we’re gonna do because it’s just like new is new is new. You don’t have to tie new into old. And you know what you’re getting to really on the front end. And here we are seven years later as a kind of premier general contractor for clients as well as our investors.

Scott Bursey (05:31)
That’s an incredible journey, Logan. And it’s clear you built a reputation for turning around even the most distressed assets. Logan, what really caught my attention about you was the way you’ve been able to master the transition from acquisition to high quality renovation while keeping the gears turning on wholesale assignments. With that in mind, curious, what do you consider the primary strength of your off market acquisition strategy that keeps your pipeline full?

Logan Pulliza (06:48)
I’ll tell you it’s honestly kind of shifted away from the acquisition in recent years, the last three or four years, into more of the joint venture model, because we would do underwriting on lots that were clearly ripe for new development or they, you know, could—they had good bones, but they just needed a lot and a lot of lipstick. And just getting the numbers to work out and the conversations with these landowners, you know, it’s—at the end of the day, you’re like, they want a million dollars,

but the sheet saying, you know, we can only go up to 300,000. And so there’s a—there’s such a big gap there. And when we really started to take a shift back of like, instead of getting them the one million, what if we could get them 1.1 or 1.2? And so we started underwriting it of—because again, most of this land is typically free and clear, but they just don’t have the chops or the knowledge to understand what they can do with it,

but at the same time they—they want to make as much money as possible as they should. And so we’re like, hey, you know, the bank is going to recognize this land that’s free and clear as true cash to the closing, we’ll go get the financing, we’ll execute the build. But on top of that, we’ll put you on the operating agreement. So at the end of this project, after you get paid out, you now have a track record of development or renovation. So if you wanted to continue down this path,

you’re bankable as—as you can possibly get on paper to be like, “I was a part of this process. I know what it looks like to see a project start and ultimately finish up.”

Scott Bursey (08:20)
We’d love to hear, what is one common pitfall in distressed property rehabs that you’ve learned the hard way to avoid?

Logan Pulliza (08:28)
The—the quick and easiest one is just really understanding what you’re getting into. Cause some people, they’ll just do the quick pass through the house and be like, “If we just, you know, sand the hardwood floors and put in some new cabinets, new sinks, and you know, put some fresh paint, it’s gonna be good.” Well, you really need to have an understanding of what’s behind that drywall. What does your sticks actually look like? Is your plumbing

galvanized plumbing, is your electrical knob and tube? What does your, you know, AC HVAC system look like? How old is it? Things of that nature and actually getting under the crawl space and taking a look at how your foundation looks, how your subfloor system works, and making sure it’s up to par because when you really just try and slap a lipstick on a pig, it’s not gonna do very well at the end.

Scott Bursey (09:17)
Did that lesson change how you bid your projects?

Logan Pulliza (09:20)
Absolutely. We—again, my—the business partner that came on with me, he was a carpenter by trade. So I was just more of the money guy. And then as we did more and more projects, my skill set kind of caught up with his. But, you know, it’s the quick and easy things that you can crawl under, crawl space for, maybe cut out a little square in the drywall, get a peek and understand what you’re really getting into in totality more so than surface level.

Scott Bursey (09:48)
Logan, interested to understand, where are you currently seeing the most untapped opportunity in the rehab resale market?

Logan Pulliza (09:56)
Untapped opportunity, I—again, I think it’s got to be that joint venture. You can have a lot more meaningful conversations with these homeowners, these landowners when you really present it as a project and you can show them the path to really get highest and best use out of their property. On top of that, being able to have them kind of hitch their wagon to you to, you know, create a track record, get a little money in their pocket. So

whether they want to do it afterwards, that option is still available to them. And it’s just a—it—it’s a totally different dynamic of a conversation than it’s like, “Look, I know you want a million dollars, but we’re only gonna pay 300 grand,” right? You’ll get so many clicks for that. And unless they’re super distressed or in a bad spot, or as you know, most people like to say, highly motivated, those—those conversations can be few and in between. Whereas if you pitch the joint venture side of things, that

percentage grows substantially.

Scott Bursey (10:55)
What marketing or property types are you capturing right now? Are you focusing on mostly?

Logan Pulliza (11:03)
So we’ve kind of looked at everything. I mean, if it hits our desk, we’ll give it a—a good strong look. But I think with where the company’s at right now, we really like these larger density projects, kind of the multifamily space that could be anywhere from five to fifteen or twenty units. That’s not really a—a pocket that a lot of, you know, regional mom and pop investors can get into and it’s too small for a lot of the national guys to even really take a look at. So

we’re finding ourselves kind of fitting into the middle of that to do the new development and then turn it into a long term hold asset.

Scott Bursey (11:37)
And just wondering, what do you see as the biggest external threat to a general contractor’s timeline in the current economy?

Logan Pulliza (11:47)
That’s a good question. As far as the GC is concerned, you know, if you’re doing third party builds for a client, an investor, your—your price is pretty fixed. But if you’re fresh off—off the boat and trying to understand, you know, kind of build costs and you’re not right, you can kind of lose pretty big there. If you’re into it and you’re stretching underwriting of like, “We’re gonna build this really cheap and then we’re gonna go and

try and get top dollar for it in today’s market,” that’s gonna be tough sledding.

Scott Bursey (12:20)
And if you could take us down this path, Logan, how do you maintain such high construction quality when you’re pushing for quick turnarounds?

Logan Pulliza (12:28)
Yeah, so it all goes down to our team and the culture that we’ve really built in place. I’ve got three different project managers right now. I have an inside construction manager right now. Kind of if you look at it like the Superman’s or Batman’s, Alfred, right? The guy behind the computer, really handling the vendor relationships, consolidating a lot of the invoices as they come in, estimating takeoff, stuff like that. And I would say just

a lot of consistent and deliberate communication. We have two project management meetings every week. First one being Tuesdays at two o’clock. I don’t really like setting the PM meetings first thing Monday morning or late Monday afternoon because people are right coming off the weekend. You’re trying to get the iron back hot and rev it back up and re-answer the emails and do all that. So by Tuesday afternoon, they feel comfortable with, you know, what they’ve

been able to pick back up and get rolling again. They have a clear idea of what needs to happen the rest of the week. And we talk amongst a group on all projects. Every project manager has their five, 10 minutes to kind of give their download to the rest of the team of where the project is at. And so then on Fridays in the afternoon, about one o’clock, we really get back up, round together, be like, “Hey, everything we discussed on Tuesday that was lined out for that week,

did that happen? Great. If not, why did that happen? How can we really shorten that curve next week to keep things constantly moving and rolling?”

Scott Bursey (14:04)
Would you say it’s more about your systems or your crews?

Logan Pulliza (14:09)
It’s gotta be the systems because the crews, as good as they can be on the craftsmanship side of things, they’re not as good business people. And just keeping track—you would be really surprised at some larger builders that still run things on pen and paper, and from a scalability standpoint, it’s just gonna be a larger mountain to climb. And there’s the guys that are totally and completely happy doing one or two builds a year, and that’s great. I just knew that

I wanted to build something bigger. I wanted to get in a larger footprint into things and really start to create a brand more so than just being a niche in and out type of guy.

Scott Bursey (14:47)
Logan, I’m interested. What does your professional network look like right now and what perspective do you have on your future networking plans?

Logan Pulliza (14:55)
My professional network, it’s just really trying to touch base with players in the game who are a lot older than me. I’m thirty-two. I got into this at twenty-five, twenty-six years old. And I’ve learned a lot from where I, you know, obviously started. But again, those guys that are in their forties, fifties, sixties, they’ve seen, you know, several different market cycles. They’ve seen all the, you know, bumps along the road, whether it’s the underwriting or the

development or the actual vertical side of the build or dealing with certain municipalities and what those certain hurdles look like and just being able to understand and get with those guys to again ask more proactive questions so that I can start to have that lens in front of me when I see something presented to me, as opposed to being kind of blind or have the—the rose color lenses of like, “Every deal that comes through is a deal. It’s a screamer, let’s do it,”

and it end up not being right. So that’s—that’s really what I try to do. And how do I get in front of those guys? It’s—we’ve got a couple of guys on our staff right now that are in their forties. They’re our CEO of the capital group that who we brought on recently and our COO, both in their forties, former military for the COO, and then former institutional lending for the CEO. So those guys have little pearls of knowledge that

they just kind of drop on us on a daily basis. That’s like, man, if I just like kind of turn this knob this way, then this will happen.

Scott Bursey (16:22)
Logan, in your view, what is the biggest needle mover for someone trying to break into off market acquisitions today?

Logan Pulliza (16:29)
Biggest needle mover first and foremost is just showing up. I mean, I think you can say that pretty much about anything. There’s so much to be said about planning, but you know, planning can get you stuck for so long and just a real big focus on trying to be perfect before you even get in that bat. And you know, how I started and I’ll I’ll say it to this day, is like I kind of just briefly skimmed over some wholesaling stuff and I just started

closing my eyes and swinging as hard as I could, having as many conversations as I could possibly get. And then

as you kind of start to do that, it leads you down these different trails. And then here I am seven years later, a head general contractor of, you know, a larger regional team.

Scott Bursey (17:15)
That makes perfect sense. And let me ask you this. You’ve given us a lot of great advice here today, but is there any additional advice that you can leave with our listeners?

Logan Pulliza (17:26)
Yeah, I would say having a good attitude and just showing up every day, you know, selfless and ruthless, right? It’s—it’s a very much a still eat what you kill industry. So showing up and getting a—some at bats at the plate are you’re gonna be your best friend and the best way for you to succeed into it. But, you know, just really sticking to that mantra and getting after it.

Scott Bursey (17:50)
Logan, for those of our listeners that want to keep this conversation moving, stay in your lane, or collaborate with you on future deals, what’s the best way for them to reach you?

Logan Pulliza (18:40)
Instagram would probably be best. It’s logan_pulliza77 on Instagram. Facebook is also a good place too, just Logan Pulliza, stuff like that. So if they wanna talk further or get an understanding of different markets or, “How did you become a GC?”, stuff like that, my DMs are always open.

Scott Bursey (19:01)
Logan, you really brought the fuel today. Thank you so much for joining us here on the Real Estate Pros podcast.

Logan Pulliza (19:07)
Awesome. Thank you, Scott.

Scott Bursey (19:08)
And to our listeners, we appreciate you. If you receive value from today’s episode, please subscribe. We’ll be fueling your tanks with a lineup of elite guest, just like Logan, who are accelerating and setting the pace for the rest of the industry. Until next time, keep your standards high and your vision clear. We’ll see you in the next episode, everyone.