Texas Real Estate Secrets with Esteban Flores | Cross-Border Investing

Esteban Flores, CCIM (00:00)
put it in God’s hands. I let go, I let God decide when I have to come across some kind of crossroads, I pray about it and I leave it in God’s hands and a lot of times it comes out better than I could have tried to plan it myself.

Dylan Silver (00:03)
Amen.

Hey folks, welcome back to the show. Today’s guest is a broker, CCIM, and developer, also works with lot of developers based in McAllen and South Padre Island, who works closely as well with investors in Mexico who are looking at investing in the Texas area. And he’s also heavily involved with the Texas realtors and is currently running for

Esteban Flores, CCIM (02:11)
Thank

Dylan Silver (02:17)
City Council in South Padre Island, please welcome Esteban Flores. Esteban, welcome to the show.

Esteban Flores, CCIM (02:18)
Welcome.

Hey Dylan, pleasure to be here. How you doing?

Dylan Silver (02:27)
It’s

great to have you. I’m doing great. I’m in Santo Domingo in the Dominican Republic So I’m just blessed to be able to do this but man Do you have a lot going on? I we were talking a little bit before hopping on the show here and I was taking copious notes of all the Verticals and asset classes that you’re involved in and running for a city council I’ve actually never been to South Padre Island, which is a shame because I lived in Texas for five or six years lived in Dallas lived in San Antonio. I’d been to

McAllen, been to Mission, never been to South Padre Allen, but I’ve heard so many great things. Are you a lifelong ⁓ Texas native?

Esteban Flores, CCIM (03:05)
So actually I am not, ⁓ but I got here as fast as I could. I was originally born in San Diego, California. I love San Diego, that’s my hometown, born and raised. But my parents brought me out here when I was about 11 years old. And South Padre Island is the first place that I came to visit. And it was beautiful. I was blown away. They bought me my first pair of roller blades there. And I’ve seen the city just kind of develop throughout the years. It’s beautiful.

Dylan Silver (03:16)
Yeah.

Esteban Flores, CCIM (03:35)
⁓ So it’s a shame you’ve never been here but you’re welcome. You have a home here in South Padre Island whenever you want. I actually have several ⁓ condos out here on the island and you’re welcome anytime. I have them up on Airbnb as well. So it’s great to host a lot of tourists that come and visit our beautiful island. It’s the most beautiful beach in Texas.

Dylan Silver (03:38)
I know.

As far as I know, mean, it’s gotta be the one of, if not the most frequented spot for people who are looking for a getaway that are also currently residents in Texas. mean, every time, definitely in San Antonio, I felt like, man, I really have to go check out this South Powder Island, because people keep talking about how much of a great time it is. But I wanna pivot a bit here, Esteban, and ask you how you got into the real estate space. How did you get into real estate?

Esteban Flores, CCIM (05:13)
Well, that’s a great question, Dylan. And ⁓ I’ve been in real estate since about 2005. And the way that I got in is my parents had a couple of investment, like rental properties in San Diego. And when I was born, we lived in a home. And then as my dad would get a raise or a bonus, and he started having more kids, he would rent out that home and buy a new home and rent out the other home, and then buy a new home and rent out the other home. So we had about five.

or he had about five homes in San Diego and then we moved to Texas and then all of a sudden the homes that he bought in the 80s in San Diego were worth a lot more money than what he bought them for. So we did a 1031 exchanges and bought some apartment complexes in South Texas having no previous like real estate background experience. So at the age of 18, I got my real estate license to help him manage the apartments, but I was

Dylan Silver (05:53)
Yep.

Esteban Flores, CCIM (06:11)
painting, changing locks, doing all the grunt work. And then I went off to college to Texas State, got my degree in business management, moved back down to South Texas and got a couple jobs that I didn’t like. And with a college degree and getting the main, like minimum wage, it was about 2010, 2011. The economy was completely the opposite of what it was now. Lots of foreclosures, banks weren’t financing.

So said, well, why don’t I get back into real estate? So I started representing several investors because at that time it was only like cash deals and investors because the banks weren’t financing and I represented a lot of investors in short sales and foreclosure properties. ⁓ And that’s how I started getting more experience in real estate.

Dylan Silver (06:49)
Yeah.

I actually wanna ask you about being bilingual and then also you mentioned working with Mexican investors. So I’m not Spanish speaker originally. I learned Spanish when I came out to Santo Domingo really the first time and learned, wow, okay, I have to learn how to speak Spanish. Otherwise, this is going to be very difficult. But Texas being such a bilingual state, I’ve always said this, that one of the quickest and fastest ways to really differentiate yourself is to be able to speak both

Esteban Flores, CCIM (07:15)
Okay.

Mm-hmm.

Dylan Silver (07:32)
languages specifically in real estate.

Esteban Flores, CCIM (07:35)
Absolutely, being bilingual has really really helped in my career. I’ve always lived along the border, San Diego is a border city with Tijuana and ⁓ McAllen is border with Reynosa and so we’re on the border by the sea and ⁓ a big part of our economy depends on tourism from Mexico. A lot of the big ⁓ entrepreneurs in Mexico and business owners they come out here to vacation, to shop and to visit the beach so a lot of that’s how

We were able to get a lot of big investors that are looking to get their investors visas for Mexico. Now I’m very highly involved with an organization called AMPE. It’s the Asociación Mexicana de Profesionales Immobiliarios, which is basically the equivalent of the Realtors Association in Mexico. So they’ve invited me out to Mexico. I’m an international guest speaker at a lot of their conferences. I’m going to be speaking in Chihuahua at their national conference in October. I’m going to be speaking in another

Dylan Silver (08:23)
Yeah.

Esteban Flores, CCIM (08:35)
⁓

conference in Monterrey. It’s called the Regio Foro which is their largest ⁓ real estate forum in Monterrey so I’m their guest speaker there and I’ve kind of become the liaison for Mexican realtors and Mexican investors in Texas so a lot of these Mexican investors that want to invest in Texas they will hit me up and help me help them look for deals out here.

Dylan Silver (08:58)
That’s such

a ⁓ tremendous accomplishment and living now in Santo Domingo myself, another of course Spanish speaking area, it’s not lost on me just how huge that is because of course sharing a border, Texas and Mexico, you’re gonna have a lot of people who are interested in both areas and then with the ability to… ⁓

Esteban Flores, CCIM (09:09)
it.

Dylan Silver (09:20)
not just work with American investors, but also with Mexican investors, this really just opens up a whole new world of possibilities. I’m curious to get your perspective as someone who’s, you mentioned speaking at events in Mexico, and then of course you’re heavily involved in South Padre and in McAllen. How do you decide which deals to look at, which investors to work with? Is it kind of a progressive ⁓

Scaling or or is it more of hey? I have to be very selective with which deals and which investors to work with

Esteban Flores, CCIM (10:31)
Well, ⁓ basically it’s like whichever deal makes the most money, No, I’m just kidding. So yeah, it makes sense and you got to pick and choose because you can’t do everything, right? ⁓

Dylan Silver (10:36)
Yeah.

Esteban Flores, CCIM (10:42)
So it just depends, it depends. I like to do business with people that I like. I don’t like to ⁓ do deals with difficult people or people that are just gonna make the deals difficult or a hard time. just all depends, but above all, I have a rule of thumb that I just say.

Dylan Silver (10:54)
Yeah.

Esteban Flores, CCIM (11:04)
put it in God’s hands. I let go, I let God decide when I have to come across some kind of crossroads, I pray about it and I leave it in God’s hands and a lot of times it comes out better than I could have tried to plan it myself.

Dylan Silver (11:07)
Amen.

I want to pivot a bit here and ask you about running for city council. So many different ⁓ areas that you’re involved in, CCIM, broker, Mexican investors, US investors, but running for city council in South Padre as well, how did that come about?

Esteban Flores, CCIM (11:40)
Well, it was just an opportunity that happened and as I started living more on the island, a lot of people started complaining to or you know, just in conversation, a lot of the small business owners communities would be like, man, they’re just complaining about things happening on the islands and telling me about the challenges that they face and the problems and,

brought a group of ⁓ big realtors and investors from Mexico one time and I was bragging about the island. I’m like, is the most beautiful beach in Texas. We love this place. And then they showed up and I was like, what do you think? And I’m like, ⁓ it’s cute. I’m like, okay, well, tell me how you really feel. And they’re like, well, it’s cool and clean, but it just lacks investment. It’s missing something. ⁓

Dylan Silver (12:21)
Yeah.

Esteban Flores, CCIM (12:29)
And it’s just lacking some investment, lacking a little bit of life. ⁓

It’s very old.

Dylan Silver (12:56)
Yeah.

⁓

Esteban Flores, CCIM (13:05)
So lot of the complaints are like, well it’s because like the current like city officials are very clickish and anti-competitive. So I’m not a person that likes to focus on problems. I like to focus on solutions. So then I started proposing a lot of solutions and they’re like, that’s amazing. Like we need somebody forward thinking like, why don’t you run? And I’m like, no, no, no, I’m not a politician. I’m just saying like, would work. Like that’s something that could work. And then I would talk to other people and they’d be like, you should run. And I’m like, no, no, no, no. And then when I started talking to other people

Dylan Silver (13:34)
Ha ha ha.

Esteban Flores, CCIM (13:35)
like no seriously like so I started looking for excuses for people to tell me no and I started looking at pros and cons and the more that people would tell me the more I tried to find the no’s and as I started looking for people to tell me no and why I shouldn’t more and more people started saying like just do it just do it just apply so I said okay I put it in God’s hands I prayed about it and I said okay I’ll just give it a shot who knows what who knows what can happen

Dylan Silver (14:01)
So here we are. I want to ask you maybe

a rudimentary question here, but what is the role of the city council in Texas cities and what kind of influence can they have in an area like South Padre?

Esteban Flores, CCIM (14:15)
Well, you know what? I’ve never been a city councilman, so I’m not exactly sure. But I’m a quick learner. I’m pretty forward thinking and it’s just voting on things, on motions, on budgets, ⁓ on issues, on zoning issues and different motions and agenda items that come up. And what’s in the best interest of the citizens? What’s in the best interest of the property owners? I’m all for protecting private property rights. I think that’s so, so important. We don’t want the government to infringe on private property.

rights. know, this is your property. You should do with it as you please as long as you conform to the ordinances. But we don’t want these ordinances to get out of the hands and the cities and the municipalities and the government to tell you what you can and can’t do with your property. Also like the budgeting, you know, you don’t want pork barrel spending, the projects that come up. You want to make sure you keep the property taxes ⁓ low and all that sort of thing. And just the vision and the direction of the city and what you want to focus on and what kind of challenges.

Dylan Silver (14:59)
Yep.

Esteban Flores, CCIM (15:14)
can come up and what are the solutions. So like I said I’m solutions oriented, I’m a fast learner, I’ve never done anything like this before so it’s way out of my comfort zone ⁓ but here we are you never know what what’s gonna happen.

Dylan Silver (16:11)
want to pivot

a bit here and ask you about the developer world. actually just had a developer in Rochester, New York on the podcast here before this episode. And it’s ⁓ definitely ⁓ an interesting vertical to be in, in the real estate space and an interesting asset class to deal with because there’s a lot of risk, lot of reward and leverage as well. ⁓ And you mentioned your parents were involved in real estate as investors. What’s been your experience as a developer?

Esteban Flores, CCIM (16:38)
you

Dylan Silver (16:40)
And if someone was an aspiring developer, what advice would you give them?

Esteban Flores, CCIM (16:46)
Right, so my parents were involved and it was more like long-term rental properties that they were doing. The investor world is a little bit ⁓ different, but as developers, we get to change the landscape of the real estate ⁓ in your cities and your municipalities. So you take a piece of raw land with nothing on it and you have a vision for it. And then you do a design plan for it. And then you ⁓ get the permits for it and everything. And then you add in the infrastructure,

underground utilities, ⁓ electrical, sewer, water, streets, ⁓ the regulations, ⁓ restrictions for the property. ⁓ And just turning raw dirt into something and seeing the improvements on it. There’s something really special about that. And there’s different tiers to it. mean, you have the developer that develops the land. You have the builder that builds it. You have the brokers and realtors that

sell it so there’s different levels to it so I kind of just grew vertically from from being a realtor to a broker to a builder and then a developer ⁓ so it’s just fascinating to be like well-rounded I’m a click I said I’m a quick learner so as I started learning more and more and more and getting it to more opportunities that were presented to me ⁓ the more I started taking things on and just learning about it and executing and doing it so it’s just been a fascinating ride

Dylan Silver (18:15)
That’s one of the things

that I love most about Texas is the welcome ⁓ that investors feel because ultimately that’s what’s needed to transform landscape. I I said this when I moved from San Antonio to Dallas, which was actually last year, and I stayed in Dallas briefly and then moved out to Santo Domingo. But I said, you know, as soon as I left, it felt like the whole landscape of San Antonio had changed, which is remarkable because in many other cities it’d be very

Esteban Flores, CCIM (18:28)
you

Mm-hmm.

Dylan Silver (18:45)
difficult to make that kind of great change. But also it seems like so many ⁓ areas of Texas are expanding and expanding so rapidly and there’s tremendous investment and tremendous interest. You mentioned your families from San Diego or had grown up in part in San Diego. That’s the story of so many folks. And so as ⁓ someone who’s lived in Texas, I’ve got a lot of love for Texas and Texas investors and all the possibilities that are out there.

Esteban Flores, CCIM (18:57)
And it’s a pleasure. Thanks.

Absolutely and what I’m doing now I feel like I wouldn’t have been able to do in San Diego because San Diego is so competitive, so saturated, so expensive. So we were able to take what my parents built over there and bring it over here and just expand on it. And Texas is so welcoming to business owners and developers and investors. So we were able to ⁓ transition pretty easily and quickly over here and it’s been just a great experience.

Dylan Silver (19:41)
Esteban,

are coming up on time here. Where can folks go if maybe ⁓ they’d like to reach out to you? Maybe they have a commercial deal they’d like your feedback to look at, or maybe they’re in the South Padre area and would like to reach out to you.

Esteban Flores, CCIM (19:57)
Absolutely, yeah, thank you for that. So our area in South Texas is one of the most affordable ⁓ real estate markets in the United States. So we get investors from all over the United States and all over Mexico that say ⁓ are investing here and you’ve got a really, really good return on your investment down here. A lot of great opportunities. I own an independent boutique brokerage with over 25 realtors. You can look us up www.effective.com.

real estate, no.com, just effective.realestate. And you can find me on social media, on Facebook, Instagram, all that good stuff. Just search effective.realestate, Esteban Flores. And ⁓ yeah, feel free to reach out. We represent a lot of investors out here. And ⁓ you’re not gonna believe how affordable and easy it is to get started down here in real estate investing. ⁓

Dylan Silver (20:52)
Esteban,

thank you so much for coming on the show here today.

Esteban Flores, CCIM (20:56)
It’s been an honor. Thank you Dylan.