Transform Your Mindset: Lessons from 30 Years in Real Estate Investing

Stephen S. (00:02.444)
Welcome back to the real estate show where we interview the nation’s leading real estate entrepreneurs. It’s your host, Stephen Schmidt. And welcome back to the show. If you’re joining us for the second, third or hundredth time and welcome to it. If you’re joining for the first time, I’ve got a special treat in the studio for you guys today. I’ve got Eddie Serralles in the house with the Serralles group. He has been a real estate investor or doing something within the real estate space for over three decades, possibly even longer than that. But

Eddie Serralles (00:14.586)
So, thank you.

Stephen S. (00:32.274)
specifically in the Tampa Heights area. And he has got a wealth of knowledge he’s going to be sharing with us today and very well rounded as well. So just remember, at Investor Fuel, we help real estate investors, service providers and real estate entrepreneurs, two to five X their businesses to allow them to build the businesses they’ve always wanted to allow them to live the lives they’ve always dreamed of. That being said, Eddie, welcome to the show today, brother.

Eddie Serralles (00:38.894)
you

Eddie Serralles (00:56.911)
Well, thanks for having me. Sure. My name is Eddie and I’m a third generation from Tampa and at very young age, I got to see and look at

Stephen S. (00:58.676)
Yeah, super, super grateful you carved out some time to hop on here with us. Just for my sake and the listeners, can you share a little bit about yourself and how you got here?

Eddie Serralles (01:21.165)
real estate transactions and I pretty much realized that that’s what I wanted to do is jump in and learn about the real estate. So I was fortunate enough to get my real estate license at 18 years old, got my broker’s license at 19 years old and they got a degree in architecture engineering and construction and ended up getting my class A contractor’s license at 25, my motor broker’s license at 25. And by the time I finished working at Home Depot and I decided I’m going to go become this millionaire in real estate,

I working for some different real estate companies and for six months there I didn’t make a penny and I thought I was go back to Home Depot. But luckily it started to click and by the age of 27 I owned the building that I’m in now for over 30 years. I’ve also probably collected, you know, I had about a hundred people pay me rent. So I owned a lot of units at that time. Probably my lifetime probably I’ve done probably over a thousand, I’ve owned over a thousand units or a lot of properties, you know, and still

It will fit with clients.

Stephen S. (02:19.744)
Right. So now let me ask you, let me ask you a question there because you say something super interesting about that period between 25 and 27 when you decided to quit Home Depot and go full force into becoming a real estate millionaire. But you already had real estate at the time, right? I mean, to have a hundred doors at 27, did you build that in two years or?

Eddie Serralles (02:44.143)
No, did it for months basically. Yeah, I did it very fast. I learned about strategies. I learned about creative financing. I learned about hard money. I learned about, I understood the real estate math and basically I knew that I could buy it and it would cost me this much to turn it out for this much. And I could have three times, four times X of what it was. And it was just work. It was just hard work.

And for me, that was easy. know, I didn’t really want a job. I wanted to go out and buy properties, fix them up and rent them out or sell them. And so that was my game. I just, everybody thought I was kind of nuts buying these properties, being in the hood and, and, you know, putting up with that headache of dealing with tenants and, you know, fixing them up and not getting paid right away, but getting paid down the road. But to me, it just, I was fine with that.

Stephen S. (03:34.08)
So for somebody that’s like getting started, I think the natural thing, and I probably know the answer to this already, but I think most people look at that and go, well, you must have had a ton of cash in the bank to be able to go and get a hundred units in, you know, 10 months and then to not be, you know, able to pay that back right away or whatever with those loans. But tell us the real story of how that goes. And, know, 99.99 % of cases of people that are able to scale that quickly.

Eddie Serralles (04:04.052)
Well, I mean, I’ve clients, you know, buy a lot of properties from me. They did have money, you know, but honestly, 99 % of most of my customers don’t have any money. And for sure, you know, my parents never gave me a penny. And, I just learned about, you know, you have to have good credit, you know, having good credit was having a job, paying your bills on time. That’s not hard. Instead of a down payment. That’s hard. You know what mean?

Stephen S. (04:34.304)
for sure.

Eddie Serralles (04:36.288)
So, so, you know, I call myself the king of zero down zero month, how many properties you want. So I learned how to buy properties with no money down or actually walk away with cash the day you buy it. And if I knew if I could buy properties and walk away with some cash one day I bought it, and I knew that I could have a low, let’s say $200 a month and I could run out for 600 and I can make three times my money and I could just babysit it. I knew if I kept doing that over and over and over again, it would add up.

in a very short period of time, I was able to do that where I had like about 100 people pay me rent.

Stephen S. (05:11.584)
Wow. And so what was your strategy if you don’t mind sharing that, what was your strategy to be able to walk away or on the day of closing with a check?

Eddie Serralles (05:12.492)
I

Eddie Serralles (05:20.972)
There wasn’t just one strategy, there was hundreds of different strategies. So I think I did differently. The first one I did basically was you basically use somebody else to kind of buy it and you buy it from them and pull out the cash strategy. The next one was basically a harmony lender.

Stephen S. (05:27.178)
Right.

Eddie Serralles (05:48.938)
Some of them were owner financing. One guy actually said, look, I’m going to give you the property, just here. But you pay me $35,000 after you fix it up and sell it. So he basically gave me the property. Then after I fixed it up sold it, I gave him the 35 grand. And I think I bought it for 35, and I fixed it up for 20. I sold it for 135. So I made 80 grand on that deal. So everything was different. People would just.

Basically people would come to me and say hey, would you take this off my hands and I was getting such great deals I’m like, yeah, I’m it’s like they didn’t want to do the work and they didn’t see the vision and and I did I think that’s what

Stephen S. (06:30.859)
Now the question I would have that I think a lot of people that are getting started Specifically have or they make is it’s like when do I pay myself and So, you know, I think a lot of people get into real estate because they hear stories about that like oh my goodness $80,000 if I was able to make that on one deal

then I wouldn’t have to work for an entire year. That’s more than I make in a year, right? And the reality of that is that you’re not going out and doing a project like that, making 80 grand and pocketing it, or going and buying a brand new Rolex every single time, right? So like, happens to that money when you make it? What is your strategy to keep ahold of that money and keep it from the government, et cetera, et cetera?

with the obvious tax advantages that we have in real estate.

Eddie Serralles (07:25.066)
Yeah, I wish I would have known more about those tax advantages.

Stephen S. (07:28.965)
Right

Eddie Serralles (07:30.378)
My ex-wife was an accountant, and basically, I even gave her a book one day. Here’s a book called Cheating of America. mean, come on, everybody else pays no taxes. Why am I paying so much money in taxes? And so, you know, and it’s not just the income tax. It’s property taxes. When you have so many properties, just the property tax bills are ridiculous. And then you have, you know, maintenance, and, you know, so, I mean,

Stephen S. (07:41.874)
right.

Eddie Serralles (07:59.17)
I’ve had some that work for me that I’ve, you know, the flip a deal and make brand and, then, they stopped working. then later on down the road, they get broke again and they got to start over again. And it’s harder, you know, got that momentum going. And, when you make that money, just, you know, you shouldn’t want to change your lifestyle. mean, not yet. You know, of course you’re working towards that way, but you’re not ready yet. I mean, you’re just, that’s the money to help you, you know, keep playing the game and play it better. The whole thing is you start.

Stephen S. (08:26.176)
Right

Eddie Serralles (08:29.161)
And you want to, you just didn’t try to improve and improve and improve. You try to get more, you work, you try to learn from all your mistakes, you know, become a better landlord, a better renovator, you know, better everything, you know what I mean? Better at managing your money better. You you just want to try to keep your lifestyle, you know, as low as possible. mean, you know, luckily I was poor. So I learned how to live poor. You know, that was easy. That was poor, you know, I.

Stephen S. (08:52.704)
Right

Eddie Serralles (08:56.265)
for a rich, they have to go and try to learn how to be poor. You know, but it’s easy to live like a poor person, you know, even though you got all this money and then I knew not to take that money and just go blow it, which I see a lot of people make that mistake, you know, investing it. But then, you know, you can take 10%, 20%, you know, you know, splurging yourself a little, you know, I always got myself a little better car, you know, so I can, or get more equipment or just improve your business in some way, somehow so you can make more money.

Stephen S. (09:25.502)
Right.

Eddie Serralles (09:27.081)
You know, but I’ve never really had, I didn’t really never, you know, I’ve always learned how to live for free. think one of the biggest, one of the first things that people should learn how to do if you’re going to get in real estate is stop throwing away your rent money and stop making the landlord rich and stop making the bank rich and start learning how to make, you know, so stop throwing away your money, you know, on rent. You can just save your rent money, your mortgage money right there. You can invest that money and start learning how to get ahead.

start collecting one rent or collect two rents or collect 10 rents. I mean, if you’re collecting 10 rents, that’s probably better than a job. And then if you can collect, you’re making a lot of money, but you’re also having lot of headaches.

Stephen S. (10:07.68)
Sure. Can you tell us more about what you mean by living for free? Because I think most people would look at that and be like, well, eventually you pay somebody, whether it’s the bank or whatever. What does that mean to live for free? What does that mean to you?

Eddie Serralles (10:19.133)
But the thing about it is people don’t know what they know. You know what mean? And people don’t understand renting. They don’t understand that it’s a tool and they don’t know how to use that tool correctly. You know, of course they look at it, well, you have to put down first month, you know, last month and security deposit. had to put this much money down. And of course that is, that’s how the tool works. But do you have to put it down? You know, besides like renting a one bedroom, bath,

You know, it would be crazy to think about possibly renting a four bedroom, bath. You know mean? A four bedroom, two bath per unit is slightly cheaper than the one one. So you probably, let’s say you were in a one one for 1500, but you’re in a four two for 2500. So go ahead and the rooms out, have roommates and learn how to live for free. And some people would not want to do that because I don’t want to live with roommates. Well, look, seriously, you don’t want to live with roommates for what? A year, two years, three years.

You rather go and work at a job and pay two weeks, three weeks worth of rent. It takes you three weeks worth of working to pay your mortgage, to pay your rent or pay your mortgage payment, two or three weeks. Here, you’re saving all that money. You’re saving up money and you’re going to get out of the rat race. Why not sacrifice now to change your life later? what mean? And people don’t, you’re going to have, you have to invest something. You know what I mean? And so it don’t have to be money, but you’re to have to invest some type of strategy, knowledge, hard work.

you know, ideas, know, commitment, discipline, you know, have to be, you have to want to change your life and your situation. And the bottom line is maybe they don’t really want to. I mean, they like having a job. They like being a slave to their home and working three weeks, four weeks out of the month, putting a roof over their head. I mean, to me, I think that’s nuts.

Stephen S. (12:10.046)
Now, so playing devil’s advocate just a little bit with that, because I think most of the people that would fit in that category, which and if you do and you’re listening to this, if you’re a single dude or you’re married and you guys can afford to be in a place that’s, you know, 1200 square feet or less. Like, obviously, shame on you if you’re not pursuing this. Right. But what happens for that person that maybe they’ve worked a professional career?

You know, for 10 years post college, they’re 33, 34, 35 years old. They’ve got four or five kids, which isn’t the majority, of course. But what about people that are in that demographic of, well, even if I went and bought a fourplex, Eddie, like I’d have to live in two of the units because my family’s so big. Like what would you tell them?

Eddie Serralles (12:56.545)
wait, wait, wait, wait. I mean, I hear your question, but the thing about it is I just gave you a strategy. mean, and so.

Stephen S. (13:07.646)
Yep, 100%.

Eddie Serralles (13:09.201)
which the strategy to your situation. So you need a four bedroom, okay, go rent a four, three bedroom or bath, but then also go to another four bedroom house. You know what mean? Where you can put four tenants in there and they’re paying it. And now you’re at least paying, you because you’re making a profit where half of your other rent. So you’re not living for free, but you’re living for half of what you would have done because you rent out one house, you rented two houses. I have young kid of mine, I showed him this idea. goes, Eddie, I rented in four bedroom, house.

I rented 10 four bedroom two bath houses in the last six months and now I’m making a $10,000 profit per month. what mean? So just change the idea. And if you can own, well then great, own. So let’s just say you need a four bedroom three bath house. Okay, go rent a four bedroom three bath house. But if you have buying power, go buy you three or four crack houses. You know I mean? And get the crack houses to pay for your.

Stephen S. (14:03.561)
Right.

Eddie Serralles (14:06.683)
Pay for your house. That’s what Robert Kiyosaki says, four green houses, one red hotel. That means go buy places or smaller places so you can go have your nice, you can have a nice place. But get the green ones to pay for your red one. Not you pay for the red one. Not pay for the hotel.

Stephen S. (14:11.285)
right.

Stephen S. (14:23.85)
Right, yeah. 100%. Yeah, that’s great. What you essentially said right there was if you are getting stuck on the exact method, you’re not being creative enough to solve the problem that you’re facing.

Eddie Serralles (14:39.719)
And you have to be you if you’re gonna be an investor you’re gonna have to have a vision you’re gonna have a mindset You know if you if you hang with millionaires you’re gonna realize and I’m smarter than you are you know, mean but They they’re very good at problem-solving and they’re very good at see is differently than others, you know, and so You know in school they want you to teach you how to everybody look the same everybody talk the same everybody do the same same same thing, know, I was

of the oddball, you know, and I thought it was not a good characteristic to have. That’s, you know, ugly duckling or swan. But as I got older, I started realizing, you know, I think different and ask a lot of questions because I’m just made differently. And that difference has made me different, you know, of seeing things and doing things. And, you know, now I understand what I’m doing and understanding why I did it. You know, so makes me understand.

Stephen S. (15:13.514)
Right.

Eddie Serralles (15:37.414)
It makes me understand myself more, sometimes being different is not a bad thing. If you’re an investor, come everybody’s gonna look at you like you’re weird. You’re different. And look, most people that are very wealthy have done it in real estate. Real estate’s not a weird thing. People should want to do that. Matter of fact, I think people should have to.

Stephen S. (15:51.52)
sure.

Eddie Serralles (16:05.062)
You know today, know cash is not keen anymore real estate is you know, the dollar is going down and real estate is going up. So people really need to understand that, you know, there’s no way I could be worth the kind of money I’m worth if it wasn’t for equity. You know, the only reason I’m worth this kind of worth is because of the thing called equity, which is time. know, time has made me a very wealthy man.

Stephen S. (16:31.264)
100%. You know, to your point there too about being the oddballs. The first time I ever even heard about real estate investing, I was probably 21 or 22. And it was this 18 year old kid who I had met who was a realtor. And, you know, I’m still in that phase where I’m trying to figure it out. I chose not to go to college. I was pursuing, you know, trying to get famous at the time, which didn’t work out exactly how I thought.

And I meet this guy and he’s a real estate agent and he’s like, yeah, and I’m a real estate investor. I’m like, man, what a cocky son of a gun to be 18 years old and already be an investor. Cause I know he didn’t come from money. Right. So in my head, I’m like, then fast forward, you know, a few years and I was like, wow, how stupid of me to think. And if I would have gotten around him more, even sooner, like he did 16 flips when he was 19 years old.

Had I stayed in touch with them, who knows where I would have been a lot sooner in my career, you know? But to your point, it’s also about that. It’s about getting around the right people as well. Being in the right rooms, being around the right people to actually learn what you need to learn in order to become a better creative problem solver too.

Eddie Serralles (17:45.54)
Yeah, I’ve been doing this for over 40 years and it’s not just what you know, it’s also who you know. Real estate is fishing. You got to get lucky. But the harder you work, the luckier you get. So you substitute hard work and you have to really want it. I teach this too, I’m also a real estate instructor. so you have to…

Stephen S. (17:50.528)
100%.

Right.

Eddie Serralles (18:11.909)
You I can’t teach go-getting this. You have to be a go-getter. And you have to really want it because is it easy? It’s not that easy, but it ain’t that hard either. You what mean? Put the hard work in, you put the effort in, you give it enough time. It’s like anything. If you keep putting enough time and you keep working on it little by little every day, whatever you chisel down, you’re gonna chisel it to, you’re gonna get there. You just can’t quit, just keep going. And some people don’t realize, I had one guy who’s made like 100 grand a month with me twice.

And right before he made that money, he was into it for probably six months, maybe seven months into it. And he told me, Eddie, I’m done. I just can’t do this anymore. I’m like, Clifton, you’re so close. I’m like, you don’t understand. Your skill level has gotten so much better. You’re doing everything right. Now it’s just a matter of luck. And once he got his first deal, forget about it. He was on the run. He was hit. So you just can’t quit. You just got to keep going. And it’ll click. It just takes time.

But it’s real, real estate is.

Stephen S. (19:09.908)
Yeah. What, can you, can you tell me a little bit more about what he was going through in that six month period of why he came to you and was like, look, man, I think I’m about to quit. Was he investing? Was he a realtor? What, what was that for context? Okay.

Eddie Serralles (19:23.084)
No, no. See, I teach bird dog. I teach bird dogging. I take principles of getting into real estate investing. And so I give like a three day bootcamp class for free. And basically it’s a, the first day we kind of teach and preach and we talk about strategies and ideas. And then on Wednesday night, we basically teach a computer class on how to do all the research and how to find the deals and how to do all the, know, how to, how to really get the ammunition that you’re going to need to go to war, you know, everything you’re going to need.

And then on Thursday night we do like role playing, like how do you talk and how do you set the appointment and how do you handle objections and all that kind of stuff. And we basically build what’s called appointment setters. And his objective is just got there and go set appointments. And the beginning, it’s hard. It’s hard to set appointments. know, these people, know, they’re losing their house. They haven’t paid their taxes in three years. They’re behind on their payment for three years and they got code violations or the person’s dead or all these problems that are out there, thousands of problems out there.

And their job is to realize that one person’s problem is another person’s gain. And so if you can find the problem and just set the appointment, I’ll make the kill and we’ll both eat. And so it just took him a long time to get his first appointment. But once he started getting the appointments, they started rolling in.

Stephen S. (20:35.06)
Yeah, of course, because then he got that belief and that’s another big piece of it is once you get that one down, it’s so much easier to get the second because you see how it works at that point,

Eddie Serralles (20:44.707)
It’s like a drug once you get your first deal you make your first ten grand and about it you’re done. You’re into it

Stephen S. (20:50.782)
Yeah, 100%. To your point, like you said, mean, investing in real estate really is almost like a drug because once you get that first hit and you see that check that you get from the title company or whatever that structure might be, and you see that and you’re like, wait a second, so this is real? I didn’t have to go clock in, clock out for 40 hours for this?

Eddie Serralles (21:13.024)
Yeah. The title companies in America probably print more money than the US mint.

Stephen S. (21:21.176)
Yeah, right. No kidding. Honestly, honestly, you’re 100 % right. would you what would you say is, you know, some of the mistakes over over you’ve got 40 years in this business and 40 years, not just in investing, but almost every facet of investing from mortgages to the actual realty side to the broker side to the construction side. Like you’ve got literally the entire well rounded complete package, right? What are some of the biggest mistakes you see people making when they get started that are

very simply avoidable.

Eddie Serralles (21:54.075)
Well, I think there’s a cheat code and the cheat code is to get a mentor and a know what mean? If you don’t have a mentor and a coach, if you don’t have somebody who’s making $50,000 plus a month, then how are they going to teach you how to make $50,000 plus a month?

Stephen S. (22:00.736)
Hmm.

Stephen S. (22:09.162)
about doing the thing they’re teaching you to do.

Eddie Serralles (22:15.043)
I think is the most important thing, you know, and then, you know, and just, you know, knowledge is power. So get all the knowledge you can books, podcasts, YouTube, Google, you know, meet people, network talk, you know, go to events. mean, you can never not get enough of the environment or the word.

you know, the preaching or the systems or ideas or strategies or meet people and just, you know, cause there’s so many games in this game. You know, there’s so many different ways people make money. There’s just so many and just look at them all, test them all, see which ones you like, what fits you and what, and, and what, you know, but you know, and no matter what you do, you’ve got to want to love it. You have to love what you want, what you do. And I love what I do. You know, I love.

I love being in control of my destiny and being in control of my life and trying to figure out, know, and there’s sometimes, look, even me, 40 years in the business, there’s been times in six months I didn’t make no money. I’ve had dry spells and I’ve had times where I’ve lost $10 million. You know, I’ve gone up and down like a yo-yo, you know, but, you know, it’s life. It’s just like life, you know, and I don’t regret any of it.

I say one thing I made was probably selling, but I had to sell sometimes. You have to pay bills and you have to pay taxes and you take some chips off the board and you go buy more with them. But I have a friend of mine, he’s like, I’m never selling nothing and he never did. And man, he’s really done very well because he never sold. And I was like, this guy’s crazy. Why don’t you take some chips off the board? But it’s all a game. It’s just figuring it out and what fits you.

Stephen S. (24:01.76)
What did you learn from your first coach that has stuck with you till today?

Eddie Serralles (24:14.912)
think just really kind of knowing the real estate math, know, knowing values, you know, knowing the basic principles, you know, the foundation pieces that are really important of understanding this game, you know, and just understand that, you know, that real estate don’t need you, you need real estate and that it’s going to exist with you without you. People need a place to stay. People are going to pay, you know, prices.

is relevant. You know what value is and cost is two different things. Like I bought a building for $135, that was a value, but the cost to me was zero down zero a month. So maybe $135 sounds expensive, but zero down zero a month doesn’t sound expensive. So it’s just understanding creative financing, understanding the real estate map.

Eddie Serralles (25:08.674)
We’ll see you on YouTube.

Stephen S. (25:10.02)
100%. So, right, of course, which is why it’s so important to find a coach or a mentor, right? So, if you had to go back to the beginning of when you got started, like if you had to go back to the beginning, not start over, but if you went back to the beginning, but you could take all of the knowledge that you’ve brought with you over the last 40 years, what would you do different? And what would you do the same?

Eddie Serralles (25:15.371)
Okay.

Eddie Serralles (25:37.077)
Well, I think I always worked hard and I always was striving for knowledge. You know, and I kept taking it and I kept working hard and you’re probably looking at the biggest failure you’ve ever seen. Even though everybody looks at me, I’m so successful, you know, but man, I’ve, stumbled and fell and, know, and I think if I’d had a, you know, more coaches or more coaching, you know, I didn’t really.

Eddie Serralles (26:08.778)
You know, just, think having a coach have a mentor would help me out a lot more about having more, you know, would have found a sick more advice if I would have had, you know, I think I did a lot of it on my own, you know what I mean? Cause I think a lot of, I think I was kind of scared to maybe ask people and I think people, was scared for their answers. Like, why are you doing that? Are you crazy? You know, I I would have gotten bad answers.

Stephen S. (26:38.314)
Sure. So, right. So for somebody like you that’s already achieved like really big milestones, really big numbers, what’s next for you?

Eddie Serralles (26:39.198)
You are you thinking correct?

Eddie Serralles (26:52.234)
Yeah, I’m in four states now, so I already own a lot of stuff. I have a motel, I got a couple of clubs I’m opening up, convenience store, a bunch of stuff. I’m into a lot of stuff. I love doing loans. I love running money because it’s a partnership, but in different way. I try to create that win-win scenario, but through loans.

I like to regularly partner up if I can, you know, through trust. do a lot of trust.

You know, I made my money with properties and I nearly never really liked people too much, you know, when I was younger, because I don’t think people like me too much, you know what mean? Because maybe I was different, you know, but now as I’m getting older, I have to realize I can’t do the things I used to do physically with properties, you know? And so I’m starting to work with people more and in learning how to teach and learning how to have patience and learning how to guide them. And so

I want to be a billionaire. And so I feel like if I can make a whole bunch of people millionaires, I’ll become a billionaire. And so I’m opening up, I’m in offices in four different states now and I’m all over and I’m trying to, you know, trying to get much, you know, I’m trying to get big. I’m trying to hit it. then, you know, I’ll be 57 in July and, um, you know, I don’t know if I want to retire or what I’m gonna do. And, know, it’s like, I’m already tired as it is. I don’t have to do, do anything. I got people that do all my stuff for me. You know what I mean? I just have to come in and troubleshoot and just make sure I rig it. And, um,

Stephen S. (28:23.584)
Sure.

Eddie Serralles (28:28.105)
And so it’s all about, you you do I run the business or the business runs me, you know, and I’m not going to let a business run me or anybody run me, my country run me or my government or my, or my market. You know, I mean, I, I’m going to try to figure out how to be in control of my life, you know? So I want to run my life. don’t want other people or other things telling me how to run my life. That makes any sense.

Stephen S. (28:53.268)
Yeah, yeah, it does 100%. One of the things you said in there almost kind of in the beginning was you used to not like people. Has that changed over the years now to where you value relationships or what does that look like for you now?

Eddie Serralles (29:08.297)
No, mean, people are just people. And I hate to say that, people are people. And I’m different. I’m different. It’s like, because I get on people’s asses all the time. Like, you say you want it, you say you want it, but your ass ain’t doing shit. You know what mean? And then you ain’t listening and you’re not. I mean, and it’s like, I mean, you know, you don’t really want it. You know, stop saying something that you don’t really, you don’t put the action or the effort towards it.

Stephen S. (29:10.984)
Yeah. Do you you do you

Stephen S. (29:22.592)
Right.

Stephen S. (29:31.198)
Is it that you don’t like people or is it that you don’t like stubborn people that won’t take action?

Eddie Serralles (29:37.245)
Well, no, I love successful people. love my little guy. Do what they say and exceed my expectations. my God, I love my dad. I mean, it’s like, my gosh, look at this kid. He’s kicking, you he’s, you know, he’s taking what I’m telling you. He’s putting it on steroids. You know what mean? He’s just like, he’s killing it. You know what I mean? And he’s just exceeding expectations that he’s, you know, and he listens and he follows instructions and you tell him what to He does it. I mean, you know, shoot, I want to make him my kid. I mean, he’s like, you know, these kids are like great.

Stephen S. (29:39.871)
Hahaha

Eddie Serralles (30:05.672)
You know, some of these kids that are out there working are blowing my mind, you know, and I’m glad to see that they’re helping change the world. They’re helping change themselves, but they’re also doing a lot of good things for our society because it’s needed. Drive around. There’s a lot of still undeveloped areas and low-end stuff that needs to made nicer and better.

Stephen S. (30:28.384)
Right. Is there at the point of your career where you’re at now, is it more important for you to have solid relationships before you have transactions or transactions before you have solid relationships and a relationship develops as a part of the transaction? What’s more important?

Eddie Serralles (30:47.303)
Well, relationships, period. I don’t care about money and I don’t care about that kind of stuff. And most of people that work for me have been with me for over 20 years. Everybody I know, all my good clients, I have 20 plus years with them all. Everybody that I’m really with, look, my network of people that are around me have to be with me every 20 years. And we go through thick and thin. I mean, we’ve gone through the ups and downs. It’s trials and tribulations. And that’s how you know they’re strong.

Stephen S. (30:55.616)
Hmm.

Eddie Serralles (31:16.86)
You know, there’s some of the guys that were just, you know, hate me the most. like, yeah, I hate them, but I love them. You know what I mean? He’s like, love hate because they know that I’m a very strong guy to be with, you you have to have that commitment, that strength, that foundation piece if you’re gonna grow.

Stephen S. (31:42.482)
Right, you’re like the Michael Jordan in real estate. It’s like you might hate that guy, but look where he took you Took you to six rings, you know what I mean? Love that. Well, Eddie, thank you so much for being here today Carving some time out if people want to learn more about you or what you’re working on. Where should they go for that?

Eddie Serralles (31:50.052)
Yeah. Right.

Eddie Serralles (32:01.767)
I guess, serralisgroup.com, our website, serralistraininggroup.com. We have two websites. We also have a phone number, an easy phone number, 813-307-0007. We’re in Tampa Heights. We’ve been here for over 30 plus years, developing this area. we’re in for YouTube. Yeah, we have Serralis Group channel on YouTube. A lot of videos. It has a lot of videos.

Stephen S. (32:26.56)
There you go.

Love it. Well go connect with them. You’ve shared your cell phone, so all seven million of our listeners are now gonna probably call you. I’m just kidding, we don’t have that many yet. Anytime someone puts their phone on there, I’m like, you done messed up, man. I’m just kidding. It’s not that big yet.

Eddie Serralles (32:31.278)
And.

Eddie Serralles (32:41.229)
It’s too people.

Eddie Serralles (32:48.583)
You know, I have a very good company. I just wish and I can help people. I do more for people than parents would do for them. And I just wish people could actually come on board and learn this and don’t have to believe it. Believe it that real estate is real. That a good mentor, a good coach can help change your life. Thanks for having me.

Stephen S. (32:56.032)
Mm.

Stephen S. (33:07.39)
You you got, well everyone, I I hope you enjoyed today’s show. You’re absolutely welcome. I’m grateful we had our conversation, but everyone, I hope you enjoyed the show. We’ll see you in the next episode and go connect with Eddie for more. Thanks a ton for listening, y’all.