Unlocking Real Estate Success: Elliot Meadows’ Journey from Struggles to Triumph

Dylan Silver (00:01.673)
Hey folks, welcome back to the show. I’m your host, Dylan Silver. And today on the show I have builder, custom homes, certified contractor, Elliot Meadows certified contractor, Elliot Meadows custom homes out of beautiful Daytona Beach, Florida, Elliot Meadows. Elliot, welcome to the show.

Elliot Meadows (00:22.254)
Thank you, sir. Dylan, how are you?

Dylan Silver (00:24.107)
It’s a good day out here in Denton. I’m glad because we had tornado warnings earlier this week and now no tornado ended up happening. So it’s one of these deals where you kind of brace for impact and nothing happens. So we’re glad to be here. How’s it over there?

Elliot Meadows (00:39.084)
Nice. It’s beautiful. Mostly cloudy. 76, high of 93. No, it’s going to be really good. We got some family in town. We’re going to spend some time on the boat this weekend. And we had an amazing week. So yeah, it’s time well deserved.

Dylan Silver (00:54.293)
You know, I’m jealous and I tell everybody this who’s from Florida. said, I don’t know what’s in the weather or the water or whatever, but there’s so much real estate entrepreneurism that seems to be attracted to Florida, every area of Florida. You know, you’re in Daytona Beach, you know, other people, know, Fort Lauderdale, Miami, St. Petersburg. I’m sure there’s lots of areas that I don’t know about. And every time that I go through any part of Florida, I say, man, this is nice. You know, and I’m in Texas. So I think that says something about

about Florida, but you’re actually Florida kinda by way of Houston as well.

Elliot Meadows (01:28.521)
Correct i was born in houston still have family in houston and in dallas they’ll be moving here soon though shout out to the barker clan but. The fact of the matter is you’ve got the beaches you’ve got the rivers you’ve got the springs you’ve got nascar you’ve got truck week beach week spring break canadian spring break the summer time i mean it’s beautiful the only problem is occasionally you get an eighty five degree day on christmas that’s really the only problem other than that.

Florida’s great, the governor’s amazing, the legislature’s amazing, they do great work. So shout out Chase Tremont, by the way, he’s an amazing guy that’s in our legislature here in Florida, helps us get a lot of stuff done. I’m the government affairs chairman of the Volusia Building Industry Association also. So we do a lot of work in the community to try to help, you know, make sure that builders are taken care of so that we can build houses for people and they can raise families.

Dylan Silver (02:25.099)
You know, when I think about the real estate space, I think about how I got in not too long ago, actually, two years ago. But I’m always curious how my guests got into the real estate space. So Elliot, how did you get into real estate?

Elliot Meadows (02:39.475)
was, it was it’s in my blood, my grandfather from Shepherd, Texas and Houston, Texas, rest in peace. James Edward Meadows, the first was a real estate broker in Texas, had a lot of land had a lot of acreage, did his own development had a lot of rental properties. But unfortunately passed away in the early 90s. And, you know, because of how some of the laws work, my parents and, and my aunts and uncles didn’t really get

any of that legacy which was pretty sad and so those guys have moved to florida and my father was actually a real estate broker in the eighties and in the nineties since retired and in 2004 unfortunately i got divorced actually bought my first home in 2001 when i was 21 years old i was married to my high school sweetheart unfortunately we got divorced a few years after that and i ended up selling my first house

And I got really lucky because we bought that house in 2000 and then we sold it in 2004, which was the height of the market before the seven crash. And so we made like a hundred thousand dollars on that house and it was totally amazing. And so I was sold on real estate. mean, I already loved houses and things and my dad was a bit of a hands-on guy growing up. And so we learned some carpentry and some stuff. But, when I saw how much money could be made in real estate, that’s when I was really like, wow.

This is it always been driven and passionate about money unfortunately because of things that we didn’t have when we were younger but so in 2004 about my first what turned out to be a multi unit building it was an old victorian house with a little house in the back and i subsequently converted into a six unit apartment building which then later got converted to a triplex and so and i held it for fifteen years.

I’m and we figured the math the other day this is amazing going so bought this house for a hundred thousand dollars in two thousand four. Turn it into six units for about fifty thousand so let’s just say we had a hundred and fifty k involved in it and two thousand four.

Elliot Meadows (04:49.341)
Hold it for fifteen years over that fifteen years we collected approximately four thousand a month. Six thousand a month toward the end when as rents raised so four to six thousand let’s call it five thousand a month sixty thousand per year we made ish on this property for fifteen years so that’s nine hundred k. We ended up selling for three hundred and something so there’s another two hundred fifty thousand profit so if you subtract out some taxes and some.

no things that we upgraded and had to pay we made a million dollars on a hundred dollar house over fifteen year period holding this was a nineteen three victorian in daytona beach. So that’s the grand story right there is that if you buy things early and hold them. You can never make a mistake my grandfather always said my dad always said you can never over pay for real estate.

Dylan Silver (05:43.723)
That’ll make me into a real estate investor. You talked about getting in and selling your first home kind of at the height down there. But before we hopped on here, we talked about something that’s particularly interesting to me. And I’m curious how you got into sort of these land plays, right? You talked about in a personal, the RV. there’s really two ways where my head goes with this. Number one is I love land.

I haven’t really done any land deals. I’ve looked at them, but I’ve had a lot of guests on this show who talk about land. And then number two is, you know, there’s a lot of people who are builders who also aren’t involved in investing and you’re doing both, which I think is great. But was it always the case? Was it always, I’m going to do both of these or did one kind of take a back seat at any point in time?

Elliot Meadows (06:32.016)
So there’s levels to this just to start that off, you know, you can’t really, even if you have a ton of money, it’s not super smart to just jump into a big land deal without having an expert on your side. And I would consider myself an expert. There are other experts out there that can do land deals, but you know, just because you’ve got, you know, windfall of money, don’t think you can just go out and buy 20, 30, 50 acres, a hundred acres, and it’s going to be successful. Definitely talk to a professional, a realtor, a contractor.

environmentalists, surveyors. These are the people that you need to really talk to before you do anything on land. I just want to say that first. But so after the 2004 windfall that we had on that little house that we bought, I went into property as hard as I could. I ended up with 37 units, three multifamilies as. Yeah, I asked my my ask my dad and my stepmom to co-sign for me.

Dylan Silver (07:20.491)
Holy cow!

Dylan Silver (07:26.123)
You’re 24 and buying 37 units. No kidding.

Elliot Meadows (07:29.052)
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. At that point, I had worked at a building company called Masterpiece Homes for about three years. So I was making pretty decent money. I also had a few rental properties by that point. So I had the six units on Magnolia. I bought another one on my own name. got my, my parents saw how good I was doing. So I got my dad and my stepmom who my stepmom has been at a hospital for 35 years. So she had great credit. She signed for me on 17 units on two buildings.

Later on we, we cashed her back out and she’s done with that. But, so in 07, 08, it crashed. So, I had 37 units and I lost my construction job. So, nobody was hiring. So thank God we had the 37 units because those kept us afloat for almost five years while there was really not a lot of construction. So I ended up getting my own license to build.

Dylan Silver (08:05.899)
Yeah.

Dylan Silver (08:11.209)
Holy smokes.

Elliot Meadows (08:26.887)
new construction homes and what not in two thousand nine once i couldn’t find a job nobody would hire me i said well i gotta have to hire myself that which is good advice to anybody who’s having trouble. Keeping a good job or thinks that they’re not getting paid enough for things that they’re worth more and they know they’re a hard worker they know they can do it just hire yourself that’s what i would say. But but so when that crash happened an interesting thing happened so when a recession happens people don’t really.

think about this, but in this particular case, the great recession was so bad that even rents went down. Normally in recess, people have to rent, rents kind of a elevated or go up. But in this particular case, the recession was so bad that all the people that had apartments and houses had to move back in with mom or dad or grandma, or they doubled or tripled up with families living in one home. And at that point, rents actually went down. Luckily, I never had to foreclose or lose any homes. We bought them.

Dylan Silver (09:02.751)
Hmm. That doesn’t help.

Elliot Meadows (09:24.996)
Well enough and I did my own maintenance and you have my own license so we were able to hold on to those homes which turned out you know when the market came back in twenty seventeen twenty eighteen I sold all those homes and made really really good profit and at that point building was jamming it was really going and so I took all that money from those rental properties and I put it all into new construction lots so by that point I had been building new construction homes on my own since.

About 2010, I built my first duplex, ended up buying a house through a bank. I got a really good deal on it. It was a nine unit building. And somebody in the neighborhood burnt it down twice on Christmas day. Well, it was a nine unit building that was there. It was an old building. I was going to do a remodel on it and the neighborhood didn’t want the remodel because it was a pretty bad

Dylan Silver (10:08.18)
You’re a duplex.

Dylan Silver (10:12.456)
shit.

Elliot Meadows (10:20.751)
building for that area was a really nice area in Daytona right next to river and so the neighbors. Somebody in the neighborhood i don’t wanna say who was burnt down the house literally twice on christmas day twenty ten you can google this folks it’s there’s news newscasts about it to twenty north halifax Daytona beach but i’m so it took about a year but i ended up demolishing demolishing that and.

This was in 2010, 2011, there was no money. Nobody wanted to make construction loans. So I had a little bit of money from the rental properties. So I built my first duplex out of my own pocket. Luckily about halfway through a hard money guy drove by and put his card in my job box. And that hard money guy ended up investing in me over the next several years. And we built, you know, probably 25 or 30 houses together. Rest in peace. He’s, he’s now deceased, but so.

Dylan Silver (10:50.793)
Yeah.

Elliot Meadows (11:15.755)
At that point I started to become a little bit more of an expert on buying land because buying land is really tricky you have to watch out for floods and easements and you know liens on the property and you know underground you know things that people have ownership of you know rights of mineral rights I mean property is scary and is crazy so.

When you go and buy a property, highly recommend you get a 15 to 30 day due diligence and speak to some experts before you close. Far too many people that I’ve met come to me and they already have their lot purchased and they go, yeah, we’ve got this great piece of land. What do we do? And I go, all right, let’s get the surveys. Let’s do this. Let’s do that. And then the surveys come back and it’s, you know, 84 % wetlands and 15 % uplands. I talked to a young woman today.

Actually, she’s a realtor here in Daytona. She’s got a five acre piece of property and they did a delineation and there’s no room. They say it’s all wetlands. Basically, there’s no room to build the house. Meanwhile, they already bought this piece of property side unseen because they thought, wow, we’re getting a great deal. So guys.

Dylan Silver (12:24.991)
You know, when I hear all of this, what stuck out to me, Elliot, was you mentioned hiring yourself. Have you ever looked back and said, well, what would have happened with my business as a builder if I would have gotten hired by someone else in that time frame? How might my life look different?

Elliot Meadows (12:44.403)
I would probably.

still be working at somebody’s shop making them a millionaire honestly because at that point i had a young baby i was really focused on you know trying to provide for her and you know i probably would take in the safe route but luckily the recession wouldn’t allow that and my entrepreneurial spirit kicked in and i was actually depressed for about a year i don’t talk about this a lot.

But that was a tough period of my life from 2008, 2009, 2010, when it seemed the bleakest, know, rents were going on. could barely afford the mortgages, the taxes, the insurance on the buildings. was kicking people out left and right. They couldn’t afford the rent, even though the rents were cheaper. You know, I couldn’t get a job. couldn’t, you know, do anything. I literally had to get on public assistance for my daycare for my kid.

in order to do that, which, you know, isn’t something that I’m, you know, super proud of, but it goes to show, and I also had to file for bankruptcy, but it goes to show that if you really put your mind to it and you work hard and you don’t put up a bunch of excuses and you just go to work every day, I had the 666 method, which isn’t cool, but it was wake up and go to work at 6 a.m., come home at 6 p.m. and do that six days a week. I did that for 15 years.

Dylan Silver (14:16.907)
Mmm.

Elliot Meadows (14:18.277)
So now I recommend the 555.

Dylan Silver (14:21.291)
555 is do wake up at 5 a.m.

Elliot Meadows (14:24.222)
Yeah, wake up at 5 a.m. Do what you’re going to do. Stop at 5 p.m. So you can have some time with the wife and the kids and then only do that five days a week because those other days during the weekend are pretty important as it turns out to keep a wife and a family going. But. But at a certain point, though, if you’re young, you don’t have a family. I mean, the 666 is the way to go.

Dylan Silver (14:38.667)
Keep yourself sane, yeah.

Elliot Meadows (14:48.068)
Or if your wife or your significant other is willing to allow you to work that much or maybe they have to work that much also and you can still get that time and together you work together but you know think about this if you work six hour or twelve hours a day six days a week seventy two hours a week that’s like seventy five percent. More of a week than everybody else is giving you work forty hours and i work in extra thirty two i get an extra week.

So if I worked for that for 15 years, actually did it for 30 years.

Dylan Silver (15:20.181)
Yeah, it’s a whole lot more time.

Elliot Meadows (15:22.937)
Yeah, so people ask, you how did you do it? How did you make so much money? did you this property? Well, I worked for 30 years in a 15-year period.

Dylan Silver (15:26.57)
I work.

Dylan Silver (15:32.725)
I want to pivot here, Elliot, and talk about scaling a business. And then I also want to talk about the scale that it’s at today is super impressive. mean, we talked about the RV parks. I want to talk a little bit about working with custom homes and what that field entails, the higher end stuff. And then how did the business look when you were starting out, right? So as someone who maybe has had business experience but hasn’t owned a construction company,

What did that look like? How were you getting your information? Was there mentorship? Was there lot of figuring out on the fly? Where did you go to for information?

Elliot Meadows (16:11.899)
Yes so in 2010 smartphones were just coming out and when i took my license in 2009 you know it was all on paper it was all paper books you know wasn’t digital at that point. I had built about three hundred and fifty homes with masterpiece homes over that three or four year period. And so that was a that was a really really really good college for me.

I also built a 36 unit three story condo in 2007 up in Palm Coast and I built an eight story condo on the ocean and the end in the beginning of 07 and 08. So a lot of that was learning from the guys, older folks in the field that were there and they kind of guided me and taught me and actually it was a lot of fake it till you make it.

It was a lot of just hard work and grinding it out and you know sometimes you don’t know everything and you just need to know where to find the answer and don’t be so don’t have so much hubris that you can’t. Ask a question to somebody that knows or somebody that’s doing it or somebody’s got a little more experience than you know the fool knows everything the wise man understands he does nothing so ask the question.

don’t be afraid so that’s what i would say i really really have a thirst and hunger for knowledge and so because i had never gone to college that construction training from those older guys was my construction college and. It’s kind of sad because you know in eight and nine when everything crashed all those old guys retired and there was a five year period where the literally was no construction and so.

I’m there gone and so a lot of the knowledge that was there is gone with those guys thank goodness we’ve got youtube and the digital age to teach some of the younger generation because at this point i’m actually considering opening up elliot meadows construction college. I’m a trade school to start teaching people build hvac plumbing trend carpentry drywall trades painting roofing block masonry concrete.

Dylan Silver (18:24.363)
Yeah.

Elliot Meadows (18:33.658)
These guys that are so I’m I have about 3040 subcontractors I built about 30 or 40 50 houses a year and those subcontractors are all extremely wealthy they’re making a lot of money. I just had an electrician I just got a bill $475 to change six outlets in a house.

Hey, I don’t know if you guys are out there and hearing this, think if you don’t have a grade, get into a trade. And then when you’re in that trade and you start making a bunch of money, start investing in rental properties. Because as my folks used to say, best way to make money is to make money while you’re sleeping. And the only. Yeah.

Dylan Silver (19:15.979)
Correct me if I’m but in a lot of, at least in Texas, and I’m curious how it is out there, if you’re in trade school, it’s definitely different than going to traditional college because you’re actually, in many cases, getting paid along the way, if I’m not mistaken.

Elliot Meadows (19:35.04)
No no trade school is based like any regular college your your their learning now now what a lot of trade schools have is an apprenticeship program at the end of the trade school what they will literally place you at an electrician a plumber and hvac drywall company whatever they’ll place you there for an internship now some of those internships are paid some are not paid. But you know it’s just it’s company to company and depending how bad they need people you know.

Is is what it is but right now if you went to a trade school and you just knew anything about electric hvac or plumbing you would get hired immediately that day and it would be you know twenty to twenty two bucks an hour. What that certificate and then once you are on the job for three to six months you might get up to twenty five and once you’re there for a year or two making thirty thirty five forty bucks an hour is not uncommon in this game now another thing to is if you got folks.

that grew up on a farm or they’re super handy and they can do all sorts of things or maybe they got a little HD HD HD and they don’t like to do one thing. Handyman are super valuable because me personally I’m always looking for handyman to help me at my rental properties Andy women though I have a woman that’s a great handy person Andy person sounds weird but she’s a handy person.

Dylan Silver (20:52.523)
Elliot, I want to talk about RV parks and land in general. know, we’ve hit out a couple different subjects here, but specifically, I think there’s a lot of interest burgeoning right now around land. think because for a lot of fix and flippers, you know, fix and flip can be difficult right now with the margins being slimmer. New builds maybe seems to be the way to go. But also, you know, RV parks.

is actually a great investment. And I’ve talked with a couple people on the show here. It really is something that a lot more people are looking into and considering. How did you start looking at these deals? And what’s your general take on the space?

Elliot Meadows (21:34.11)
So for many, years, baby boomers have been the largest cohort in our society, meaning they’re the, it’s the most they’ve got the most. and they’ve got all the money and they’ve got all the time in the world. So what they’ve been doing is they’ve been traveling. They’ve been purchasing RVs, buses, pull-behinds, and they’ve been going all around the country. And the only problem with that is though, sometimes they get a little tired. And so when they get a little tired, they want to stop and they want to be at a nice spot. So.

RV resorts in areas that are. That have a lot of attractions or have a lot of things for them to do. They’re in high demand and RV resort is an amazing thing because the ROI is outstanding you know these people that pull in for a night are paying hundred hundred thirty five dollars a night to have an RV spot and they say they’re four five six nights whatever they’re paying a huge amount and so to me.

But it’s worth it cuz i personally am an rvr my dad bought an rv a few years back and i you know kind of fell in love with it and. My dad kinda got me sold on it he’s like son i’m traveling all around the country and i’m paying a fortune to stay at these rv resorts. How some of the people that come in and they stay for six months eight months at a time or whatever they get a little bit of a discount but so most of the rv resorts are doing a blended model let’s just do a quick math problem if you have a hundred units.

You have a blended model, which means 50 % of them will be long-term. Let’s just use a thousand a month. So you make 50,000 a month on that long-term group. The other 50 % or short, short-term those short-termers are paying. Let’s just call it hundred bucks a day. That’s 3000 a month. So your average is 2000 a month per slot times a hundred. What’s the math on that? I think it’s what’s the number they’re doing. If you got a hundred units and you’re making 2000 a month.

That’s $200,000 a month.

Dylan Silver (23:34.315)
100 units, you said 2000 a month, and then you said 50 % of that.

Elliot Meadows (23:36.306)
I think it is. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Yeah. no, 2,000 a unit times 100 units, 200,000 a month.

Dylan Silver (23:44.25)
huh.

Dylan Silver (23:47.851)
Okay, yep, I got that.

Elliot Meadows (23:50.897)
Alright, that’s what you’re bringing in monthly. So it’s 2.4 million. Okay. To build a hundred RV sites, it costs you approximately 50,000 a site. So now you’re talking five mil to build it. Plus you got to buy the land. Let’s say the land cost you a milli. So now you’re at six mil, but you’re bringing in 2.4 a year. Well, there’s some, there’s some costs associated with that though. You got to run the.

Dylan Silver (23:54.826)
Yep.

Elliot Meadows (24:16.869)
Pickleball court you gotta clean up the dog park you gotta make sure the pool at the quarter of the clubhouse looks good and you got normally the people that live at the rv park the older women there run the front desk and the inside and the older men there get on the golf carts and clean up and help and show the people how to move in and move out and after stuff and they enjoy doing it because they want something to do because they’re retired and they’re all old successful people that are you know they don’t love just sitting around so that’s kind of the business model so let’s say you spend.

I don’t know forty let’s say spend thirty thousand a month on insurance. Facilities and people and say spend forty thousand a month that’s five hundred grand a year off your two point four now you’re at one point nine. Minus whatever you paid so if you’ve got a six million dollar mortgage that’s about sixty thousand a month so that’s about seven hundred twenty thousand a year.

So, you know, take your 720 off of your 1.9 and now you got 1.2 million in profit on a 100 unit RV park every year.

Dylan Silver (25:21.769)
And the maintenance is, I mean, you mentioned some maintenance with like facilities, but it’s not like you’re owning apartments, right? So it’s, it’s totally different. And honestly, people are generally happy to be there, right? So it’s not like there’s probably a whole lot of complaining happening or like, you know, the things that that needs.

Elliot Meadows (25:37.7)
Will you when you build a brand new there’s no maintenance because you’re under warranty with all the subcontractors bumper to bumper for the first year pretty much for the second year too and we always do a structural 10 year insurance plan so that even if anything crazy happened to whoever did any of the work we still be covered structurally but yeah we can build it new everybody wants to be there too you got some old parks in the community but when you build it new everything works they’ve got the high speed data.

Got the new dog park we got the new pickleball we got the pool we got the playground for the kids when the grandkids come over this is beautiful you know we do it the way that it’s supposed to done and so. I need there’s no better business now we’re in talks right now we haven’t actually built one right now we’re in talks on a couple different pieces of property to do our first one but what i just see you is the business plan that i wrote out and what i did is i went to every single.

rv park in volusia county is like ten of them and i took all their numbers for each month and what they were charging and how many slots they had and i did this beautiful business plan and i didn’t show anybody but myself cuz i was the one that we sold on it and i’m all in and you don’t have any kitchens you know it’s really easy really easy easier than rental properties i can tell you but the problem is.

Dylan Silver (26:55.723)
Yeah. Yeah.

Elliot Meadows (27:01.319)
Get into something like that you gotta be able to qualify for six to ten fifteen million dollars depending how big the deal is like three hundred units is gonna be a fifteen million dollar deal but on three hundred units you make three point six million in profit a year.

Dylan Silver (27:14.153)
I mean, once again, I’m blown away at the possibilities with land. This is not the first conversation that I’ve had on it. And each time that I had these conversations, it’s like the red car theory, right? So I’m in the greater DFW area and I was like, where’s the RV parks? And I’m like, where are they? I don’t see them. It turns out as I leave the street that I’m on in Denton and make a right, there’s an RV park right over here. And then you’re going down and I’m like, well, I’m actually in the outskirts of DFW.

So there’s actually more RV parks over here.

Elliot Meadows (27:46.284)
Hey, do this still call one and say hey, do you have any slots available? Call one see if you can get a slot when we hang up call and see if you can get a slot today. They’re gonna be like no, sorry. We’re about three weeks out and then you’re go whoa. Let’s do it

Dylan Silver (28:02.047)
Yeah, mean, that’s the business model, know, proof and concept right there. We are coming up on time here, Elliot. Where can folks go to learn more about your business and to get a hold of you?

Elliot Meadows (28:14.453)
So my phone number is 386-233-1111. This is not a job, this is a lifestyle. Call me day or night, text me. You can get me on Instagram at Elliott Meadows Builds. We’ve got some good content there. We’ve got our own YouTube channel. E-L-L-I-O-T-M-E-A-D-O-W-S is the spelling. We’ve got a great website, elliottmeadows.com. You can also get me on Facebook. I use my private Facebook.

30 % for construction 30 % for fun and 30 % for inspiration so if you wanna. I don’t know what the other 10 is by the way no missing 10 % in there i’m not sure but if you want to get me on any of those things you can and if you want to do some deals listen if you want to put some money to work and actually make an ROI come talk to me.

Dylan Silver (29:03.167)
Elliot, it’s been a pleasure to have you on the show here today. Congrats on all your success and to your continued success.

Elliot Meadows (29:09.556)
Thank you, buddy. appreciate it. Let’s do it again.