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Show Summary
In this episode of the Investor Fuel Podcast, host Leo Wehdeking interviews Liborio Derario, a seasoned real estate investor and mentor. Liborio shares his extensive experience in the real estate industry, discussing his journey from architect to real estate developer. He emphasizes the importance of networking, mindset, and understanding the numbers in real estate investing. Liborio also provides insights on overcoming challenges, scaling a business, and the tax advantages of real estate investment. He encourages beginners to take action and offers resources for those looking to start their real estate journey.
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Investor Fuel Show Transcript:
Liborio (00:00)
So the idea is that I show people how to find, fund, and flip properties, never own them, and make money flipping contracts.And people are like, you can’t do that. And in some states, right now, there is this opposition to wholesaling property without having a license. So you have to be careful which state you do this in. But you can operate in a bunch of different areas without having a license, without having any experience or any money, and flip your first house to make a minimum of $5,000, $10,000, $15,000 in 30 days or less.
Leo Wehdeking (02:05)
Hey everyone, welcome to the investor fuel podcast. I’m your host Leo Wehdeking and today I am joined by someone I’ve been looking forward to chatting with. Liborio Derario. All right, who’s been making serious moves in the real estate industry. Liborio, glad to have you here, man. How’s your day?Liborio (02:22)
Thank you.Days going, like I said, going very well. My days always go well.
Leo Wehdeking (02:26)
Excellent.I’m glad to hear that. Liborio, I think that our listeners are really going to take something away from how you’ve been approaching your real estate business. right. ⁓ Let’s dive in. All right. And for people who may not be familiar with your world, can you give us the short version on what’s your main focus these days?
Liborio (02:50)
Sure, well, I’m trained as an architect, licensed architect in all 50 states and over 38 countries. I’m a builder for 40 years as well, a real estate developer, author. I have a couple of books out and I also am a mentor to mentor people in real estate from experienced real estate investors to beginners.Leo Wehdeking (03:13)
Alright, that’s cool. And you said that you operate in one market.Liborio (03:18)
So I’m operating right now in the New York tri-state area. I also have boots on the ground in St. Augustine and parts of Florida and also in Overland Park, Kansas. I have boots on the ground there as well.Leo Wehdeking (03:31)
All right, love it, love it. Liborio, something that really caught my attention is the way that you’ve been able to integrate your real estate business with everything else that you do. Now, you’re telling me that you like to encourage people that have actually no clue about real estate to get into real estate. Am I right? All right. So can you tell us how you’ve been ableLiborio (03:52)
That’s correct.Leo Wehdeking (03:58)
to achieve that because that’s something that it’s kind of difficult in theory, right? How is it in the practice?Liborio (04:04)
Sure. Well,so here’s the thing. I’ve been doing this for 40 years and I’ve spent hundreds of thousands of dollars with mentors around the country that have been doing this for years as well. So I was trained by numerous different mentors on the pitfalls and the changes and the indicators of what’s going on in the real estate market, as well as mindset. So this is a very important part of it.
A lot of people, like I said, real estate, I want to flip houses, it’s sexy, right? But why? Why do you want to do it? And it can’t just be for the money. mean, the money is an underlying, it’s a vehicle so that you can get your time back, really, and do things that you want and also be able to have some legacy for your family.
the idea is that I show people how to find, fund, and flip properties, never own them, and make money flipping contracts.
And people are like, you can’t do that. And in some states, right now, there is this opposition to wholesaling property without having a license. So you have to be careful which state you do this in. But you can operate in a bunch of different areas without having a license, without having any experience or any money, and flip your first house to make a minimum of $5,000, $10,000, $15,000 in 30 days or less.
So that’s what I’m trying to bring that to beginners.
And that’s my goal right now.
Leo Wehdeking (06:21)
Alright and what’s the recipe or the key to keep your business running smoothly?Liborio (06:31)
So I don’t have it with me, but I would hold up my business card, okay? And I tell people when they’re starting, you don’t need to look for deals and you don’t need to go out and find buyers. You need to get a business card and you have to go out and talk to everybody you know for a couple of weeks and dump a thousand, two thousand cards out. Go to meetings, real estate meetup meetings, go to rotary clubs, go to what just, you don’t even have to join, just become a guest.ask people to invite you chamber of commerce let people know you’re a real estate investor hand them your card tell them you’re looking for properties you’re looking for deals you know and let them know what areas you’re looking for and that’s the first step and really and and again you have to have a little bit of confidence right you can’t just go out there and say I’m real estate investor you know hey I’m a real estate investor I’m joining this organization I’m coming to organization so I’m looking to expand my knowledge and I want to also expand my network
and and you start picking up parts of people realtors bankers whoever you never know who’s gonna have a you know one of our big sources of the finding deals junkman guys at the cleanups housecleaners right you tell them i’ll give you five to five hundred to five thousand dollars we just gave the one i told you about with my son that he made sixty five k we gave that guy five grand because it was a great deal and it took us less than a month so so and you know we met him through
Going to a networking meeting and he was there at a Builders Association meeting right? He’s a junk guy dumpsters whatever And we gave him our card my son did and my son made the connection and my son made that deal So there’s all different ways to do it with a key first step is to get your business card very cheap Vista print you can spend you know under a hundred bucks get a thousand cards and go Put them everywhere meet people and talk it up. That’s the that’s my first step that would be
the key move to make when you’re getting started.
Leo Wehdeking (08:29)
All right. All right. Now, and another thing that actually caught my attention, it’s how you’re able to change people mindsets when it comes about investing in real estate. All right. So what or how do you do, you know, to when you engage someone, all right, that doesn’t have the right mindset, how do you engage him or engage her into having the right mindset for the moment?Liborio (08:45)
Yeah.You have to break people down if you want to go that far. And you have to ask them the seven questions why. And you get to the underlying factor of what they’re really lacking and what they’re searching for. And if that isn’t a strong enough, and most of the times it comes down to, I grew up in a situation where there was no money or I’m afraid that I’m not going to have a roof over my head because my parents went through a foreclosure. Or some sort of negative thing in the background that
even though they’re positive and they want to do it, there’s something back there. You have to ask them seven levels deep. This I learned from Dean Raziosi. It’s a very simple technique and it’s just a matter of seven questions and going deeper and deeper on each one until you get to the root cause of what is really truly holding you back. A lot of people have fear of money. You know, they make some money and they sabotage, right? So it could just be the fact that they’ve never had money or they’ve never really dealt.
with large sums of money.
And all you have to do is get to that point and then I can take you from there and build you back up to, and so can a lot of other people, not just me, but you can build the people back up to where they’re comfortable with, listen, it’s math, it’s 100,000, it’s a million, it’s five million, it’s 10, it doesn’t matter, it’s just the zeros, okay? The deal is the same, the same process. So whether you make 500 or 5,000 or 50,000 or half a million dollars,
you’re going to make the same three, four moves to get to that point. Now, of course, as the numbers go up, right, then perhaps the, it gets a little more complicated and you really have to stick to your why so that you don’t give up along the way and say, you know, all right, let’s move to the next one. Because, you know, like they said, acres of diamonds, you know, the guy moved out of his house and looking for diamonds all over the world and then he sold the property to the guy and the guy went on the screen. found all the diamonds, right? So, so you can.
Leo Wehdeking (11:06)
Correct.you
Liborio (11:30)
have it right in your own backyard. Everyone’s like, want a remote wholesale. I want to do it here because I can’t do it in my area. Too expensive. I’m doing it in one of the most expensive markets in the world in New York state. Okay. I have friends doing it out in California, you know, so it has nothing to do with your regional location. You can do it right in your own backyard. And that’s what I encourage people to start so that they can see everything and touch everything in their own neighborhoods first. And then if you want to do it remotely and expand tonetworks outside, you have to build a team for that and that’s the next level, so to speak.
Leo Wehdeking (12:07)
All right, cool, cool. Now, Liborio, every operator that I know has a moment where things got real. All right, maybe a deal that went sideways or a time that they had to pivot real fast. Do you mind sharing one of those moments?Liborio (12:21)
Well, so, you again, you’ve got to be able to let go and you don’t want to strangle yourself. So a lot of people are in deals and they’re forcing it. And you know what? So we’ve had, we’ve had times where we’ve dropped away and somebody else picked up the deal and made, and made the money because we didn’t have the time or we didn’t want to get involved with a interpersonal relationship with the seller. So, you know, if it becomes too complex,especially for beginners, move away or ask for help. Bring in somebody if you want, again, to partner, right? So you can bring somebody else in that might want to move forward on something like that where you’re uncomfortable. So there’s all different ways, but we walk away from deals and six months later they call us back and of course we give them a reduced price to purchase on that. So you gotta be able to walk away. You gotta stick to your numbers. Again, it’s all math.
You take your ARV and I could go through the whole process, you really, once you have, especially people bidding, like we buy on HubZero, we buy on auction.com, people are mad there. mean, it’s just a game. And then you wind up that house comes back on the market three months, two months later because the people didn’t perform. So you can’t just keep bidding up because you want to win. And people don’t realize I had a student that worked with me.
and auction.com locally here, and he thought it was a great deal. He didn’t realize there was an 8 % buyer’s premium, and it blew the deal up because it was too much. You bought the price and then you the 8 % on top of it, so I helped him get his money back from auction.com because I had an attorney that knew a couple of clauses in those contracts where they say you can’t get your money back. And again, he was another gold shield working on, in New York City, working on the…
fraud protection. So, you know, I showed him these clauses and he’s like, I’m going to do that. I said, no, no, no, no. We’re going to just do it and going to follow up the attorney says, we got his $9,000 back as his deposit. And so you’ve got to be careful with a lot of little clauses in these auction sites, but those are great places to find good deals. We bought numerous deals and made good money off of those. So, and again, these are all little tips that I can give you as.
where do you find the deals that are off market? But now a lot of people are going to those sites, right? So this is what I’m saying. There’s investors that aren’t really investors that are bidding the prices up and you got to just have your number and walk away. And everyone’s like, I want to do a deal. I want to do my first deal.
Leo Wehdeking (14:58)
center point.Liborio (15:41)
do the wrong first deal. You may never go back in the game again. It’s like grabbing that frying pan with the hot handle. Okay. You’re never going to pick up a pan again in your life because you’re like, got burned. so you’ve got to, you got to be able to back away.So you know the deal and it’s not it may not be a deal, you know, which means it’s not a deal for you It could be a deal for somebody else, but it’s correct
Leo Wehdeking (15:56)
Yeah.But not for you.
Yeah. Having the ability to walk away at the perfect moment. It’s what I think it separates ⁓ the people who just dabble from the ones who stay in the game long term. Okay. You need to know when to walk away, especially when we’re talking about numbers. Okay. Because numbers, numbers matters. Right.
Liborio (16:14)
Yeah.Absolutely.
Yeah, the numbers tell the
story Leo, you know that. And as long as you have them down on a piece of paper, they don’t change. Okay, the number can change what their people are asking or how the deal’s going. You just have to say, okay, next, my line is always next. Okay, there’s always another deal. People are like afraid that the deals are drying up. They never dry up. There’s deals out there. I think we’re gonna come through another wave of foreclosures with these interest rates come and do and the adjustable stuff, things that have been happening.
Leo Wehdeking (16:33)
Exactly.Liborio (16:54)
the people that have squeezed into the market ⁓ with very little equity. think we’re gonna see some issues coming soon.Leo Wehdeking (17:02)
Alright, now, Liborio, let me ask you this. ⁓ What are you most focused on solving or scaling next?Liborio (17:13)
So again, I’m a lifestyle entrepreneur. So scaling to me, like I told you, a grant card donor, I could have syndicated. I had the opportunity to do 200 units and bring people together and manage it. It’s not for me. So again, you have to create your swim lane. Where do you want to be? What kind of life do you want? And I’m not saying that those guys that are managing those big projects have no life.As a matter of fact, some of them are living the life of Riley, right? But, you know, again, I’m 65. Okay, I like to enjoy my life. I have enjoyed my life since I’m 25. Yeah, no, yeah, I am young. You’re not kidding, man. It’s only a number. So, yeah. So, I’m going to, you know, I think I want to see the next millennium, so I’m good to go. know, if Moses could do it, so can I. But anyway, I am, I believe in that. I believe you are as young as you feel.
Leo Wehdeking (17:49)
Here you go. Come on.Look at that face! Look at that face, man. Come on.
Liborio (18:10)
and the stamina to stay with it and you’re only doing heavy energy and stamina because you love what you do. Because if you’re doing it and you don’t love what you do, you’re not going to do it and you’re going to be miserable. So if you’re doing real estate and you’re not happy, get out, do something else. Do something that fires your heart up and your soul. mean, you know, you jump out of bed in the morning and say, all right, I’m going to get cracking on another deal. You know, this deal didn’t come together last week. I’m going to go find two more this week, you know, or whatever.Leo Wehdeking (18:21)
Correct.Liborio (18:38)
⁓ Again, I do construction work as well. I I have a kitchen cabinet wholesaling company. I have couple of, I have 15 rental properties, single family homes here in New York, know, multi-million dollars worth of holdings and a lot of equity. I have a couple of houses down on the Jersey shore. My daughter’s living in one. We just had a new granddaughter last week. So her and her husband are living there. They’re renting, they have a place in Jersey City that they bought a three bedroom.And when COVID came, they didn’t have to go back to work. So my wife made a plan with them to move into our house that morning. Unbeknownst to me that I was going to be renting that. So they’ve been there for a few years. And so we bought another one. So that one we rent out. ⁓ And again, so I buy them, I renovate them, and I hold them. Or I’ve got plenty of equity. could sell those and make a ton of money. But then you got to pay Uncle Sam, right? So you got to start learning about 1031 exchanges and all the great…
Leo Wehdeking (19:23)
Hey, cool.Liborio (19:37)
you things that as you become a real estate investor and start getting knowledge and start making some money you don’t want give it to Uncle Sam so the key to the game is to make sure you have enough advantages and enough things for Uncle Sam so you don’t have to pay the bare minimum on your taxes and real estate development being a real estate developer and investor gives you one of the most gives you the best advantage right now with the tax code especially in New Orleans that just came up with this great bill whatever big bill whateverIt really is advantageous to do some real estate investing, even if you only do it small. You have another business and you want to do it as a side hustle, you can take advantage of a lot of the tax breaks with just one extra property. And I can show people how to do that too.
Leo Wehdeking (20:23)
Okay, cool, cool. ⁓ Now, Liborio, I know that a lot of people listening are either earlier in their journey or they’re just looking to level up. And I think they will benefit from hearing this from you. ⁓ When it comes about building relationships and growing your network, what’s made the biggest difference for you?Liborio (20:43)
Not being afraid to step into the unknown. Very important. Okay, people are afraid to go meet people. People are afraid to rub, you know, press flesh. This is where it happens. You can do it online like this, but there’s nothing like person to person, face to face, I’ve found. And that’s for me. Other people listen to the Zoom things, it works. I I like to meet people. I like to look them in the ILEO and read them if you can. Sometimes.Leo Wehdeking (20:46)
Regs.Yeah, face to face. Yeah.
Liborio (21:11)
People have good poker faces in the real estate.Leo Wehdeking (21:12)
Yeah, you’llbe surprised when you can do meeting to a person and watching them in the eyes. Sometimes, you know, this is a phrase that if I’m not wrong, yeah, it’s actually, they say it in a movie. They say that the eyes don’t lie. And it’s true. It’s true. You know, it’s true. All right. Very good. Now, Liborio, before we actually wrap up, if someone wanted to reach out, connect with you.
Liborio (21:18)
Yeah.That’s right. Yeah.
Leo Wehdeking (21:42)
maybe collaborate or learn more about what you’re doing. What’s the best way for them to reach out to you?Liborio (21:49)
So the best way is liborioderario.com and we are putting that site under it’s redeveloping right now for the five day challenge. So if anybody’s interested in October, I’m going to be running a five day challenge. It’s only 29 bucks. It cost a breakfast at a small diner somewhere, right? And it’s five days and I’m going to give away five secrets on how to find fun and flip your first property in 30 days or less.So if you go to liborioderario.com, normally I’d have the QR code I hold up here, but my things, you know, we’re not using OBS, so I’m locked out. But ⁓ yeah, so you can go to liborioderario.com or you can, I’m going to hold this up so people can see it. don’t know if we’re to be able to see it. Right. So creative real estate institute.com. If you go there, there’s a free book. It might be a few bucks for shipping and handling, but you can go there and
Leo Wehdeking (22:37)
Okay, yes.Liborio (22:48)
This is a book that we put together for beginners and it’ll show you the exact steps you need to take to get started in real estate. So if you don’t want to spend the $29 on seeing me for five days, you can just get this book for a few bucks for shipping and handling and try it on your own. And then if you need somebody to guide you and you like what you read there, come and see me and we’ll have some fun and you’ll make some money.Leo Wehdeking (23:12)
Perfect, perfect, perfect, perfect. I like that, Liborio. Well, listen, I really appreciate your time, your story, and also your perspective. We need more people in this space who are actually doing it the right way. So thanks again for being here. All right? Now.Liborio (23:18)
Thank you, Leo.Leo Wehdeking (23:28)
For those of you that are just tuning in, right, make sure that you’re subscribed. We got actually more conversations coming up with operators, just like the Liborio, who are out there building real businesses, all right? So until then, we’ll see you on the next episode, guys.Liborio (23:44)
Thanks for having me, Leo.
