1602: Special Guest Nick Sicilian
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00:01
Welcome to Episode Two of Season 16 of the Growing Empires Show. Today I am here with my special guest, Nick Sicilian. And we're here to talk about his journey from being an offshore engineer into the world of real estate investing. I think you will find Nick's approach to successful deal making, supporting a community of investors. And creating tools for people to be successful in real estate will be very enlightening. So I hope that you stay tuned.
00:31
Welcome to Growing Empires hosted by real estate entrepreneur and trusted investment advisor, Jennifer de Jesus. Growing Empires provides insight to building wealth through passive income producing real estate investments for those who want to build and manage a more profitable real estate portfolio.
00:52
Welcome, Nick, to the Growing Empires Show. I'm so glad that you're here.
00:55
Thank you so much for having me, Jen.
00:57
Awesome. Let's kick off this episode with you sharing a little bit about your background and the work that you're doing now.
01:03
Yeah, great. Thanks for asking. So my background is actually nothing to do with real estate, which is kind of crazy. But I think that's a lot of people. I was I used to work offshore as an engineer in the oil field. So I used to work on some of the biggest ships in the Gulf on some of the biggest draw ships. And then I transitioned into the family business, as I call it, because my brother was an investor, my wife worked at a title company. My mom used to be a realtor up in New York. And I got out because my kids, they were getting older, and I was just getting hard to be away for so long. So I got out of the entire nine to five rat race, as I like to call it. So I did that about five years ago, six years ago, now, so hung up my boots and jumped wholeheartedly into real estate investing, just purely investing. Awesome. Well,
01:59
Today, we're gonna talk about transitioning your career from my, you know, from an engineer to a full time real estate gig. And I've asked Nick to join me to share his wealth of knowledge, and he's gained throughout the years on this subject. So we're gonna jump right into some questions. Nic, can you share with me how your background and engineering and your experience as an offshore engineer influenced your approach to real estate investing?
02:24
So right off the bat, like, I had my my worries, I was talking to Tony, I was like, Man, how am I gonna get into that? How am I going to relate to people? Why Why am at the time, I was jumping into hard money lending, which is even more specific than just broad stroke, real estate investing, right? So I was like, how am I gonna? How am I started on learn about numbers and all that. And he said, he's like, you can learn all that I don't, I don't need you to worry about that. I you need to be able to speak to people. And as long as you can talk to people, you'll do fine. And that's, that's the reassurance I needed. When I got into it, I was just learning from the fire hose, right drinking from the fire hose in the sense, I would go to every networking event. My wife hated me back then, every night, I was at a different meetup of some sort. something local, some only had 10 people in it, some only had five people. Some of them had hundreds of people on him, right. So each one was different. Each one was a learning experience. I was talking to as many people as I could. That's when I got started. I took my, my, at the end of the day, right? When I was building the company, me and Tony got together and we're like, alright, well, let's start branching out. Let's start adding different positions, different roles. And I pretty much just built it like I looked at an engineering space, right, as an engine room. You have everybody has a hierarchy. Everybody has their roles, their positions, and you have to start fitting people in to their specialties. Right. So don't try to fit a round peg in a square hole. Right? If they're, if my specialty isn't in acquisitions, I shouldn't be talking to sellers. And that's what Tony and I found out real soon real quick, right? I'm let him stay in his role. I'm gonna stay in my role in the ops and really flourish there. Awesome.
04:20
So why real estate to begin with what made you say no more engineering, real estate? That's where I'm going. That's what I'm going to do. So it was a it's a it's a very readily available vehicle. Okay, I'm gonna use the word vehicle for me. It was a vehicle for me to get out of like I said earlier, the rat race. Damon, right. This is a Damon, the kid behind me. When he was four, he was nonverbal. Right? So it was very difficult for me to go offshore and be away for months at a time. So I needed some vehicle to get out of that, right. I hadn't built up my entire life as an engineer, I was in the offshore I was building, it was hard for me to get out of that, right. So I can transition to bland in a sense, right, I can go find a different job, that job is not going to be high paying, as was I making for being offshore? Right? So there was that transition, I had to hurdle. It's just a free market in real estate, right? You can do anything, you can be a lender, you can be an agent, you can be a contractor and just build a team of contractors, right? The the single family residential, as a vehicle offers so many opportunities to so many different people to get out of that nine to five, I'm stuck in the, in the business world.
05:48
Sure. So what was the transition, like from the engineering world to the realm of real estate? Was it like just one day cold turkey, and we're just jumping in?
05:59
Yeah, it's a literally, I flew off the rig, on shift change, crew change hopped on the helicopter, and that was it. Which was, for me, very, very daunting. Very scary, right? I went to college for five years, um, should have been four. But you know, I was there for four and a half years and got a whole engineering degree, went and got my certifications, my licenses, those license tests are comparable to the bar exam for a lawyer. I let all that ride I just didn't put into, you know, holding. I can't renew it. I let it all lapse. And that was kind of like a gun to my head, right? I, I throw my entire everything I was doing up to that point, I throw it out the window. And I said, No, I'm gonna make a change. Right? I have the opportunity to live this life that I dream, and I'm gonna go do it. Okay, so now you're fast forward, you jumped into full time entrepreneurial shift, right? And, you know, where did you start? First in real estate? Was it a specific segment of real estate was it were you wholesaling? Were you flipping you know, what did you do first? So I started as a hard money lender, right. So I got a job as a loan originator for a hard money lender, Tony was still doing acquisitions and wholesales. Right, I partnered up with him. We would be doing both we were doing hard money lending and acquisitions wholesales on our own. And we kind of just grew it that way. Me on the lending and him on the the investing side, right. I was helping him with contractors with the rehabs with the systems aspect of managing the teams, and then he was just focused on acquisitions. Right. He is amazing, and acquisitions. And then I was also doing 30 year financing DSCR financing. Matt was also giving me another just eye into the world of another part of real estate that you don't always get to look behind. Right that pull that curtain back. I was I was doing the loan origination, I was doing the I was selling notes to Wall Street, I was doing a lot of correspondent lending. So I was doing a lot of things that people didn't, you know, opening title, dealing with Title issues, right? Everything that has to do with a file with the lender, if you're doing 30 loans a month, you're dealing with 30 headaches a month, right? And then on top of it, you read your own deals on top of that, it's always it's a steep learning curve. So that's how I got into it. And we just started building our team out based on what we wanted first, right? We're gonna add a couple acquisitions, guys this way, Tony doesn't have to do it. All right, and start branching out from there. When you had enough deal flow, we had a couple of dispositions team to start handling the selling of our deals. We have admin roles all over the place, right? So just started growing out, bottom out, right? building our foundation, and then making sure we're not scaling chaos.
09:13
Sure. So you were you were focusing on different arenas in real estate investing. You are mostly on the loan side. How did you and you were building your team around you and your brother? I think you said was your brother right was doing some of the some of the acquisition and stuff and you're building your team around you. So what does that look like today? Do you still do all of the loan side? Have you stayed kind of in that arena? Or are you doing other things?
09:42
So back in January, I actually hung my lending boots up. You know, I did the oilfield boots and I'm heading up the lending boots. I got out when rates started going through the roof. I stuck in it for another you know another season or two But I, I was tired of being on the forefront dealing with sales on the lender side when I can just go and scale my own operations, right. So why am I building other people's empires instead of just going to build my own? I got tired of arguing with people over an eighth of opinion over rate it just ridiculous. So no, I pulled out in January. And we went full, I went full time into only real estate. For the past couple of years, though, we've been doing a bunch of different things to build our brand, okay, in a sense, so we've been doing, we have the Sicilian brothers that we paired up, me and Tony, we started that years ago. And then a couple years ago, we paired up with our new business partner, TJ cosin, who also is in DFW and another social character, right? So we paired up the three of us, and we now are just a driving force in the market. We're doing a lot on social media, we're doing a lot on the front side acquisitions, a direct to seller, we started a mastermind to start helping and mentoring other people. We do a lot on YouTube constantly just talking for entrepreneurs in general, right, just not only focused to real estate, because real estate is so specific, but I mean, whether or not working door sales, or you're doing phone sales, right, it doesn't matter. They all have something to learn and grow up in one another. So and now our next venture will be debt, right? We're going to be raising capital for debts. So that's, that's the next one. Okay.
11:56
So unlike some investors that leave corporate America or their jobs, right, that they've sunk their life into, and just going in buying the assets, you and your brother kind of took a completely different path with this. And you are kind of just bouncing around some of the different opportunities in the real estate world itself. What made you decide to do that versus just I'm going to buy a property and it's gonna cashflow, and I'm gonna I'm gonna buy another one.
12:25
So Tony had that already. So let me let me step back and just quick clean that up. All right, Tony. Again, we already had the single man operations, right? He didn't have a big team. It was just him buying and selling. He had a couple home vessel franchises in the past, like so he's been doing real estate for a while, why would I come in and then try to jump in and change that operation. So I had the opportunity to get into as a loan officer that was my foot into the door in real estate. It wasn't Hey, I'm gonna go learn about wholesaling and try to go door knocking and get my own leads. Right? That again, that was that was pre discussed and pre planned out with me and Tony, when I was like, alright, well, what is it going to look like? Am I gonna? Am I gonna have to go boots on the ground and start door knocking and learn that way? No, I don't have to. Thankfully, I had that. That security there for Tony that he can know he can keep doing his daily operations acquisitions. I'll jump into the loan origination side, get that up and rolling. We were partnering on everything. So um, again, I would come in I would start helping with the rehabs and stuff like that. We were doing the rental strategy and building the portfolio. But we kind of got where I like to call us cats in a sense. We're very particular, right? We like our stuff and we don't like I don't, I don't want to manage rentals and all that we had them. We started building them. Then I started again DSCR financing. So I've been doing refinances for the past five years, rates went through the roof, so trying to get something to cashflow for that. Well as it gets a little bit tougher, right as rates go higher. So what can you do to still cash flow? What you can start holding notes instead. So instead of trying to refinance properties, you can owner finance them and then kind of morphed right? So that's been our five year evolution, right? We've been evolving this entire time, but we've been growing the entire time also. So that's what I'm so ecstatic and proud of right. We started as a two man team, we're up to 11 plus out that's only staff that's in the building, you know, on acquisitions, dispositions and admin. We still have countless crews outside of the building that we're employing. So I'm very proud of what we built. Yeah,
15:02
it's really awesome. Actually, I got the opportunity to meet TJ. He was actually a guest on our podcast. So sorry, a few months back now. He's a great guy. It was a great, great conversation. So how did you actually meet him?
15:15
at a networking event? When I first when I was a lender, I used to be his lender. And we just hit it off. We we worked great together. Like I said earlier, right? You have to find people that if we're both great at acquisitions, why we're going to be wired, we're going to be partners. I'll go do it on my own. Right. So there, he hates talking to sellers. I'm sure he told you that, right. So he gave it right off the Tony, Hey, Tony, you love talking to people go do it. Same thing, right? We joined together for those same reasons. After a while, we started testing our waters together, we did a couple wholesale deals. And then we did a couple of flips and hotels and like, alright, this, this actually is a mutually beneficial, everybody agrees on their goals, and everything aligns. And so we pair it up about two years ago now. So it's been fun.
16:15
How powerful would you say or how important was your beginning stages of those networking events to you to your career as a whole?
16:25
I can't even describe how necessary they are. Right? That's the word I'll use, they are necessary. If you want to get into this business, you're gonna have to go and rub some elbows with people. Okay? You can be a very successful investor in stay a one man operation, you don't have to scale like we have when we started growing this mastermind, and that's when I'm done when I'm doing sales for the mastermind in a sense, and I don't want to call it sales because we don't push anybody. But it is a paid mastermind, right? So when I'm having these onboarding conversations, stuff like that, and sometimes people get worried that we're gonna force them to scale, right? Because they're gonna mimic our, our operations. And I'm like, no, no, no, no, no. The reason why we're building this is so you don't have to, right lean on other people. Right? There are people in your network that you're gonna go to for advice, and then reciprocate somehow, right. Everything out there is free knowledge is free, but it's who you know, it's how you can implement that stuff. That's all that really matters, right? So going out. If I didn't go out one Thursday, I would never have met TJ maybe. And then I would not have built this building. You know, there's this whole operation that we have. So getting outside of your comfort zone, pushing yourself going to every networking meeting, picking up every phone call, going to see every open house right all that matters.
18:09
The episode will continue in just a moment.
18:13
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19:11
So let's talk about the community that you have around you now. Right? So you know, it goes from a couple of networking events you meet TJ, you're in with your brother, he's got some experience, you all have different connections, right? How did you continue to build that supportive community around you and build your employee base? Was it again just continuously through networking events or rubbing elbows? Or was there something else that you did?
Social media was huge. We we went out we started actively forcing ourselves to take selfies. Alright, people underestimate the power of a selfie, but it actually connects you to everything right? So just forcefully uploading and showing what your day to day life is. Okay. Um I used to tell everybody, when if you're doing your first flipper first rehab, when you're at Home Depot, just take a photo of tile selection, right? And just have that as a post. The more you get out there, the more people will recognize you and say, Hey, that person does XYZ, right? If you're a roofer take a selfie on top of a roof. If you're a flipper, take on selfie at a at a flip, right? And sounds so basic, but it really is that simple. Just getting content out there letting everybody know, this is what you're doing XYZ, you'll actually start building many following without you even realizing it. Right. So when you go to the networking event, and you start rubbing elbows with people, somebody will just come up to you and say, Hey, XYZ, I'm really I like what you're doing. Keep doing right, and it's all of a sudden, you're like, wow, that's working. Let me keep doing it. We've done that tremendously. And it's been beneficial throughout.
21:01
Okay. So tell me more about this. Rei as mastermind. Let me let me hear more about this.
21:10
So we, when I was starting out, network, we I was sponsoring events, right? I was going to five events a week, at least it was painful. Every one then the mastermind aspect of it, right, the networking part of it was always the golden nugget. Alright, so you always go, you talk to people for an hour, you exchange as many business cards as you can. And then the sponsors will come up, do a little song and dance and then somebody's gonna come up until they're said life story. And that's it for the next two hours, you're listening to the sales pitch in a sense. We got we got tired, tired of that. So we stepped back. And we again on social media, we just started throwing out free nuggets constantly. We had people that came up to us and they wanted more they want hired, how do we do XYZ? How do we do this? So then we started building an online. I don't want to say course I don't like the word course. But we built an online vaults, if you will, of just real estate data of real estate, tips, tricks, videos, how to do this, how to do that. And just Brandt, like our mastermind group itself has have contributed to that, right, we've got door knocking segments on it lists pulling segments on from the actual mastermind, right? Like, know your specialty, I'm not the specialist that everything but I know I can connect you with somebody that is a specialist. And that's what we started providing for people. And it's really took off, right, we get a lot of reward out of it. You know, self reward self validation, if you will, right, helping people. They would come back and just tell us how appreciative they are. And when you hear that you're Wow, alright, that's why I'm doing it. All right, I'm not. I'm not out here just trying to charge people 20 grand to learn how to wholesale. I'm trying to teach people how to be an investor. And wholesaling is just a disposition strategy. So I always tell people, you're not a wholesaler, you're an investor. Go from there.
23:25
Awesome. So in your perspective, what truly constitutes generational wealth? And how can you work to build that through real estate?
23:39
It's such a, that's a that's a trigger word for us in here, because we don't believe in in that, right. generational wealth usually gets squandered by the youth, right? It goes away real quick. So as much as I want to build generational wealth, statistically speaking, my kids or my kids, kids are gonna piss it away and ruin it. So everything we're doing is for us at the end of the day, but it is also for my kids. Everything that I'm building, I'm making my kids in the other room right now. Actually. Everything I'm doing, I'm making sure that they're involved. I'm doing it with them. I'm gonna leave them something that they can have. Don't get me wrong. I'm not. I'm not sitting here saying oh, now screw them. They're not gonna have anything. No, I'm building everything. And hopefully one day I do get to leave them a nest egg. But generational world we always say is, it's kind of like a fallacy, right? It's not real. It would be amazing now to hand over about 2000 notes to them and say, hey, here manage this. You're now a bank. Thanks for usually safe, so that would be my goal.
24:55
Awesome. So what would you say and everything that you've done? Whether it's a combination of you and your brother and TJ or just us specifically yourself, what would you say has been your biggest wind up far in real estate investing?
25:10
Dollar like one deal or overall?
25:13
Overall? Well, either you can tell me whichever one you want to tell me/
25:16
I would say building - building team, building everything that we have being able to sit down this past week and do Q3 reviews. Do you know how like, that's amazing that I get the opportunity and the ability to say, hey, let's sit down and reevaluate how my sales team did for Q3. Where are we going for Q4, and Q1? What are your goals for Q1? And now I'm going to help my team do that right there that has so much pride and satisfaction in that right. So building everything for me has been my, my driver and such right. So I'm proud of what I have. It's not one single deal, right? The the market, it does hopefully always tick up. But there's ups and downs everywhere.
26:10
What would you say has been your worst mistakes so far? Or the wish the thing that you wish you had to do over button for?
26:18
There's so many right, but I don't think there's as long as you're not making the same mistake twice. Right? That is one of our strongest mottos that we live by. There's no mistake that I think I would go back and I say it not do but none of them have been like, oh, I fell off the side of a building. They've all been survivable. They've all been education's in some way. So as long as you're looking back and you're able to learn something from not make the same mistake twice. You know, you're you're learning and you're bettering yourself. If i i would punish myself by saying there's so many so many times I can look back and with hires right with, with people that I hired or stuff like that, I probably should not have hired them. And that's that's all myself, I failed them by hiring them and not you know, I'd failed myself. Right. And it set me back.
I think that mindset range true to something I was reading on your website, and it was just keep going. Right? Keep going.
27:25
It's our motto. Yeah.
27:27
So it's interesting to hear you say that because you know, sometimes when I ask people what what was your worst mistake? Sometimes their worst mistake could be something that cripples them, whether it's physically or mentally, right cripples them, and then they give up, right? I think you very eloquently said it is that, you know, there's been a lot of mistakes, but those mistakes have been part of the growth that allows you to kind of be where you are today, and will propel you into the future. That's awesome.
27:56
I tell everybody, you're gonna pay in education, right? You're either gonna pay it in a loss, you're gonna pay it in something, right? You're gonna pay it to his teacher or mentor, you're gonna pay an education one way or another. If you're paying the same education fee twice, right? If you're making your mistakes twice, and you're not learning from your mistakes, there's an issue there. Go back. Look at yourself. Yep.
28:20
Awesome. So what would you say is your superpower in this industry? What sets you apart from others?
28:27
I'm a I'm a big positive jelly bear, right? Like I'm a coach at heart I like to reward people when they do good I'd like to smack them on the wrist when they get bad. But um, I'm a big big supporter. That's really what I'm good at. Making sure every like even again, through networking, right I reach out to people I check in on them and hey, how's that XYZ going with you? You know Oh, great job you know and just clap it up for him even when they don't think like it's a win it's a win boost them up it doesn't hurt takes nothing off me to to help somebody else right and say good job.
29:09
So what's the one thing that you know now that you wished you knew five years ago when you got started?
29:18
That's a tough one. Don't trust everyone right like that. I am an Italian. I will invite everybody over for Christmas dinner, right? Like I invite everybody to my house and so for me it was difficult separating business from personal life and I still am that way right? We're very I got my kids behind me on the photos right like I'm very homey. So I will invite people into my house and give them the knife to stab me in the back and then I x people don't write in this industry. People People are Oh Who is going to look out for themselves? Right? So keep that I'm not. I just spent the last half hour talking about networking and everything right? So, so keep that open, right? At the end of the day, make sure you're understanding that this is business, people are only going to look after themselves. And and with that being said, don't trust the wholesalers numbers, right? Like it goes through and through everywhere. Always go back and make sure you're trusting and self validating everything.
30:30
Good plan. What is the one thing that I didn't ask you that I should have?
30:37
I don't know. I don't have anything. Do you have any quick tips for me? You know, to kind of bring this full circle for any strategies, tips or insights into successful deal making?
30:51
Yes, yes. Yes. Yes. People don't understand how to calculate a deal. Okay. So the nugget and this is such it's free, right? Everybody knows this in real estate. You're it's typically the calculation is 70% of ARV after repair minus the you know, minus Repairs is your offer price. Right? So if the house is worth 100,000, ARV, okay, and it's $20,000 repair, right? 70% is 70,000 minus 20, you're gonna buy it at 50,000. Right? That's your, your goal. So many wholesalers don't even know that so many people getting into it don't know how to calculate how to get an offer price, okay, they're just saying, Oh, I know, I can move this and make five grand or stuff, right? They're trying to, they know that they can move it and work it off of a profit. If you're not working off of some strategize acquisition, how to buy it based on a sound science, you're you're setting yourself up for failure, you're gonna have so many drop contracts, you're gonna have people that you're failing on this on the purchase side, right? Because if you're helping someone for an acquisition for maybe they're getting kicked out of their house for foreclosure. They're getting kicked out for caution, foreclosure, right, you're up against it. So if you're telling them no, I can definitely close, I'll give you this price, just to beat out the competition. You're screwing them over to so don't do that know how to actually get your calculations and by. Okay,
32:31
How can my listeners get a hold of you if they want to learn more about your masterminds and some of the things that you offer?
32:38
We're on websites. And you know, so we have the thesicilianbrothers.com. We have reiaf.com. We have the The Sicilian Brothers YouTube page, we just broke 75,000 subscribers. So we're kind of excited about that. And we have Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram, all of them. So if anybody has any questions, issues, just reach out. I'm always here. So I'd love to help anybody.
33:05
Awesome. Well, Nick, it was great talking to you today. And you know, we wish you the most success. And you know, glad to have you as a part of the real estate network and community and the family and just wishing you guys all the best in the future. Thank you for all that you're offering and you're bringing to the table. And thank you so much, Jen. I'm sure our listeners will reach out and get more information about your mastermind. It's great that you're providing that avenue for people to learn. I think it's fantastic. All right. Wonderful. All right. Take care. Nick, thanks so much for your time.
33:51
Thank you so much, Jen.
33:52
Thank you for listening to my interview with Nick Sicilian. I hope you got a lot out of this episode. And until next time, take care.
34:02
For more information about how Jennifer can help you plan, develop and manage a strong real estate investment portfolio visit growingempires.com