"Inspired to Invest" Real Estate Investing Podcast

Change Your Life By Investing In Real Estate!

• Serena Holmes • Episode 64

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Change Your Life By Investing In Real Estate!

Ever wondered how a simple college house hack could evolve into a thriving real estate empire?

Welcome back to "Inspired To Invest" episode 64 with Jose Bernard. To watch rather than listen, click here

This week, we chat with Jose Bernard, a prolific real estate investor originally from the Dominican Republic. Jose takes us through his awe-inspiring journey from purchasing a duplex to cover college expenses in Connecticut, to owning 48 rental units and flipping properties at a high velocity.

He shares how essential resources like Bigger Pockets and "Rich Dad, Poor Dad" fueled his strategic investments, and how his real estate success has paved the way for meaningful community contributions, such as building a school and donating supplies in his homeland.

Jose also opens up about the personal challenges and triumphs involved in scaling his real estate business. He emphasizes the importance of learning through experience, the necessity of delegation, and the strategic planning that allowed his spouse to stay home with their children. 

With ambitious goals of achieving a million dollars in profit from house flips and tripling his cash flow over the next five years, Jose highlights the power of mindset and foresight. 

Tune in to hear how Jose's journey intertwines financial success with heartfelt philanthropy.

To connect with Jose, go to @josebernardinvestor on social and online https://josebernardinvestor.com.

Thank you to Wealth Share REIT for bringing us this months episodes. For more, go to @wealthshare on social and to learn about their amazing investment opportunities, https://wealthshare.ca online.

Need support underwriting potential property investments? Check out PropertyCast.io - https://propertycast.io?via=serena

“Inspired to Invest” is proud to support the Beyond Success Program, a not-for-profit financial literacy program for students, launched by More To Give & MAK Investments. Find out more at @more2give.ca.

Join us again on Sept. 11 to hear from an investor who has leveraged real estate to retire his wife and completely change his life!

Thanks again for tuning in & remember, "when you invest in yourself, the sky's the limit!"

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And, for everything related to real estate and real estate investing, please make sure you've subscribed to @serenaholmesrealtor on YouTube & other platforms. We also have a page dedicated to this podcast on Instagram and Facebook @inspiredtoinvestpodcast where we preview guests each week, highlight their episodes, top takeaways, tips, quotes and more. 

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Speaker 1:

Welcome to the Inspire to Invest podcast, where we're sharing stories from real estate investors and how investing has changed their lives. This episode of the Inspire to Invest podcast has been brought to you by Wealthshare. Hey everybody, welcome to Inspire to Invest. Today we've got Jose Bernard joining us. He is from Circle Management and Investment Group and he also has Sky Circle LLC.

Speaker 1:

He's from the Dominican Republic and he moved to the United States when he was 12 years old. He grew up in the Bronx, new York City, and then he went to college in Connecticut, which is where he's been ever since. But it was really interesting how he started investing in real estate in his last year of college, back in 2009. And he's actually grown his portfolio to 48 units during that time, and now he's focused on flipping either one to two projects per month, and he's also got an amazing foundation in the Dominican where he's focused on building a school and also facilitating donation of supplies for students there. So that's an amazing way to incorporate philanthropy into your real estate investing strategy. Thank you so much for being with us today.

Speaker 1:

Thank you for having me, so we're going to just dive right in. So you mentioned how you started investing in real estate when you were in university. So how did that come about? Because I feel like usually people are focused on studying and exams but what really led you down that path?

Speaker 2:

So I'll give you a little bit of my background. So when I moved to the US I was 12 and I've been working ever since. So I started working at a very young age. So when I went to college I was working full time and going to college at the same time and I always wanted to build a business. I didn't know that it was going to be real estate. Real estate was not a thought at that time.

Speaker 1:

Yeah.

Speaker 2:

But I knew that I wanted to save money to build that business and at that time 2009, as you remember- it was a lot cheaper to buy a house than it is today A lot cheaper.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, so I had the income because I was working full time so I could qualify and I was only like 21 years old. Yeah, and it made a lot more sense for me to buy a duplex, rent it out, than for me to pay what I was paying out of pocket to go to school and live a dorm at that time so that's how I got house hacking like did you live in that house?

Speaker 2:

yeah, yes, I was doing the ultimate house hacking, where you have not just the other unit but you have the bedrooms, the living room. I was renting every single space.

Speaker 1:

That's fine in the house, the hallway, yeah, yeah, yeah, that's very entrepreneurial. So then, what would that have cost back then compared to what it would cost nowadays?

Speaker 2:

Absolutely so. That particular property I bought for $125,000. I own another property, I own a couple of properties still in that same area and those properties recently appraised for $375,000.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, I mean that's still pretty good.

Speaker 2:

I feel like where I live, you probably aren't going to find a duplex for any less than $700,000, or $75,000.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, I mean that's still pretty good, Like I feel like where I live, you probably aren't going to find a duplex for any less than $700,000 or $800,000.

Speaker 2:

Oh, that's a little crazy, Like even the average townhouse is probably around that same price.

Speaker 1:

So I don't know what's happened here, but it's kind of mental. So obviously you're kind of starting out that way. Then how then? How did that expand into building up your portfolio, because I guess you're sitting around the 15 year mark, um, but where did things kind of go down that path of like flipping and and expanding your portfolio so much?

Speaker 2:

so I got more serious into real estate investing in 2016, and this was after I have bought a couple of properties. But I was very passive about my investment. It was it wasn't like with a plan, I was just getting a property almost once a year. There was a year or two that I skipped, but that was all until 2016. When I saw that what I have gotten in the previous year, it was bringing a disincentive and I said wait a minute, there's something here, yeah, um. And that's when I really said, okay, maybe I should dive into this and make this my focus, and I did that in 2016. So my growth and the scale from what I have today has happened mostly in the last three to four years. Um, most of those uh properties that I have acquired have been in the last three to four years.

Speaker 1:

Yeah. So then what would you say you attribute to kind of having that, that growth plan?

Speaker 2:

Did you just think it up for yourself or did you start getting real estate education and mentoring, like what? What path did you follow there? I have to give a lot of credit to the realtor that I was working with, uh, with my very first deal, but she's still a dear friend of mine, um, and she actually put me in touch with uh, bigger pockets. Uh, at that time, back in 2009, 2010,. You know, podcasts like this were not. A lot of them were not out like they are today, and education was not available as much as it is today. So I dove into Bigger Pockets and I read the book Rich Dad, poor Dad by Robert Kiyosaki.

Speaker 2:

And that really kind of like the bolt went up in my head. I said wait a minute. You know, there's people that are doing this as a business and there's people that are doing very well with it. Maybe I can do the same thing, and that's when I really started looking at it as not just let me just buy one or two houses here and there and have some rental income, but not let's actually build a business of investing in real estate.

Speaker 1:

So not, let's actually build a business of investing in real estate. So then, how did you learn the business side of it? Because I feel like that's one thing that I talked to a lot of investors about that they feel like, for people that scale too quickly and maybe they fail, they lack some of that business knowledge and you know that entrepreneurial side. So where did you kind of pick up some of those skills, along with the real estate?

Speaker 2:

so my my first business I was in high school. I usually what I did back then was I would buy jerseys and sneakers online and sell them at my school, so that was my first business that I started From there. Still in high school, I got into one of those multi-level marketing businesses. I was actually like 16 years old. I was holding these meetings at my house with all these people.

Speaker 2:

And I'm like trying to pitch them the sales. So I learned a lot from that. You know very young age. And then what I went to school for was business and when I finished school I worked in sales for about eight years and my sales job I was in charge of a pretty large region and it was all with small businesses. So I actually helped small businesses to structure themselves for growth. So I took a lot of the skills that I learned in my W-2 and translated those to the business that I have now.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, no, that makes perfect sense. What would you say are some of the challenges that you encountered while you were scaling your business and growing?

Speaker 2:

I think at the beginning, one of the very first things was you don't know what, you don't know right and you're learning as you go. Like a lot of us, you don't start out. I didn't pay for like an educational course or anything like that. I didn't have a mentor. Like I said back then, they were not available as they are today. And the ones that were available were really really expensive. Yeah, they're still expensive, but I think they kind of set the bar like they're.

Speaker 2:

They're not cheap to get it um, so at the very beginning, was that right? Just learning by doing making mistakes, learning from your mistakes? You know that that was the tough part, I think, as you scale. The biggest and it's a personality thing, I think, with a lot of people is letting go of certain things and delegating. I think you know, and I have that personality where I like to have control of things and I had to learn that in order for me to grow, I had to give up some of that control to other people that could help me.

Speaker 2:

So that was a tough transition for me. Now, based on what I'm doing now, one of my toughest challenges right now is as we grow the business is how do we scale in a healthy way? Because now you know, we have tons of marketing going out. We're doing multiple deals every month. So how do we do this but still still do it in a way where we do it in a healthy growth, not just grow for the sake of growing?

Speaker 1:

Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, that makes sense. I mean, I actually got to kind of meet Beardy Brandon so he spoke to our mastermind last year and he talked about, you know, their strategy was scaling. The big thing was that even just to meet their their costs for payroll and stuff like that, they actually had to continue to acquire things, because every time they acquired something they had their management fee in there. So whether that was like a couple hundred thousand dollars or something like that, but in order to continue paying for those things, it pushed them to scale. So it was kind of an interesting way to look at it and obviously there will come a time when the property stabilizes and they'll be bringing in a certain amount of cash flow as well. But that was like a really big thing that continued to push them just because of the management fee.

Speaker 2:

No, I agree. I agree. You know, one of the things that I always say to people is it doesn't matter if you have one property or if you have 10. Like, start your business in structure in a way as if you had 100.

Speaker 1:

Yeah.

Speaker 2:

Because obviously you're going to build some systems that you maybe didn't think of at the beginning once you get to that point, but it's just going to train yourself to think of your business that way. So as you grow, then you kind of saying, okay, now I could plug this person in this position because I already had it in my mind that I was going to need that.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, and I think that's really where the business planning comes into play, right and to your point, like a lot of people don't know what they don't know, and each level that you reach is going to require, you know, maybe an expansion of those systems and different things. What works in the beginning may not work 50 doors or 100 doors later, and especially as you have multiple corps and stuff like that, depending on how you're set up from the standpoint of taxes and legal implications and stuff like that. So now I guess, when you look at your portfolio, what do you think is something that you feel like you're most proud of?

Speaker 2:

So my I will say my real estate proudest moment came about a year ago.

Speaker 2:

So I think every entrepreneur and the same thing with real estate investors you know your significant other makes most of the sacrifices. You know, if you do have a significant other and my girlfriend at the time was my wife, a significant other and my girlfriend at the time was my wife Now I told her from the very beginning, when we started doing this, that my goal will be to have her not have to work or just have the option to work when we had kids. So we actually reached that goal because of the business in real estate. As of last year, we had our second son, um, and she had the option where she decided not to go back to work and you stayed home with both of our kids. And to me that's probably that was one of the proudest moments of my real estate journey because it was kind of the realization of, okay, I set up this goal maybe 10 years ago, yeah, and now, after all the sacrifices, we actually seeing the fruits of all the hard work that was put through so many years ago.

Speaker 2:

So, to me that was kind of my highlight of my real estate journey thus far.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, no, I love that. I mean, especially in the States, like your maternity leave is not quite as robust as some other places. Like for us I think we have 18 months and I think you guys have three months. Is that right? Yeah, so I mean, that's when you think about it, like I when I had my daughter she's four and a half now but I couldn't even imagine putting her in childcare at three months. You know they're not even sitting up yet Like, yeah, imagine that. So I think that's amazing that you're able to kind of structure your business so it kind of works for the lifestyle that you want to lead and obviously that's going to repay itself over and over again as your children continue to grow. So, on that note, we're just going to take a really brief break for a word from our sponsors and we'll be right back.

Speaker 1:

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Speaker 1:

I value transparency, integrity and trust. If you choose to work with me, you can be assured that business will be conducted honestly and openly. Time is of the essence in this industry, so you can expect nothing short of quick, clear communication from me. I'll keep you informed every step of the. So you can expect nothing short of quick, clear communication from me. I'll keep you informed every step of the way so you feel comfortable throughout this entire process. Our homes are where we eat, sleep, relax and play. My clients' best interests are at the heart of everything I do and, with this said, my service to you doesn't end when the transaction does. As your realtor, I'll not only help you buy and sell your property, I'll also educate and support you along the way. I want to help you fulfill your goal of home ownership and become your trusted real estate resource for life. I can't wait to share my passion for real estate with you. More importantly, find you the perfect house to turn into your home. Looking to buy, sell or invest in Durham Region or Toronto? Let's chat.

Speaker 1:

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Speaker 1:

Hey everybody, welcome back to Inspired to Invest. We have Jose Bernard here. He's from Circle Management in Connecticut and he's talking about how he scaled his business. You know, starting out in university but then really getting serious about it back in 2016. Now he has 48 doors and he's flipping one or two houses almost every single month and he's also building a school in Dominican and facilitating the donation of supplies. So very, very well-rounded entrepreneur, I guess. One thing that I want to know is obviously you've been doing this for a while, but what would you say is one of the craziest things that you've experienced as a real estate investor so far.

Speaker 2:

So I have a funny one and a scary one. Which one do you want to listen to?

Speaker 1:

Let's go with the scary one first.

Speaker 2:

All right. So when I first started investing, like a lot of us do, we do the repairs ourselves, right To save costs. We do the repairs ourselves, right to save costs. So I used to pick up these workers that were part of a program in the city where I am, and, long story short, there was one time when I picked up one of the workers. The worker was very quiet that morning for some odd reason, and he had already worked with me for a couple of days. And we get to the place, we rehab the property. He's really quiet and out of nowhere, uh, he starts screaming at me, telling me that I was a cop and I was, that I was after him.

Speaker 1:

Oh, dear yeah so he had.

Speaker 2:

He had like a hammer in his hand like it was bad, it was really bad, he had a break so my now the funny, the funny thing, serena is this guy was it was a nice guy, like I had multiple conversations with him, like he was a nice guy for what I knew as far as I know. So my first thing was like, okay, I have to get this guy away from the property as much as I can because I don't know what he might do or break in the property. So I started walking outside of the property and we got to the street. He was literally almost to the point where he was ready to charge at me. I called the cops. The cops got involved. The cops came, the ambulance came um and not sure if it was drugs or if it was a mental health issue there, but after like an hour of the ambulance being there the guy came back to normal and he apologized yeah that was a scary situation, yeah I would say that was a scary situation now a funny one.

Speaker 2:

that, I think, is like I'll remember this for the rest of my life. So when I first started the, the system that I had for tenants to make a repair request is sending a picture to a Google voice number that I had. So it's late at night, it's like 10 at night and I had trained them to you know. If it's an emergency, we'll get back to you right away. If not, we'll get back to you within 24 hours.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, so I get this text message of a hole on the ceiling and a cat in a laundry basket oh dear the message just read a cat just fell through my ceiling yeah what happened to this tenant was that she was on the second floor in the attic. There was a small leak that we didn't detect and what happened is the the sheetrock and ceiling was soaking up the water and the cat from the tenant downstairs had gotten up to the attic and when it stepped on the ceiling went right through her bedroom right into her laundry basket wow, yeah, that's definitely an issue.

Speaker 1:

Well, I guess, better a cat than like there could be other things for a person. It could have been worse, right, so I feel like I'll take the cat. That's so crazy. So I guess, talking back about your real estate, investing and education and stuff like that, I'm sure that you've got a pretty big network. What would you say some of the best advice that you've received?

Speaker 2:

One of the biggest things that someone once told me was that, hey, listen, if whatever you do, if you don't do it with a strong reason, a purpose behind it, it's going to be extremely hard to do. And I took that to heart because whoever wants to listen in. You know, real estate is a great, great industry to be in, but it's simple, but it's not easy and there's a lot of setbacks. There's a learning curve to be learned learned.

Speaker 2:

And I see a lot of people get into this just thinking that they're going to make all this money because all the people promoted us that right of the bat. And that could be the case for some people, but that's not the norm and I think if you get into real estate investing without a reason why you really want to do this, it's very easy to get discouraged once you start doing this. Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1:

So I mean, obviously you've done a lot. What would you say is next for you, Like, is there something new that you want to expand in when it comes to the nature of the work or an asset class?

Speaker 2:

Yeah, so right now as a company, we have a pretty hefty goal set of what we want to make this year. So we have a goal of making a million dollars in profit through house flips and on the cashflow goal, we have a goal of tripling our cashflow that we currently have today over the next five years. So it's not so much getting a number of doors, so it's more focused on what the cashflow is and that's the number that we work with against, like not the number of doors so much, but it's more. How can we get to that cashflow number?

Speaker 1:

Yeah, yeah, no, that makes perfect sense. Now I know you talked a little bit about how real estate's changed your life with your wife, for example, not going back to work after having your second child. But you know what would you say in terms of?

Speaker 2:

how it's really changed your life in terms of lifestyle and your return on time and things of that nature. Absolutely, at the beginning, you actually sacrifice a lot more time than you get back. So it's kind of funny because you do this to gain time back. But people have to understand that when you get into this at the beginning, you have to sacrifice a lot of time and sometimes your loved ones, the time that you spend with them, right, and then, after you start seeing the benefits, it's really when you start seeing that time returned to you.

Speaker 2:

So, for me right now. One of you know my biggest life changes. It has given me the resources and the time to do some things that are a lot more important to me than the money that comes from real estate or anything else like this foundation. So last year my dad passed away about a year and a couple of months ago, and I started this foundation after his name and I'm able to go to the Dominican Republic multiple times in the year. I'm able to fund a lot of the things that we're doing. Obviously, we ask for donations to help do all the things that we want to do, but I'm able to do all these things because of real estate, because of that flexibility and not just the time, but the income that comes in real estate that I could put that to do something that I'm truly passionate about. That's most important to me.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, no, that's amazing. Now, obviously, the name of this podcast is inspired to invest, so I always like to ask people if they have a favorite quote that really inspires or motivates them.

Speaker 2:

I do. I do so. I think one of my favorite quotes is you know, I can't remember who's from, but it reads like this, like this it's every day might not be good, but there's something good in every day.

Speaker 1:

Yeah.

Speaker 2:

And you have to be positive. I think not just real estate, but life in general is about the mindset that you have. It's not so much what happens to you but how you react. That's the only thing that you could truly control. And in this business, like I said before, you're going to be faced with challenges, you're going to be faced with setbacks, there's going to be deals that are not going to work the way you thought they were going to work, and you have to control your emotions and learn from them, find whatever positive you can from it and apply it to the next one.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, no, that's awesome. Now, for anyone that wants to get in touch to learn more about either your business or your projects down in Dominican, what's the best way for them to get in touch?

Speaker 2:

Absolutely so. Instagram is probably where I'm most active and people could DM me and connect with me through there, and it's Jose Bernard Investor. That's my name on Instagram. That's where I'm most active, or I do get people that reach out to me through there and I'm always responding to people through there.

Speaker 1:

Perfect, so we'll make sure that we include that in the show notes below, of course. Thank you for your time and for tuning in. We appreciate your time as well. If you have enjoyed this episode, make sure you're following along at Inspired to Invest podcast on social and you've subscribed here on YouTube. And remember, when you invest in yourself, the sky's the limit. Thanks again. Thank you to WellShare for bringing you this episode of Inspired to Invest. The views represented on this podcast are for general information only and does not constitute investment or other professional advice or an offering of securities. The host and guests featured on Inspired to Invest make no representations as to the performance of any particular investment. Should you decide to make an investment, you are responsible for conducting your own review and analysis. It is recommended that you obtain independent legal accounting and tax advice from licensed professionals.