The Professionalist Real Estate Investing Podcast
Whether you’re a seasoned investor, budding entrepreneur, or simply curious about diving into the world of real estate, this podcast is your ultimate guide to building wealth and achieving financial freedom through smart investing.
Join host Tony Jacobs, a real estate professional , as he explores actionable strategies, emerging trends, and real-world stories from top investors and industry experts. Each episode delivers valuable insights to help you navigate challenges, capitalize on opportunities, and grow your real estate portfolio with confidence.
Tune in for expert interviews, market updates, and tips to elevate your investing game—because success in real estate starts with the right knowledge and mindset.
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The Professionalist Real Estate Investing Podcast
Real Estate Revolution: From Intern to Leader with Briggs Elwell 🏢✨
Unlock the secrets of real estate success with Briggs Elwell, a trailblazer whose journey from call center intern to co-founder of RltyCo offers invaluable lessons for newcomers and seasoned investors. Join us as Briggs reveals the transformative steps he took to address critical financial gaps faced by 1099 contractors in the real estate world. Discover how RltyCo has grown beyond advancing real estate commissions to provide indispensable tax and legal services, ensuring that contractors can maximize their tax benefits and safeguard their assets. Whether you're looking for inspiration or practical advice, Briggs' story is rich with insights that can redefine your approach to real estate investing.
Explore the dynamic landscape of the real estate market as we analyze how recent political shifts and crises have reshaped opportunities and challenges. From the ongoing U.S. housing shortage to the impact of COVID-19 on buying trends and mortgage rates, we dissect the factors influencing today's market. Uncover strategies are being implemented in New York and California to overcome their unique housing crises and consider the potential for federal incentives to stimulate growth. Briggs also shares personal stories highlighting the power of networking, emphasizing its role in building a successful career. If you’re eager to gain a deeper understanding of the current real estate climate, this episode is a must-listen.
Briggs is an accomplished leader in the real estate industry with over 15 years of experience. As the CEO and Co-Founder of RLTYco, Briggs leverages his extensive background and expertise to guide the company’s vision and strategic direction.
After graduating from New York University with a bachelor’s degree in real estate, Briggs began his career at The Related Companies in New York City.
Initially, in sales and asset management, Briggs went on to oversee business development at both the corporate and brokerage levels for over 7,000 luxury units for Related.
Managing business development, Briggs put a strong emphasis on brokerage relationships and the client experience by implementing new benefit programs, training, and strategic corporate partnerships.
Following Related, Briggs went on to become a Managing Partner of OPTIMAR International, successfully establishing and growing the Northeast business for the South Florida-based commercial investment and residential brokerage.
With a proven track record in real estate, finance, and fostering strategic alliances, Briggs co-founded RLTYco in 2021.
As CEO, he continues to drive innovation and growth within the company, dedicated to serving real estate professionals, brokerage, and developers seeking end-to-end financial services, support, healthcare, and bottom-line growth.
Here are the links to find out more about RltyCo and what they provide :
https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20250109666648/en/RLTYco-Raises-20M-Series-A-Giving-Agents-Nationwide-Same-Day-Commission-Advance-and-Full-Suite-of-Benefits.
https://rltyco.com/
Podcast Intro
Hello everybody, welcome to the Professor's Real Estate Investing Podcast. I'm with my guest today, mr Briggs Illwill, if I pronounced that right, you got it Good, thank you. Thank you, how are you doing today?
Speaker 2:Great. Thank you for having me.
Speaker 1:No problem, I just wanted to get everybody here to listen to Mr Briggs and see how he came about getting into real estate investing. How did he start off first and then now where he is now?
Speaker 2:Sure.
Speaker 2:So I started my career I was actually in a call center many, many years ago as a summer intern at the Related Companies, a large developer in New York that has since expanded very much so across the country but actually all across the globe.
Speaker 2:And while I was there I worked my way up the ladder, so to speak, and my most senior position was overseeing business development for the luxury rental portfolio, which at the time was about 7,000 units across the country. I think today it's actually maintained around similar size because they've sold some of the units or converted them to condominiums. But throughout my time there it was very clear that all I really wanted to do professionally was to work in the real estate field and fast forward to today. I went on to run a couple of different real estate brokerages investment side, residential as well. I was also partnered and assisted in the expansion for a developer from South Florida up to New York. And then today I run RealtyCo, which I co-founded with my business partner Dan Kennedy, and it basically offers a myriad of financial tools and services in the real estate space.
Speaker 1:Oh, that's great. That's great. Is it done here in the United States and overseas also, or is it just here in the United States?
Speaker 2:Right now we're just in the US. I can tell you at some point we are interested in expanding some of our offerings across, you know, to other countries. You know Europe is kind of a pretty easy place for us to transition to. But we're in the early goings, only the fourth year of the business, and I think that we've got plenty of wood to chop in the United States before we go to other countries.
Speaker 1:That's great. That's great. I just want to see like so, basically, with your company, how can people what's like the foundation, what's the foundation of it?
Speaker 2:Sure. So what? Along the way with my career, what I started to witness were a lot of inadequacies for contractors in real estate, and that's a general term that includes real estate agents, brokerages and also a variety of developers. You know, the bigger developers typically are on a W-2, but midsize are either K-1 or 10 and 9 themselves as contractors, and so in that space, specifically on the finance side, it's a very underserviced market In the W-2 world. You hear of platforms like ADP, for example, and they're assisting everything from healthcare benefits, taxes, getting your paycheck and where it goes. All of those things are a harmonious product that already exists when you go to work as a W-2. When you work as a 1099, a contractor in real estate which really summarizes the majority of employees in the development and brokerage world it's on you, you're your own boss and unfortunately there's nobody there providing you a 401k, there's nobody there to provide you health care, and at the very beginning there's also a lot of complexities with getting paid. And so what we did is our first launchpad for the platform was we launched Realty Capital, which is our finance arm, and initially it was just advancing real estate commissions. So pretty simple product. What we would do is, if you're a real estate agent and you have a big commission check that's closing in 90 days or 120, what we would do is we would buy it from you today at a slight discount so that you can get access to that capital sooner and use it, you know, candidly, for whatever you want. You could use it to invest in your business, you could use it to pay rent, you know personal expenses and so on.
Speaker 2:But what we ended up seeing from there is that brokerages also were looking for this type of a financial product for themselves, and so we're smaller developers. You know a developer that may have a building in contract say it's three units. The bank typically won't provide the liquidity until the whole project is sold, and so what we'll do is we'll advance part of those receivables so that they could theoretically go buy their next project. You know where, in many regards, you would have to take out a mortgage to finance that. We could potentially potentially give you the capital to get to your next project sooner. And so that was the initial crux of what we wanted to create was effectively just an advancement business for real estate receivables.
Speaker 2:But what we witnessed in launching that was that there really was just absolutely no assistance to the contractors after getting paid. Nobody was advising on tax, legal or healthcare, which are kind of the main other three pillars of what we do. And, candidly, in 1099 world, your employer, if you're a broker at a brokerage, they're really not supposed to assist or advise on anything financially oriented, because that's where there's a line between being a W-2 and a 1099. And so what we did is we built out RealtyTax, which is a platform that assists 1099s in maximizing their deductions, and being properly set up, and on day one we realized, when we started helping out agents with tax services, how many of them weren't actually properly structured legally. And what I mean there is that a lot of people were filing their taxes as self-employed, where if you had an LLC or a corporation that you were paying yourself out of, not only could you save immensely on self-employment taxes and deductions, but you also would be protected. God forbid you're showing a house and somebody gets hurt or you say something that was incorrect. Your personal assets are, just to be clear I'm not an attorney, but I know this line well enough because my partner, who is, says it all the time but you're not protected from your personal assets if you don't have an entity in between you and the relationship with your business. So, basically, when we transitioned to tax, we then realized how many people weren't legally set up correctly. So we then launched Realty Legal, which is the platform that assists in formation and all the way through we do estate planning. We're actually going to be expanding the platform very soon with a lot of other offerings that we're excited to announce.
Speaker 2:But Realty Legal was created based upon the inadequacies we saw in tax assistance for the 1099s finance platform. We've actually expanded into you know, services as well. We asked the uh, the 10 and nine community what else are you? You know what else are you looking for, and the most notable was it is not easy If you're a contractor any, any industry but real estate, you know, first and foremost, since that's what we're doing right now Um, if you're a contractor, healthcare is not on the table, meaning that you're not getting it from your employer, and you know, if you're lucky enough to have a spouse, you might be able to get under their plan.
Speaker 2:But you know, we saw that that was the number one request was healthcare, and so what we did is we went out and we, partnered with United Healthcare, created a platform dedicated to real estate 10 and 9s that services that community, not exclusive to United.
Speaker 2:Just to be clear, we have over 250 different providers that fall under the platform, so you might actually come through our United partnership and find out that you're getting, you know, blue cross, um, we also have a variety of private providers that we have in the event that somebody is looking for a more, you know, custom tailored uh coverage, and so we effectively have resolved for the 1099 community in real estate from our point of view a financial platform, a legal and tax platform, and then healthcare, and as we continue to build, we are truly embracing the services and benefits component of it.
Speaker 2:When you go work as a W-2 at an employer, you have all these luxuries that you don't get when you're 10 to 9. Discounts at gyms, discounts at wellness facilities, you name it. So we look to continue to expand on that with RealtyCo platform, one that we're very excited to be rolling out in near I'd say probably, early February. I haven't announced it publicly, but I can tell you that we are going to be rolling out education, and so our agents are going to be able to come to us to be able to get their renewal and their licensing at far superior pricing in all 50 states. So through our platform you'll be able to get licensed soon.
Speaker 1:Oh, that's beautiful. I like everything and all the aspects you said about that, especially with the healthcare coverage, because I still work in the hospital field and right now that's the number one thing, especially when it comes to this country's healthcare coverage. And just the simple fact that you have all those avenues right there with healthcare, that's huge Because there's a lot of people who don't have healthcare coverage and if they do, they have it through their W-2 employer, but they might still be paying high, extreme prices for it. So just by you having that umbrella, that avenue, that program right there, that helps out a whole lot, and especially when it comes to realtors like me and everything. But, yeah, that's great.
Speaker 2:Unfortunately, so many people come into a contractor position and they'll take the first thing they find online in regards to healthcare, but they didn't get the assistance to necessarily pick what's best for them and most economical. And with what we've put together no broker fee associated with the program we're able to assist in trying to find you what is best for you. When we do see that most people, unfortunately, if they're left on their own searching for it, they don't typically end up in the policy that makes the most sense for them.
Speaker 1:That's true, very true. What else was I going to ask you? When it comes to this, in a with the real estate investing, and since we have the new change of president, what do you think is going to happen with the sector of real estate in itself?
Speaker 2:I think you're going to find that you know a lot more capital is going to come into the country for development opportunities from other countries. I think there's going to be a bit of a release on restrictions for getting capital you know into the United States to invest here, of a release on restrictions for getting capital you know into the United States to invest here. You know, for the recent history I would say there was a lot of regulation in place that made it a little bit more complicated for international capital to come in. There were opportunities you know visa programs and things like that that were put in place, but they didn't necessarily solve the opportunities that you know all international investors were looking for. I would also say that, generally speaking, you know the mindset of the new administration is less regulation and historically speaking, if there's less regulation there typically leads to more development.
Speaker 1:Yes, and then how about with because I'm with Avenue, with everything you just said right there, and with our housing shortage? What?
Speaker 2:it is. I think it's between seven and nine million. Yeah, it's a big number. I've seen that number floated around. It's usually a headline number and I think we've seen some of the numbers might not make a lot of sense. In regards to some people thinking 15 million, I think that it certainly is in the millions and it's a significant number.
Speaker 2:Unfortunately, the problem with resolving that is it comes down to local and state governments and it's really a state by state issue figuring out how to resolve it. It's not necessarily a federal, you know, overarching policy that fixes it. You know New York historically. I can only speak to it because it's, you know, in my backyard and where I live. But New York is becoming, you know, more and more involved in trying to resolve the shortfalls on housing. They're still not doing enough and it, you know it's a real uphill battle.
Speaker 2:My hope is that the new administration and you know, in regards to that specific topic, creates the incentives that are necessary so that the investment that you know, the capital, whether it's international or us-based um, is incentivized to participate in those. You know it's a matter of creating a platform so that people they have to get their return in regards to putting capital to work to build these projects. Um, and they're? You know they're not. They're not simple. Uh, it's not a matter of just saying let's put a building here. It's such a big, overarching topic. My short answer because I haven't heard the current administration speak to it enough is that my hope is that they lift enough of the restrictions and they create enough incentives so that the developers want to invest into growing the general housing portfolio.
Speaker 1:Yes, and speaking with that too, also my backyard here in California. And then we just had the fires down in Southern California.
Speaker 2:I know terrible. Hopefully you were left unscathed from that.
Speaker 1:I was. I'm in Northern California, but I've heard a lot. I've actually had a friend that came up here where I'm at last Thursday. She's glad she came up here because she wasn't even able to breathe. One of the fires was 12 miles away from where she lived and it's out here in California.
Speaker 1:The housing market is I don't know what direction it wants to go. They want more homes but, like I said, I don't know. It doesn't look like they're doing anything for it. And then when you have 12,000 homes because I tell people also years ago, when I got my real estate license, the one fact that I did remember is out of everything I remember it says California itself is the fifth biggest economy in the world.
Speaker 1:I don't know where it is right now. I know I know it's still in the top 10, but I'm like more than hundreds and hundreds of countries. And then with this fire right here, it plays huge implications with the fires, the insurance, you name it, and it's just overall bad, but I wanted to get in a better condition. And then they need to do some more when it comes to that. Also with the homeless rate, because the homeless rate in this country about a third of the homeless in the state and it seems like with when it comes to that, like it seems like the homeless have more rights than people who work a nine to five job.
Speaker 2:Yeah, listen, it's. It's incredibly complicated topic. You know California, by the way. I just looked it up and you're correct California's GDP is equivalent to India, which is ranked fifth in the world, so it's not a small one. The complicated part is and I think that you're going to see a lot of discussion on this topic over the next coming months California is one of the most restrictive states in regards to development and so, no matter what the project is that you're trying to complete, whether it's creating you know a shortfall in housing in general or you know a luxury development I think that you're going to have to see some sort of change to make it so that a lot of the restrictions that they have in place, specifically environmental, don't necessarily blockade what needs to be done.
Speaker 2:I would imagine they're going to lift a lot of restrictions to be able to rebuild the houses that burned down.
Speaker 2:I've got a good friend of mine who, with a newborn, he lost his entire home and obviously their lives are shattered and they're going to be okay, they're safe. But the problem is when you go through the insurance policies you're talking about. You know certainly the better part of a year before an insurance company is going to necessarily fill a claim, if they're even able to, but then you have to go through the state restrictions in regards to environmental studies and all these different things to be able to rebuild. It's going to be a tough one. I think that the state is probably going to have to make a general shift towards deregulation on development so that they can A rebuild the homes that burned down but, b if you want to tackle at the state level a housing shortage, the only way to do it is to create incentives and also deregulate how to do the building, because if it's too much red tape, no one wants to participate if it's too much red tape, no one wants to participate.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's like a person, just the struggle. It's a hole and they didn't need to release that hole for what's going to happen here in the state. Correct what I would say too, like how's the housing market like where you're at in New York? I used to live back east years ago, so I know all about New York. How's the housing market there now today?
Speaker 2:The market is interesting in the sense that obviously you know, as with most states, the last 18 months volume on residential was very, very slow Not a lot of buying going on, not a lot of selling, and that was largely due to rates. You had a big rate spike and I think now that we're seeing rates effectively level off, nobody's banking on a massive drop in 2025, you're going to see buyers come back to the table, but there's a decent amount of inventory that needs to be soaked up on the luxury side of New York before you start to see a ton of other development come into play. And you know the COVID effect obviously slowed things down. Construction definitely took a, you know, kind of a step back, but I would say in general, things are starting to ramp back up. You know the majority of people that are going to come back have come back and the city is very busy. You know it's very active. Restaurants are full. It's fun to be here.
Speaker 2:It also was tough to witness during the 2020-2021 cycle, but in general, I think you're going to see that when COVID happened, there was this drop-off in a buyer pool. Basically, buying just halted to zero. Then, when buying started up again, you had this massive wave because of all the people that didn't buy for 12 months. Now, if you think about it, if you have millions of transactions that just didn't happen for a year, all those people that waited what's happening now is, I think, you're going to see another, not as aggressive wave, but another wave that drives pricing up, because you had people that just sat on the sidelines for the last 18 months. So you have the people that sat on the sidelines that are now going to buy and then the people that are currently planning to buy already all coming to the table at the same time. With rates flattening out, I think come summer, you're probably going to see a pretty decent boom in regards to the buyer pool.
Speaker 1:That's what I was thinking too. And then the topic of I've talked so much about COVID, because COVID changed basically everything about the world in itself, in general.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's true.
Speaker 1:That's for sure. I know that a lot of people Briggs are still there. Like I said, they're waiting on the sidelines and right now some of them I know are still. They're waiting to get back to that interest rate and I'm like that was once in a chance of a lifetime that it happened like that.
Speaker 2:Unfortunately, it's not going to happen. Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:I said but you're just going to have to navigate what we have now and see where it goes with the interest rate what we have now and see where it goes with the interest rate when do you think the interest rate will be like this year?
Speaker 2:I think we're going to stay pretty close to where we're at. I think at this point there's a decent chance that you see another quarter point drop. But I think what most people it's a bit of a stereotype, I guess, or a general statement, but the mortgage rates don't necessarily directly react to the Fed rates and right now what you've seen is that exact circumstance Fed dropped again, but mortgage rates remain pretty steady. I don't think you're going to see a huge drop. I think that at the end of the day you might see rates by the end of the year potentially down another quarter, might see rates by the end of the year potentially down another quarter, possibly a half if the market wants it. But at the moment I think it's going to stay pretty darn flat to where it is.
Speaker 1:And that's what I think people are starting to realize.
Speaker 2:Yes, I'm glad you said that.
Speaker 1:You can tune in to me on this part right here. So I know that the Fed rate and the mortgage rate they're two different ways. How are they both separate? Because a lot of people get that confused when they say when the Feds go down in rate, that also includes the mortgage rate, but it's not the same.
Speaker 2:So the short answer is that mortgage rates are largely driven by the 10-year treasury bond yield market, and when Fed drops rates, the 10-year treasury bond market doesn't necessarily respond directly, because they're completely different things.
Speaker 2:So one is effectively a product that is being sold and is driven by supply and demand, and then the other is effectively a rate that is driven by the Fed. So when the Fed says the rate is now X, unfortunately it doesn't just mean that everybody else is going to, you know, fall suit. That is a rate that is driven in regards to debt that banks are distributing, but the bond market, which are treasuries, is purely a supply and demand factor, and when the bond traders are trading off of what the Fed rate is, they're trying to collect the spread, basically, and so when you're investing on it I think I've probably, if anything, overcomplicated it, but the short answer is that the Fed rate is a directed rate in regards to debt that banks are getting and distributing. Treasuries are what mortgage rates are typically pegged off of, and the 10-year treasury rate is something that fluctuates based upon the supply and demand of the marketplace, whereas the Fed rate is more of a directive to what banks can lend at.
Speaker 1:Okay, that makes perfect sense right there. I completely understand you now.
Speaker 2:They, historically, are relatively close, but they don't necessarily follow the exact same path.
Speaker 1:Okay, what would you say to yourself? I would say before you know, you got out of, you know school, you got out of high school, went to college and everything, what? What would the younger person, what would you say to yourself if he was younger, like what you would change in your life.
Speaker 2:Um, you know, I think, uh, if I could go back in time, I would have been more aggressive with tapping into. You know, and building a network. You know success you can never build anything on your own. You know. You think about building a building, building a house. One person is not going to build it. You need to hire a contractor to do plumbing. You need to hire somebody to do the kitchen. You know all the different key components. Build it. You need to hire a contractor to do plumbing. You need to hire somebody to do the kitchen all the different key components of it. And that goes with business and success. And probably, if I was to revisit my past, I would have worked harder on my network and utilizing it to be successful. Some people are probably a little bit shy on that topic, but at the end of the day, who you surround yourself with is largely what will drive your success.
Speaker 1:Exactly who you run with speaks volumes and you know. The saying goes your network is your net worth. That really is true. That really is true. Well how, how can people get in touch with you? And I'll put in the notes and everything, because the company is very knowledgeable, especially for this time period.
Speaker 2:I mean simple. Just go to RealtyCocom R-L-T-Y-C-Ocom. There you will be directed to all of our platforms and you can obviously pick and choose. And you can reach out to us over chat or call the office lines. We're readily available and always here, know, always here to talk.
Speaker 1:All right, great, great. Thank you so much. I'm honored to have you on today's show and everything, and you know, are you in Manhattan?
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:You're in.
Speaker 2:Manhattan Bank of America, right behind me and Salesforce Tower, and we're right in midtown Manhattan.
Speaker 1:That's beautiful. I love New York. I'm a Yankees fan. I'm a big Yankees fan.
Speaker 2:Well, if you're ever here, let us know and stop by the office.
Speaker 1:Definitely, definitely will, but I was honoring the pleasure and I want to thank you so much and God bless.
Speaker 2:Tony, thank you so much.
Speaker 1:Thank you.