How He Finds Deals Before Anyone Else (Macro Trend Strategy) | Ep.1,229

So you know that apartment building or complex you drive by every day, someone owns it.

And it's probably someone on this podcast.

Multi-family rock stars.

Join the growing numbers of real estate entrepreneurs who have made the jump to buying multi-family

properties for lifetime cash flow.

Multi-family rock stars.

Using OPM for an OMG ROI.

Now, here are your hosts, Ron Cleef and Mark Nakey.

Welcome back to Multi-family rock stars.

So as you guys know, this is where we deep dive into some of our student's deals and really

get into the nitty-gritty with things.

I've been looking forward to this one just because we're going to get into some weird

asset classes today.

And our guest actually has some really unique ways of looking at markets and deals.

And I think we're all going to learn some things today.

But Rod, I'll pass it over to you and let you do the intro for our guest.

Okay.

All right.

So thank you for doing the first intro.

So we've got Hardock Revall on today.

And he's a warrior and based in North Carolina and has done all sorts of things, salon

suites, which is something I was very interested in where you rent a building and or buy a building

and you carve it up and put people have their own individual hair salons, massage things,

nails, estheticians, you name it.

It's a fantastic business model.

He's got 13 locations.

He's developing tiny homes.

He is a 30 home tiny home development, 214 unit residential development, 234 lot project.

He's involved in 173 bed assisted living portfolio that some warriors put together recently

and has completed the real estate management program at Harvard Business School.

Very cool.

I'm going to stop there because I can keep going.

Welcome, brother.

It's good to see you.

Good to see you as well, Ron.

Glad to be here.

Yeah.

Very, very impressive background, like I said, I love this salon suites model and I know

you're starting to get into doing some development with some warriors.

Very exciting stuff.

But why don't you tell us where you came from, maybe give us a little background on you,

maybe what you did before real estate, just briefly give us a little, a little better

bio than I just did if you would.

Absolutely.

Absolutely.

I moved here to United States back in 2003 with $1,000 in my pocket, did my high education,

masters in biomedical engineering, started as a healthcare statistician, statistical

consultant and started wrenching into entrepreneurship.

So my journey into real estate truly started from an entrepreneurial mindset, right?

So I've always been fascinated by building things, not just businesses but communities.

So earlier in my career, you know, I started launched a franchise called the Flying

Locksmiths and that's what got me into the commercial real estate world because I started

servicing commercial buildings, office buildings, retail, multifamily here in Raleigh Market.

And that, you know, led me into developing relationships with the property managers,

the brokers, the landlords.

So through that business, you know, I was constantly inside the buildings, right?

We're owned by investors, developers, which gave me a front row seat to how commercial

real estate works and then allowed me to build the relationships.

So that's really where my investment strategy into commercial real world opened up.

I exited that business back in 2021, but right before I exited that in 2020, I started

acquiring multifamily and Eastern Carolina is where I went first.

I had a portfolio of town home single family homes that I was managing myself, but wanted

to get in deeper into commercial real estate and Greenville is where I land at Eastern Carolina

market and acquired my first 12 unit multifamily there and slowly started going into land development

project started acquiring land.

And since then, you know, I have acquired close to about 400 acres between Eastern and Western

North Carolina and continue developing, you know, different opportunities across across

North Carolina and beyond North Carolina.

Nice.

Nice.

And the most the stuff you just mentioned, you've done since becoming a warrior and you joined,

I think, was it June of 24?

Is that right?

Yes.

Yes.

In June, 2024, I decided to join the warrior program with all the experience that I already

had between technology and real estate and development.

The reason that drew me into the warrior program was one, I was looking for a network of

like-minded individuals who shared the same passion and who were scaling their business portfolio

within the multifamily space.

I had never syndicated before all the projects that I had done before joining the warrior

programs or self-funded and I wanted to learn how the syndication model worked, right?

Also, when I was listening to your podcast prior to joining the warrior program, I had

heard success stories of other warriors, you know, who share philanthropic goals, which

were very much aligned with me and my family.

My long-term philanthropic goal is to build schools in India and offer, you know, free education

to underprivileged kids.

And as I said, you know, when I came to this country, I only had $1,000 in my pocket.

The only thing that drew me here and where I am today is education.

So education is big for me.

Love it.

Love it.

And you know, we've got warriors that are building schools in India, yes?

That is correct.

Yeah.

So I don't know if you knew that or not.

Well, listen, you know, we just guys see, if you're listening, we do get really well-seasoned

experienced real estate operators in the warrior program because there's always another level.

There's always another level.

And in your case, it was syndication and of course, the network is what brings it home.

So you've done a lot in the last couple of years.

My question, my first question to you is, how do you keep it all together?

I mean, you've got the salon suites going on.

You've got these development projects going on.

Is it partnerships?

What do you do to maintain focus and make sure everything gets the attention that deserves?

Right.

Right.

And again, I mean, going back to the warrior program.

So one was scale, but meeting with mentors, meeting with coaches, right?

And that's where the true education began for me where I wanted to start scaling businesses

and be more disciplined in my business strategy in expanding the business across the country.

So the looks, salon suites, I'm one of the co-founders, right?

I mean, we started this.

And then now, after I joined the warrior program, right, I mean, we're scaling it across

the country with 13 locations.

But what really drives me is my ability to build things that have long from impact, right?

So real estate is extremely unique because it combines, you know, entrepreneurship.

It combines finance, design, it combines community development, right?

So when you are building housing or communities, you are creating places where people live

their lives.

So for me, it's not just about financial returns, it's about, you know, creating projects

that benefit both investors as well as the communities.

Nice.

So tell us about how you identify those communities because reading through your bio, you have

some really unique ways of looking at kind of macro and micro economics in certain neighborhoods

and areas.

What are some of those things that the listeners can take away that you do to find these

up and coming areas or these good places to invest into?

Because it's a very unique process that you seem to have here.

Absolutely.

So I always, you know, love macro trends, right?

Like population growth, housing shortages, affordability challenges, and those trend create

always opportunities for development, right?

So to give you an example, when I acquired Land Parcel, investor in Carolina, I looked

at growth where there is Toyota manufacturing, battery plant, world's largest battery plant,

they started with $1.8 billion and now they have $14 billion worth of investment.

I own close to 400 acres, investor in Carolina, 18 minutes away from that battery plant.

So those are the opportunities I look for.

I love to stay ahead of the growth curve, right?

And again, it's all about relationships with the brokers, relationship with the town planners,

the city planners, the economic development team being out there in front of the people

and constantly interacting with the key decision makers where you get a great insight

of where the job growth is going, where the economic growth is going, and strategize

that growth accordingly.

Yeah, nice.

Let me ask you this.

You know, we've got a pretty diverse listener base.

What types of listeners do you think would relate to you the most?

You've got the engineering background, you're in real estate, you're definitely an entrepreneur.

Tell me what sorts of listeners you think would relate to you the most.

So someone who is transitioning from a W to job venturing into real estate, right?

Yeah.

Folks who come from a tech background like myself who make decisions based on data analysis

and data analytics, right?

People who are looking to create impact beyond just one.

Let me stop you for one second.

Let me stop you.

I apologize because you just said something that resonated with me.

You said IT jobs, you know, I don't know how you feel about this.

AI is going to be eliminating a lot of jobs.

In fact, I just told my daughter who works on my team who is brilliant and she's been

doing SEO for me that pretty much clawed and opened clawed can basically do her entire

job.

So she and I are going to be looking for a different business to do.

Are you, you know, do you see that?

And I'm just curious.

Are you still?

Thanks.

So I don't know if you agree that a lot of jobs are going to be gone.

Are we on the same page with that?

We are.

And are you in, let me ask you this, are you connected to a lot of IT people still or

not so much?

Are they, do they see it coming?

Are they hiding their heads in the sand?

What's the sentiment that you're seeing?

Because by God in my opinion, they need to start a side hustle or figure something out

before the freaking shoe drops, you know?

Yeah.

Yeah.

Absolutely.

I mean, people that I'm still connected with who are within the IT industry, they're almost

everybody has started venturing into alternative investment strategies, right?

Just, just like how I evolved from a full-blown tech job, right, getting into full-blown entrepreneurship,

a lot of people are seeing that AI is a perfect storm and you really, really need to start

looking at alternative investments, right?

So I agree with you.

100%.

Right.

Well, you know, a lot of people in the IT space are very introverted.

They're very into themselves and afraid of change.

And that's what concerns me is I think there could be a lot of pain.

For people that don't see that writing on the wall.

I kind of, I kind of stopped you in the middle of who you resonate with and I apologize.

But so if you remember where you dropped off, you just when you said IT, I had to throw

that in there because I've been screaming that from the rooftops lately.

No, I completely relate to that.

And I think integrating AI within your business model is inevitable, right?

Yeah.

For me, you look at the positive side of it.

It makes your productivity go from one to thousand X, right?

It's crazy.

We're already seeing it.

I'm seeing results in our marketing, in our view, viewership on social media.

And again, the guy that handles my social media says it's going to handle 95% of what he

does once it's up and running, which would be about a week from now.

I mean, that's how fast it's happening.

So it's crazy.

And I think the bootcamps, the warrior only events that we come in a tent, right?

And some of these topics that I've been witnessing over the last year or so, I attended

every warrior event.

And the topics that we are staying ahead in terms of AI being delivered, right?

That's where the brainstorming and the knowledge sharing happens.

And that's the kind of outlook that I was looking for getting into this program.

Right?

Well, that's the benefit.

Being around like-minded people, you know, rising tide lifts all ships, I'm sure you

know our next warrior events, the end of May, looking forward to that.

And yeah, fantastic.

So the next question I want to ask you, I'm still on Mark's thunder here, but the next

question is, you know, what would you say is your superpower?

Because you've got so many plates spinning, I'm just curious, you know, what role you play?

I mean, your engineers, you're very analytical, but what role may be besides that analysis

that you play in the teams that you've either built and or joined?

Sure.

Sure.

So, again, my superpower is being able to adapt and see trends ahead of the curve, right?

So I love to play in secondary tertiary markets where, you know, the job growth is going

to go.

Right.

I mean, that's how I've built my whole real estate portfolio where I have been in places

where people don't want to go.

And I'm saying it with, you know, a grain of salt, because when you get into real estate,

especially in the land development side of the business, right?

You are dependent on so many factors, rezoning entitlements, utility infrastructure, constraints

that a small rural town may have.

And without experience, you can be on the completely wrong side and lose all your investment

if you don't have the right experience.

So where I play with the right partnerships that I have built over time, we have like one

of my business partners, he's been doing construction for 25 years.

He's based in Greenville, North Carolina, right?

When we both joined forces, I actually had hired him as my contractor.

And he said, Hardik, I don't want to work for you.

I want to be a business partner.

And that's where we joined forces and we started development deals together.

But where I come in, my superpower is I do land acquisition, I do research, I go out

still today, knocking on doors, meeting with families.

And I have built a network of farmers all across North Carolina and have started building

a hopper and a pipeline of deals that naturally just flow to me now, right?

And with AI, I think this opportunity becomes even bigger because deploying AI agents that

can go on deals for you.

So having that unique technology background and understanding how real estate works can

be very dangerous.

Yeah.

Oh, it's exciting.

It's dangerous, but I mean, it's an exciting danger.

Let me tell you.

Absolutely.

100%.

Yep.

And those are all shifting ways you can underwrite things as well.

Like, you know, as we're talking about AI and jobs, like just my personal opinion, who knows

how quick or long this is going to take, but I probably wouldn't be looking towards big

tech hubs, right?

Places like Seattle, Salt Lake City, the Bay Area, I'd be looking at places where there's

a lot of healthcare workers or blue collar, you know, places where there's not going to

be a lot of layoffs over the next five, 10 years.

Who knows how long this AI boom, you know, is going to go on for.

So hard to what, what is your favorite type of deal?

You've talked about new construction, tiny homes, senior living, regular multi-family.

What's, what's been your favorite type of deal so far, asset class?

So honestly, land has been my most favorite asset class, right?

I mean, I have really, really accelerated my land development projects since I joined

the warrior program and I was already involved in land development prior to joining, but this

just accelerated, you know, my whole portfolio because the Brunswick County deal that I'm

doing currently 234 single-family lots.

This is going to be, it's the fastest growing county in North Carolina and this project

is going to be amazing, but it requires a lot of discipline.

It requires, you know, almost every deal that is being underwritten right now, you've got

to be very, very conservative, right?

And you have to be very disciplined in your, in your deals with inflation, with the interest

rates where they are right now, but I, I love land play.

I, I, and now slowly after joining, you know, warrior program, assisted living is a new

asset class that has opened up for me.

Because everybody knows you and everybody talks about silver, so now he's coming, right?

Right.

Well, it's true.

And that's true.

That's true, right?

And, and I think this is my first project in Central Florida.

Yeah.

So you did with warriors, yeah, I'm very familiar with that project because we were looking

at it as well.

And I know you've got a, a developer warrior involved in your, in the development you just

described as well, one that does, and that's the, that's the thing, guys.

We've got a lot of different asset classes going on the warrior, lots of development, lots

of building, lots of senior housing, student housing, self storage, industrial flex

space.

And of course, you know, I'm fairly certain we're at about 300,000 multi-family units

owned by my warriors, which just blows my mind.

By the way, if you're interested in applying to our program, text the word crush to 72345.

That's how you apply to the warrior program.

Again, that's crush to 72345 and we look you over.

You look us over.

And if it's a fit, you're off to the freaking races.

And would you say, in your view, one of the most valuable pieces of the program is really

just the network, the connections?

Well, that is, that is, that is definitely given, right?

I mean, it's a group of trusted individuals, the kind of mentorship that I have, have

gotten by just one phone call away, right?

You call your coach and you call the network of people that you can trust.

I mean, I'll tell you my personal story.

All my real estate investments has been in North Carolina before joining the warrior

program, right?

And the reason I was not able to expand into other markets was because to find that trusted

group of people is very, very difficult.

And when you're talking about real estate, this is a long haul.

And this network gave me that opportunity to start doing a JV deal, to start go jeeping

on central Florida deal, right?

And this was my first deal outside of North Carolina.

So it's, it's the network, you know, it's the, it's the mentorship and everything that

goes along with it and lifelong friendship.

And a lot of, I think the positivity that revolves around the group when you hear other success

stories, it just constantly keeps uplifting you, right?

Yeah.

And, and, and as you mentioned, the whole philanthropic event, you know, I remember being at one of

my thousand person boot camps that I did in Orlando for three days and we do a Hall of Fame

award for the warriors and, you know, we did a slide for each one.

I started to see a pattern every single one of them did something philanthropic.

I mean, schools in India, Latin America, veterans homelessness, veteran suicide, human trafficking,

and I looked at the thousand participants and I pointed to this freaking monitor.

I said, that's what we call a clue, power moves to those who serve, right?

So yeah, I mean, we're, we're, we're hell bent on making the world a better place.

Not just our, you know, ourselves financially.

So that's, again, I could stop blabbering here, but it's something I'm very proud of.

Absolutely.

Let's talk about this deal, hard to, because obviously this is a multi-family podcast.

So tell us about this 11 unit, the first multi-family that you did since coming on board

with us.

You know, how you found it, why you thought it was a good deal?

What was the process?

Did you have any partners?

What are you doing to increase the rents?

Just give us the rundown.

Sure, sure, sure.

So this first deal, after joining the warrior program, I found it through a network of broker.

As I said, I have built a relationship with broker network and a lot of times these deals

flow off market, right?

So I was presented with this opportunity and it's Eastern Carolina, very stable, stable

town in terms of job growth, right?

There's not a whole lot of new construction that's going on in that town.

It was right next to Greenville where I was already doing active development deals.

So I knew the town really well.

So my draw going to that town was one, I mean, yes, it's stable.

There isn't a whole lot of new construction, so which means the rental demand is going

to continue to stay up, right?

It was stabilized as it.

It was completely gutted in 2016.

They had renovated the entire facility from the inside.

It's in a historical downtown setting.

Two blocks away from River, which was a big draw for me personally, because a lot of

people visit for several types of events in that town, right?

So all 11 units were long-term tenants.

And after I, you know, when I bought it, I bought it at a 8% cap rate, right?

I had a pretty decent spread between what I borrowed from the bank.

I bought the property on my own.

It wasn't a JV or a partnership.

I financed it through a local community, through a credit union actually, right?

And since I acquired this property, I've already, last October, I got my rates dropped

to 5.75 from 6.25, so I got an additional 50 basis point spread from what I had already

purchased.

I converted one of the units out of that 11 to a short-term rental.

And the Airbnb is doing just phenomenal over there.

I mean, my whole NOI has gone up.

So for every $100 a month, times 11, I mean, you are adding $13,000 a year and increasing

your net operating income.

So I'm looking at a pretty decent exit at some point in the future.

Why would you ever sell it?

If it's going to go well, why would you ever sell it?

I would not.

Honestly speaking, I'm always looking for long-term.

I regret every property I've ever sold, unless it's in a Shreveport or a Memphis or somewhere

that's been a shit show.

A stabbing scene.

Killings.

You're good.

Yeah, go ahead.

Sorry, sorry.

No, heartics and one thing that me and my partners have been talking about that I wanted

to touch on right now is timing.

You mentioned that your interest rate has been dropping.

That is such the great thing about getting into the market right now is we're already

on the recovery, even on deals that I'm seeing that we bought a year ago, two years ago.

Everything is just, we bought it at the worst time.

It's getting easier and easier and easier.

And it's going to continue to do that over the next couple of years, and such something

just to think about because everybody always comes up with excuses of, oh, well, is now

a bad time?

Are we at the bottom?

Etc.

Right?

We already hit that in going back the other way.

Now, I do want to ask you your opinion because you mentioned like some simple things on

this deal, right?

Just better property management, better connection to the tenants and doing some small little

repairs.

Why do you think this was an opportunity to buy this deal?

Like, why do you think the seller was selling this and they just didn't do these things

themselves?

So, see, for me, this was buying below replacement cost.

For what I purchased, I purchased it for $1.2 million, right?

The sellers, it was actually a family and apparently the broker co owned this property.

So, and I knew that broker, you know, for the last three, four years, and they had an

issue where, you know, one of the family members was getting old and it was about two and

a half, three hours away from where they lived.

So they could not do it on their own.

And that's the reason why they wanted to sell, right?

So it just worked out really well for me because I immediately engaged a professional property

management company who are local in the town have been doing this for a long time.

And essentially, you know, this was not a value add strategy, but it was more of, you know,

buying a property below replacement cost and slowly optimizing the rents, improving the

tenant communication, right, engaging the right property management company, which is

about a one block away from where this property is located.

Oh, that's nice.

That's nice.

Why, you don't get that very often.

That's awesome.

So, Hardick, if let's say a new, a new student, someone who joined the Warrior Program where

to come to you and say, hey, Hardick, I want to invest in this area where you have relationships

and the property managers and all these sorts of things.

Can you help me?

What would you, what would you say to that person?

Absolutely.

I mean, I would love to, you know, I mean, I was, when I joined, I was helped by several

other people within the Warrior Group and that's what warriors do, right?

We give back and we support one another.

Any new student that I can assist with to join on a deal, whether it's co-joining alongside

me or any other warriors for the matter, I'll give them my honest opinion in terms of,

because look, I mean, everybody makes mistakes early on in their career.

So if someone can learn from someone like myself who has been doing this for a long time,

at least they could avoid making those mistakes, right?

What a great answer, brother.

What a great answer.

By the way, again, if you want to apply, which I recommend you do if, we're in one of the

most exciting times in freaking history to buy real estate, okay, because what's happened

with these interest rates.

Text crush right now to 7, 2, 3, 4, 5 and get on a call with my massive action team.

I promise you'll be glad you did.

You'll leave that call better than you got on it.

So heartic, if any one, if listeners wanted to chat with you, how can they reach you,

buddy?

Are you okay with that?

Yeah, absolutely.

They can connect me.

We are linked in.

You know, they can reach me via email or they can give me a call.

Absolutely.

Okay.

Well, once you're linked in, LinkedIn is heartic hyphen revol, R-A-V-A-L, and your email

is what?

It's a-h-a-h-a-n, dream at gmail.com, a-h-n dream at gmail.com.

Wonderful.

Well, thank you for coming on the show, brother.

Very impressed what you've got going so far as I told you before we started recording.

Very impressive.

And I'll see you.

We'll see you here at the end of the May.

Yeah, absolutely.

Looking forward to it.

Thanks for having me.

All right.

Take care, guys.

You too.

Thank you.

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