- Trystan’s Story into real estate
- Working with first-time commercial investors
- Understanding the process of residential to commercial
- Honesty and transparency
- Why income-generating properties are important
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Corwyn:
Good morning. Good morning, and good morning guys. Welcome to another fabulous episode of Exit Strategies Radio Show. Hey, I’m your host, Cowyn J. Melette, broker-owner of Exit Realty Group [00:01:00] in beautiful North Charleston, South Carolina. Hey, if this is your first time listening to this show, you, sir, ma’am, are in for a treat.
Our mission here is very simple, very, very, very simple. That is to empower our community through financial literacy and real estate education guys. We are a legacy building. That is what we do. So today, guys is no different than what we’ve been doing. We’ve been working with you, we’ve been putting you through your paces, and we’ve been bringing massive amounts of information, and amazing guests to the show to share with you various niches.
Various aspects of the real estate industry and today is no different. We are very humble to have you with us today. None other than Tristan McNeil, who is a commercial broker in the Charlotte market servicing North Carolina, South Carolina, as well as Georgia. Tristan, how are you doing today?
Trystan McNeill:
Doing great, Corwyn. Appreciate you having me on the show. I’m excited [00:02:00] to be here and, you know, look forward to our conversation.
Corwyn:
Well, look here. Same here. So let’s just jump straight into it, if you don’t mind. Give our listeners the high-level overview of who you are and what you do.
Trystan McNeill:
Yeah, absolutely. So again I’m Tristan McNeil. My family is originally from Fayetteville, North Carolina. I’ve been in Charlotte since 2008, so I started real estate in 2018 and prior to that I was in the risk management and compliance space. So within financial services. So originally graduated from UNC Charlotte in 2012.
Like most people, when I graduated mindset was, lemme graduate, get a good paying job, let me start my career and start climbing the corporate ladder. And so one of the things that early on in my career probably about a year or two into it, I realized that my goals and dreams didn’t necessarily align with my salary.
And that necessarily doesn’t mean I was money chasing, but what I realized early on [00:03:00] that the small salary bumps didn’t align with kind of. My impatient ways and trying to, kind of bridge and break the financial gap and wealth gap for myself and the people around me. So, it took me a while to kind of get an idea of what I wanted to do because I was still in that mindset of thinking.
All right, well, if I switch jobs from what I’ve heard, I can increase my salary. But the problem with that was I still lack the experience. So as I was going through that, a lot of times at the end of the year, or even during like mid-year reviews, folks would ask, like, you know, your manager would say, Hey, what are your goals for the year?
Or what, where are you trying to be in the next three, five years? Where do you see yourself in the company? And I never really had an answer for that, and it was terrible because, Simply like, what are your career goals? I was like, I don’t know. I don’t have any, but for me it was, let me figure out how can I move up the ladder quickly and as fast as possible.
So I did that by switching companies a couple of times. I’ve always been fortunate to have networked and known [00:04:00] somebody. I used to tell people I was in the business of problem-solving, and technically I still am. But even with that, you become good at problem-solving in, the financial services space.
You’ll always end up having a job. So me at the end of about, what was it, 20 16 20 17, I was working at a company and I just wasn’t happy and it wasn’t necessarily cuz I wasn’t good at what I did, it was just the environment, the people around it. And I just wasn’t a good fit. So at the end of that year, I did, I quit my job and end up.
Converting myself into a consultant and started doing contract consulting in the same industry. But then, like as I did it for the first three to four months, I was like, I’m still not getting that fulfillment. And I’m like, what did I have the energy around? And it was real estate. So that led me to taking my real estate exam.
In 2018, I ended up actually failing the first time around. Had to retake the class and most people would’ve been discouraged like, you know what, I’m just not gonna do this. It’s not for me. I [00:05:00] literally, within 15 minutes of finding out that I failed the class, re-registered for another class, and was back in class the following week.
And from there I dedicated my summer of 2018 cuz I was doing evening classes when I first started, dedicated eight weeks, basically two months of Saturday and Sunday. So, Eight to five to my real estate class. End up passing that and got my license in October 2018, and the rest is history. So I started off in the residential space for a couple of years.
Even when I got my license, I knew that I wanted to be in a commercial. It was different. I knew there what challenges lay ahead of it, but ultimately I kind of kept that eyesight. I didn’t know what I wanted to do in the commercial space, but ultimately because I was still in brokerage on the residential side very quickly. They say it still takes you about three to five years in the commercial space to really get your gears going. And I mean, I mean, I’ve noticed that extremely. From different aspects or another, but once you kind of get to know what you’re doing, then it’s just a matter [00:06:00] of putting things into practice.
So that’s, I know that was probably a little longer than what you guys normally would uh, I would say take on. No worries. But I always like to try to give the full background.
Corwyn:
So, you touched on a few things in there, and I don’t wanna state ’em long, but I’m always sensitive to mindsets, the mindset of someone.
Who finds the greatest success? You had a failure, and technically it wasn’t a failure, it was just part of the journey, but you didn’t allow that to stop you and handle you. We have and seen people oftentimes that if it doesn’t work the first time they’re done but they may not have been prepared or maybe they were being tested to see if they would have the fortitude to continue on.
And you immediately picked it up and went right back. You fell off the bicycle. But hold on, I’m gonna ride this sucker. And you went and got back right back on it and went again and, kept going. So kudos to you. Yeah, absolutely. And that’s a mindset that, that we talk about here often what matters for [00:07:00] success.
But let’s, get back, and continue forward in this vein cuz you work in commercial real estate and, we have a mindset of, abundance here in the show. We don’t have to limit our beliefs. For our listeners that have them, those are the ones that we put in the chokehold about every week about what we talk about, cuz we always want to encourage people and move people forward.
The commercial space, let’s talk about that. So give us if you could, What is your outlook? Like for example, in the local market, the Charleston area and other markets in our state are like this as well. We can drive by a corner and there’s nothing there.
We come back to the afternoon after we leave work and there’s a building halfway framed and a date the next day. They got a parking lot paved the day after that there’s a grand opening ribbon out front seemingly going in so quickly. What do you foresee in the commercial space? Over the next 12 to 18 months.
Trystan McNeill:
Yeah, absolutely. So with commercial, it’s gonna be asset class based, right? So I try not to get too technical but also try to [00:08:00] give a simplified answer. Charleston’s a great market. Like I said, I originated outta the Charlotte market, but I worked.
Across three different states and basically the southern region. When it comes to, the office side of things, right? just read an article earlier today where, like in New York, for example, you have a lot of large conglomerates that are just selling off spaces at a deeply discounted rate, and it’s because of the debt that they have on the building.
So, When you talk about any asset class really that has a lot of debt or debt, they just can’t move. Or you have notes coming up. So for example, somebody took a note in 2018, and now it’s 2023. Outside of COVID, you wouldn’t even think you’re gonna elevate or de elevate,? So you have a lot of people that weren’t able to cash flow as high as they expected and nobody expected COVID, right?
So that’s a challenge there and it has a direct impact on the market. So, You have all these people that are gonna default, but then you also have a lot of people that are also looking to purchase, but they’re not gonna purchase because the rates are too [00:09:00] high for them to be able to cash flow in the future.
So you have that challenge ahead. But when you have like certain thriving markets where you still have, I think here in Charlotte 140 something people moving here a day, that money that’s coming to the city is gonna stimulate the economy. So that’s gonna encourage people to want to go to work that’s gonna encourage small businesses to open up that retail space.
It’s gonna encourage the developers to continue building those apartments for multifamily living because again, You have 140-something people moving here, they gotta be somewhere, right? Mm-hmm. So you could probably look out the window, from my office, my house, and you could probably point out every, apartment complex that’s going up within a one to three-mile radius, right?
The re-trading or the disposition in sales, slowed down a little bit, but again, that has everything to do with the rate. So you got some people. That we’ll see, you know what? Let me see if I can ride this thing out and maybe sell it later on, you know, [00:10:00] in the year or vice versa. You have some people that need to sell now and those need to sell.
Now people could be folks that are retiring. Again, it could be folks that, you know, I bought this building in 2020 thinking that I was gonna make, a killing, realize that I wasn’t, and it’s not, performing that in the way that I need to. Right? So I need to exit, you know, my position. But you know, I think a lot of people are very optimistic.
I was sitting in an event hosted by CoStar the week before last. And as you know, bed, bath and Beyond. And like, bye-bye, baby. And all of them, they’ve hit bankruptcy. So in about a couple of months or so, if not less, most of their stores are gonna be vacant. And you would think, you know, outside looking in, oh man, that’s a lot of square footage.
They’re gonna sit, that’s 20, 30,000 square feet. Well, when you’re engulfed in the industry, I’ve heard that there are people that are waiting for those buildings to become vacant like they are ready to take them over. Mm-hmm. So when you [00:11:00] think about an abundance mindset, I know plenty of people that don’t believe in recessions.
They don’t believe in down markets. They just believe in opportunities. So, but it also takes a strong mindset and will to say, you know what, let me figure out, how I get creative. Right. So when selling, like for example, when sales are down, it may be alright, you have all these new businesses and tenants or landlords that may help fill their space or tenant small businesses that need to get off the ground and need tenancy.
So you, there’s good money and, and tenant as well. Especially when someone’s selling, you know, well, someone’s needing a five to 10-year lease, you know, for a great concept. So,
Corwyn:
So, it’s interesting that you should say that we look at this, well, a matter of fact, I’m gonna take you back to something just before you said what I was gonna focus on, which is, I have a client of mine that says this thing, Tristan.
He says business is slow for slow-minded people. Hmm. And, you know, and that, and that’s a philosophy that I, I have to carry. Because, you know, [00:12:00] oftentimes we’ll make business slow. We’ll complain. We’ll gripe, we’ll do all these other things. We’ll complain about a market this or that, and the third.
And what happens is in that complaint, we in turn shut ourselves out from that market. Very true. All the people that are out here complaining about home ownership prices or real estate prices and giving all these rights and complaints about it, those people are shutting themselves out from the market.
Those are the people that are not able to buy. Or buying in this market because they’re shutting themselves out. Those who embrace the market. Okay, look, it’s always a great time for us to own real estate. It’s always a great time for this. Yes, there may be a time that’s better, but it’s always a good, great time for us to get into the market.
Those people continue to do business and continue to be in the market. So, as you said, this person is going out of business, they’re coming out of these spaces and they’re creating opportunities. But one person’s gonna look at it and say, oh gosh, the economy is tanking. Such and such is going out of business.
They’re going bankrupt. Another person’s gonna say, oh, what [00:13:00] really word, oh, shoot. Right. Your building not to be open. Let’s go get it. And that is all mindset. That is all mindset. So it’s interesting that you should share that. You know, for our listeners now do you work with first-time investors in commercial space?
Trystan McNeill:
I do. Actually, I like working with first-time investors especially because they’re, green and they don’t have a preconceived notion or a bias. On what they’re, gonna buy or how they’re gonna operate. So they really look at us as consultants opposed to brokers.
So, I tell people, we wear a lot of hats. So we’re consultants, advisors, brokers. And you know, even from a couple people that I mentor, I’ve told them like this of like the brokering part’s easy. And again, that might seem facetious, but that’s just my opinion. The brokering part’s easy.
The hard part is learning the business and economics of how things operate. So I tell a lot of people, especially first [00:14:00] time investors, it’s like, I don’t think like the typical broker, I think like an investor. Because at the end of the day, I have to know what fits your style, right? And so when I do, when the first time a broke, actually this happened last week.
A guy and his wife, historically have invested in a single family. Properties. They run a couple of businesses, they’re entrepreneurs, et cetera, and they’re like, you know what? We’re ready to move into the multifamily space. even though they’ve been in real estate investment, they were completely green to multifamily, you know, how the process works, how to seek funding, et cetera.
So we walked through that process and it was an eye-opener for them. And I think a lot of times, You have a lot of people who may not educate somebody on it or feel like it’s a waste of time. You know, the way I look at it’s if I can educate somebody in the process that gives me a stronger chance that when they follow up or when I follow up that they would wanna work with us.
Or if I’ve given them homework per se, which is either, you know, do some research. And in some [00:15:00] cases people may not know what they want their return on their investment to be. So, hey, come up with their game plan. Come up with your business plan. Figure out what your ideal budget is. You know, there are some people to talk with.
Here are some resources to follow. Let’s have a follow-up conversation in a couple of weeks to kind of let me know where’re at and what you’ve decided. That’s the best way. You know, I can assist a new investor as opposed to someone saying, Hey, you know what? I’m looking at trying to buy this multifamily property with this many units.
Send me what you got because it’s not always about sending me what you got. And especially on the commercial side, the relationships that we build with our clients are a little bit more particular and really understand their needs and the way that we can best service them.
Corwyn:
And that’s very fair. You know, oftentimes in, what I just heard you say is that you know you are.
You want to get to know their needs, their goals, and their objectives, so you can help them meet them. So many in the professional industry are, you know, just order takers, Hey, I’m looking for this, or I [00:16:00] want this. Well, you sent it to ’em, and then you find out later that that’s really not what they needed or what they wanted because it’s, they’re not making a move.
So you’re trying to figure out, well, what are you trying to, what are you trying to accomplish? So walking people through that, process to understand, you know, the objective so that you can help them. The best, way. Most people don’t realize that, like when you get into, , on the commercial side, a multifamily is, you know, when you get greater than four units you know, oh yeah.
That’s where that goes So, that whole element, that whole piece there that people miss is right when we go from residential to commercial.
Trystan McNeill:
Yeah. And even from that standpoint, it’s like we take it a step further. So, you know, it depends on the investor, right?
So sometimes you have even first-time investors that may or may not come from money, but like someone who, you know, basically had to get it out the mud and build up their portfolio. You know, a lot of times they do want, they [00:17:00] consider that multifamily, you know, less than four units or you know, they say they have a lower budget and this doesn’t make anybody one less person or another.
We’ll say, Hey, I got 300K and I’m trying to get this duplex or three to five units. Then we have a whole different conversation and explain what that process looks like, because again, and you know, well, And, the good thing, increased the FHA limits, but if it’s less than four units, you’re more than likely gonna have to get a residential loan, right?
Well, if it’s over four units, then you’re either looking at a commercial loan or a bridge loan or a jumbo loan, but the problem there lies that if it’s not over a million, then that’s where. The conventional financing becomes a little tricky. So most commercial lenders are looking for that sweet spot because it reduces the risk at, a million dollars plus.
And then even then, like I try to be as transparent as possible with clients. I’m like, look, even if it’s your first time or not if you try to build a relationship with a new [00:18:00] bank or a new lender, private money, whatever the case may be. You just need to know that you’re looking at 20 to 30% to put down.
So, you know, we’ll make it easy for you. Million dollars, you need 200, 300k. It doesn’t have to be your money. It could be somebody else’s money. And that’s the beautiful thing about commercial investing is, you know, You can get money from everywhere. At the end of the day, when it comes down to the closing table, they just wanna know cash in the bank.
You know, on the residential side, your underwriter’s gonna get mad if you get three smoothies from Tropical Cafe. And it’s like, why did you spend this money? You know, we’re gonna have to reduce your mortgage by a hundred dollars. You know, like, that’s wild. Right? So I think that’s the cool thing about commercials and it’s like, it doesn’t have a timeline, right?
It’s all about the deal flow. It’s about the property. The property speaks for itself and any hot asset is gonna, speak on it. Like my partner and I, he just listed a five-unit out here in Concord, North Carolina, and we probably posted it about an hour and a half, two [00:19:00] hours ago.
We’ve already had 10 people calling, right? So when you put out a good product, Then they’ll call and we, we’ve taken on bad listings and I’m not gonna call ’em bad listings. We’ve taken on opportunities where we’ve learned lessons, like kind of having that abundance mindset. It’s just like, you never know what’ll come of it but at the same time, I think our honesty and transparency with our clients go a long way where we don’t promise them anything. When we list, like we just show ’em the track record and say, Hey look, this is what we’ve done. This is our track record, who’s who we work with. We’ll put it in front of our, investors and see what happens.
We tell ’em, we tell pretty much everybody the same thing. The market will let us know what’s gonna happen within the first week that it’s listed. Mm-hmm. We’ll know if it’s too high. We know if it has too much-deferred maintenance. We know a desirable asset, a desirable area. We may learn things, and this is where it also from our standpoint, is you also have to be truthful with us.
As well tell us everything about this property before we list it because we find out in between it’s not gonna help anybody. So True. True
Corwyn:
[00:20:00] Indeed, there’s a reasonable amount of that. They don’t tell you what you need to know and you find out later, that is you know, most certainly one of the things,
So Tristan, I got, I call it my mic drop question, but before we get to it, tell our listeners how they can get in contact with you, how they can explore, you know, getting, getting into, you know, investing in commercial real estate. Where can they reach you at?
Trystan McNeill:
Yeah, absolutely. So if you look me up on LinkedIn, it’s my first and last name, so Trystan McNeil. T R Y S T A N M C N E I L L. Very easy to find. On Instagram, it is Tristan, the Broker. So my first name and is one word essentially the broker. Pretty easy to contact.
I’m very accessible. And then the same thing on Facebook. I don’t really get on Facebook as much, but if you go to my LinkedIn or my Instagram, I have a link tree that has direct access as well.
Corwyn:
Okay, perfect, perfect, perfect. So my mic drop question, I, ask our guests this question because, you know, as you’ve gained more experience in the business, [00:21:00] you hit these pivotal moments that you just kinda look and say, well, if I’d have known this back then, I would’ve been over yonder.
So for you, What is the thing or those things that you wish that you would’ve learned or known in the very beginning that you know now that would’ve helped you be much further in the business and the industry than we are currently?
Trystan McNeill:
Hmm. That’s a good question. That’s a profound one. Yeah, definitely.
I mean, there are probably a couple of things, right? So the one thing I knew but didn’t know the extent of was, how in the commercial space, income-generating properties play a big factor in how it moves the market. And what I mean by that is I knew that when I came in I needed to know the numbers.
So like, I’m good at math, but I need to know how to calculate equations. How to tell somebody the value and stuff like that. [00:22:00] But a lot of times, just like anybody in a new position, you’re always giddy about, let me get a client, let me get a client, let me get a client. So I, I was able to generate some business early on, but where I struggled was I wasn’t able to speak the numbers off the top of my head. So you know, I made those mistakes early on to the point where it was like, okay, I would go back and look at like, what did I do wrong? Not necessarily what I do wrong, but how can I improve my next conversation? And so I pass that along to newer brokers when they come into the business of, hey, I know that we all gotta make money.
We gotta put food on the table, we gotta do this that a third. But learn the business first. Take the first six months, take your year-to-year, and learn the business. If you gotta still maintain your job, do so. Cause I did that. You know, and I still do some of that on the side now, but still, you need to have that income coming in so that way you don’t feel the level of stress.
And then the other thing is to do a [00:23:00] formalized sales training. And I’ve done a couple now, but I’m in the process of trying to figure out one that is like a three-day sales conference, four-day sales conference to where I can really engulf in that. Cause I think a lot of times we learn the business of real estate and it’s like, hey, do this or this how you track clients and stuff like that.
But a lot of us, maybe this is a second career or something like that, we never actually get the sales training piece right. You may read a book on sales, you may read some articles or list to a couple of videos. But you actually never go around other salespeople that are essentially doing the same thing to generate incoming clients.
But it’s like being around that environment. So that’s the one thing that I wish I would, somebody would’ve told me I wish I’d have done. It’s like, Hey, go to sales training.
Corwyn:
Okay, good. I appreciate that. Yeah, absolutely. Thank you so much for being on the show today.
Trystan McNeill:
Yeah, I appreciate you having me.
Corwyn:
You’re quite welcome. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you so much. Cause I know you’re [00:24:00] busy, my man, so I appreciate it. Our listeners, guys, y’all got some nuggets today, so we hope we trust, we pray that you will work to implement those in your, exercise of the pursuit of the American dream, that you will focus on growth.
And growth requires investment so that you will see the results, the fruition, if you will, of your efforts. Tristan is someone that you guys can contact. So again, one last time, Tristan, again, thank you for being a part of the Exit Strategies Radio Show family and being on with us today. For our listeners, y’all know how I feel.
Y’all know what I say? We gonna put the two of those things together and we gonna say this thing to you this way, which is, I love you. I love you, I love you, and we gonna see you guys out there in those streets.[00:25:00]
