Is commercial real estate worth my time?

Matt Drouin will explain why it is.

Matt is a high-performing real estate leader with 15 years of experience in real estate management, development, and brokerage. He specializes in asset turnaround and stabilization of distressed assets, as well as building and developing world-class management teams.

Coming from a family that struggled financially during his childhood, Matt vowed to find investment opportunities that would give his own family enough income to buy their needs and wants. He paid our podcast a visit to share his real estate experience and the steps to take for aspiring investors to replicate it.

[00:01 - 02:14] Opening Segment

Matt Drouin tells us how he jumped into the real estate business
What Matt realized about the potential of real estate as an investment

[02:15 - 07:38] Investing in Commercial Real Estate

The reason Matt is investing in historic buildings
Matt reveals how he educated himself about the real estate business
What is the number one expense driver in multifamily according to Matt
The behind-the-scenes of investing in commercial real estate

[07:39 - 12:28] Finding the Right Broker and Tenants

How to find the right real estate broker for you
- Matt shares some tips
Protect your investments from inflation with these tips from Matt
The asset classes and markets that Matt's team is looking at right now

[12:29 - 14:04] Closing Segment

Your way to make the world a better place
- Advocating for financial literacy and empowerment
Reach out to Matt
- See links below
Final words

Tweetable Quotes

"With commercial [real estate], you got to pick up the phone, you got to call, you got to build, you got to work your relationships. So, it's definitely, a full-contact sport, and…you got to be very, very involved." - Matt Drouin

".Don't jump at the first opportunity that comes to you…you just got to be patient on the leasing end thing there and not get too antsy." - Matt Drouin

"We believe our young people, especially our underserved population, is our greatest investment, so we partner with some nonprofit and also for-profit organizations that offer [financial literacy and financial empowerment] coaching programs to those young people." - Matt Drouin

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Email matt@oakgrovecompanies.com to connect with Matt or follow him on LinkedIn. Check out OakGrove Companies to help them in developing communities, one building at a time.

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I love helping others place money outside of traditional investments that both diversify a strategy and provide solid predictable returns.

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Email me → sam@brickeninvestmentgroup.com

Want to read the full show notes of the episode? Check it out below:

Matt Drouin 00:00

Started building relationships with commercial brokers, there's guys out there and women that have had decades of experience in leasing. It's one, number one most important thing is leasing in commercial. So just getting a pulse on the market, you're going to need to build relationships with commercial brokers anyways, if you're going to get into that field, standard, commercial property and also even mid to large multifamily.

Intro 00:25

Welcome to the How to Scale Commercial Real Estate Show. Whether you are an active or passive investor, we will teach you how to scale your real estate investing business into something big.

Sam Wilson 00:34

Matt is a partner at OakGrove Development, a real estate investment and development firm with a special focus on value add commercial and residential properties in Rochester, New York. Matt, welcome to the show.

Matt Drouin 00:45

Hey, thank you so much for having me on.

Sam Wilson 00:46

Hey, man pleasure's mine. Same three questions I ask every guest to come on the show. In 90 seconds or less. Can you tell me where did you start? Where are you now? And how did you get there?

Matt Drouin 00:54

So where I started was for family owner occupant property, I was getting kicked out of my dad's house. So I had to find a place to live. And I was a real estate broker at the time. That's where I got my start. I started I got bit by the bug with that when I had, you know, closing that property. I had like 1,800 bucks in rent checks two weeks later. So that's why I got the bug. And I started scaling from there, buying more smaller multifamilies. And then I had my aha moment when I bought my first commercial property back about four years ago.

Sam Wilson 01:23

Interesting. Tell me about that aha moment. And what did you buy?

Matt Drouin 01:27

Well, my parents were like, struggling financially, my entire childhood. And the one thing that I see are the two things I see, like, Americans, like, that stress them out the most in terms of financial milestones is one, how are they going to pay for their kids' education? And two, how am I going to retire? Right? And so I bought a commercial property with a commercial office building really great location. And that one deal, basically paid for my girls' college education. So like, that's one deal. And I was like, "Damn, it's like, can I find one to fund my wife's retirement?" And so I did that. And I was like, "Man, this deal was easier to close than for family property that by" so that's really when I started, you know, getting interested in scaling to larger deals.

Sam Wilson 02:15

Gotcha. That's really intriguing. Yeah, one deal, and you go, hang on. That's it. That's all it was, was one and many more times. Yeah. It's a very empowering feeling. That's really intriguing. So what was the asset class that was in again?

Matt Drouin 02:29

That was office. Okay. Yeah, it was a B-class office historic building. Yeah, one of the things if you look at our portfolio, it's a lot of like pretty, old, historic-looking buildings. I have a passion for historic preservation. So that's kind of what we buy. Not the smartest thing to buy from a financial standpoint, I don't think but yeah, we do commercial, we have multifamily, residential. And then we also have some retail, we do a lot of artists studios, as well, we have a, really, really strong arts and cultural scene in our city. So yeah…

Sam Wilson 03:00

Got it, man, tha's really, really intriguing. How did you pick that niche? And then how did you educate yourself on it?

Matt Drouin 03:07

Well, when I started residential, I thought in order to scale that I needed to, you know, start learning to how to manage larger asset classes. So I got a job with, you know, pretty large property management company. And that's how I got the experience sort of secondhand, you know, not being the actual owner, but managing the property. So that's how I got exposed to that niche. And it was something I, always scared me, because I was like, I've heard, you know, a commercial space goes vacant, it's gonna be vacant for 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10 years. And I'm gonna, you know, have to declare bankruptcy and so on and so forth. But it definitely established a comfort level with that. And that, you know, knowing if you purchase a property in a great location, that you'll have no problem finding tenants, it may take you a little bit longer, maybe three months, maybe four months. But you know, you got very, very little turnover with commercial tenants because they're very sticky. So whereas you're buying a residential area, you got people that turn, you know, they basically, you know, buy a house, they move out, so your turnover tenants every two to three years, especially in the markets that we serve, so turnover is the number one expense driver that we witness in multifamily.

Sam Wilson 04:15

We're sure. Yeah, your vacancy is one of your biggest numbers you plugged in when you're doing underwriting, you're like, :Okay, how much vacancy we have?" That's really intriguing. How is that asset class on the, you know, B-class historic office buildings? How does that fair in the last couple of years?

Matt Drou...

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