COVER STORY
JORGE ABREU
Jorge Abreu calls multifamily investing a ‘team game’ and coaches others on how to play Strategy for SUCCESS
BY KATIE BEAN PHOTOS BY: SARAH BLAZE PHOTOGRAPHY
L ike many real estate investors, the 2008 were likely not the same as the path forward for others: He moved halfway across the country with his fiancée and a lifelong friend, renting a home in Dallas for the three of them that had an office where they could all work on tackling investing in this new market. That decision even- tually led Abreu to his current role as co-founder and CEO of Elevate Commercial Investment Group. GETTING HIS START Abreu discovered real estate investing while he was in college at Florida International University. He was study - ing engineering; he had chosen the major because math was easy for him, but he was quickly learning that he wasn’t passionate about it. He wanted to do something else—but he didn’t know what. He had witnessed business ownership in his family growing up, and starting his own market crash caused Jorge Abreu to re-evaluate his career and his future. His next steps, however,
company appealed to him. By studying successful people and entrepreneurs, Abreu noticed a pattern: Many of them either built or multiplied their wealth through real estate. “I decided to start digging into how do I become a real estate investor,” he said. “And the first thing I came across was single-family homes.” Still in school, Abreu started educating himself on how to invest in single-family properties. He got his real estate broker license to learn more about the industry. At the time, he didn’t have much money to invest, so he got his start doing joint ventures. Working with an investor who had capital, he did the legwork and they split the profits. After a few deals, he had built up enough capital to con- tinue on his own. In a few short years, Abreu had seen enough success that he felt he could quit his day job, an engineering role he had taken after graduation. His enthusiasm for real estate investing had also interested his then-girlfriend, Tasha, who is now his wife, and his longtime friend Eric Bodiwala, now the COO and co-founder of Elevate. The three of them
14 | think realty magazine :: november 2021
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