COVER STORY
NUTS & BOLTS
STRATEGIES: REITs Think Realty Coaches
EDDIE The Deal Maker WILSON
plexes, which is what the market really needed, and we went after the student housing opportunity in that marketplace. There was a massive gap there and, as a result, a big opportunity in a stagnant sector of the market.” Wilson’s keen eye and ability to manage and motivate large teams led to the huge success of his de- velopments. “I still have dozens of units serving that area today, and that project helped me leverage into other opportu- nities from that point,” he said. Leverage he did. Wilson’s stated goal to “never pick up a hammer or saw” has not prevented him from flipping more than 100 houses in a single year, invest- ing in multifamily properties in extreme- ly hot markets like San Diego, California, and generating thousands of off-market leads for his real estate investing teams around the country. “These days, I find myself lending more than anything,” he noted, adding that his ability to create mutually-beneficial opportunities for himself and others (hence the “Deal Maker” moniker) has always served him well in terms of productive, profitable expansion and growth. “But everything came from that foundational point, those brand-new student housing units I created that targeted the opportunity in that market,” he emphasized. “My goal is to help other investors identify, imple- ment, and then leverage their founda- tions in the business as well.” EDDIE WILSON ON “UNDER- STANDING THE OPPORTUNITY”: “To me, everything goes back to op- portunity. I think it’s crucial to under- stand current market trends in order to offer the people who work with you the clearest vision of what they stand
to gain from doing a deal with you or undertaking a project together. “That mutually beneficial relation- ship is why I feel that private lenders are so incredibly vital to the real estate space. I know a lot of private lenders who do not even think of themselves as real estate investors because our industry has historically focused on the ‘active’ side of those partnerships and characterized the lenders generally as ‘just money.’ Maybe they are import- ant, but often they do not have a real ‘face’ in the industry consciousness. In reality, a private lender is not only crit- ical to the success of a deal, but they are a real estate investor in the truest sense of the word – or they should be – because their loan must be based on the value of the collateral, that piece of real estate or that development project in nearly all cases. “Investors on both sides of the equation will be most likely to suc- ceed, to do those foundational deals that change their lives and investing careers completely and for the better, if they have a solid understanding of the private lending process. My 12-part coaching series for Think Realty on finding private capital keeps comprehension of the process at the forefront from beginning to end, and I’m uniquely positioned to teach on this topic because I live on both sides of it. I’m a real estate investor who de- velops land and initiates projects and I’m also a private lender who finances other investors’ deals and projects. Whether you need private capital or you need to deploy private capital, I can tell you where to go and how to do it effectively and profitably.”
TITLE AND AFFILIATIONS: Think Realty Coach, President of Think Realty parent company Affinity Worldwide, founder of Go Media, executive director of Christian Media International. EXPERIENCE: Private lending, commercial and res- idential development, lead generation, team-building and joint ventures. BACKGROUND CHECK: Eddie Wilson is a third-generation real estate investor with a keen eye for good uses for capital and profitable, creative opportunities. “My grand- parents and parents are real estate investors, and I got started myself in my own hometown of Portage County, Ohio, when I saw a real need for a specific type of housing that was not being met. The medical student population in the area was desper- ately seeking housing appropriate for that age and career demographic and, at the time, there simply were more students than housing,” he recalled, adding that his father mentored him on this first project and the two worked closely throughout. “That just emphasized for me, from the very beginning, how very important expert mentorship can be for a new investor,” he said. Wilson immediately bought up as many of the “little two-bed- room, single-story properties” he could get his hands on in the area, got the funding for his project in hand, and went to work. “We tore them all down,” he laughed, “but that land wasn’t empty long. We started building town-home style du-
COACHING PROGRAM Eddie Wilson’s coaching program can be accessed at https://thinkrealty.com/coaches/eddie-wilson.
20 | think realty magazine july :: august 2017
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