Meet Frank Boccuzzi who is a active and passive real estate investor with PCG. Frank has experience operating a real estate business and investing passively. Frank runs a short sale negotiating company, is a top producing real estate agent, fix and flips houses and invests passively in NJ apartment buildings with PCG.
The Passive Cash Flow Podcast is for beginner or experienced investors. Learn how you can diversify out of the stock market, own a part of an apartment building & start earning Passive Cash Flow!
Peoples Capital Group has been helping passive investors build wealth in NJ real estate for 10 years. Visit www.PeoplesCapitalGroup.com to find out if you qualify to start earning passive income and pay less taxes via investing in real estate. IRA’s and 401K’s are accepted.
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Aaron Fragnito: All right ladies and gentlemen, welcome back to the Passive Cash Flow Podcast. I’m your host Aaron Fragnito. We’re going to talk to one of our past investors here with People’s Capital Group, Frank Boccuzzi who also runs a real estate short term negotiating company. Say hi, Frank.
Frank Boccuzzi: Hey, guys there. Thanks for having me today. It was a pleasure seeing you.
Aaron: Absolutely, my friend, always glad to hang out with you, spend some time here at your office. It’s a nice fireplace back here you have, that’s very nice. It’s not an operating fireplace, it wouldn’t pass a home inspection, just to clarify. Yes, Frank here, tell us a little bit about what New Horizons Mitigation does and what you guys focus on?
Frank: New Horizon Mitigation is a short sale negotiating firm. We contract with law offices and real estate offices throughout the State in helping them with their short sale transactions. We take all the dirty work out of the short sale leaving the others to focus on their particular part of the transaction.
Aaron: That was excellent. As an agent getting started, I worked with Frank’s company and actually helped me move a lot of short sales and that’s how I made my first commissions and was able to start building my portfolio. Frank and I bought some properties together and him as a passive investor. It really allowed us to get started in real estate over the years. As a realtor, it’s a great service. We still use New Horizon Mitigation today, we still have a handful of deals going with them and they’re great. Now, Frank, do you charge the agent anything to do the short sale negotiating?
Frank: No. Our model is pretty unique. The agents keep all of their commissions on all the transactions that we do. Our fees are built-in, there’s no out-of-pocket costs for anybody. The bank typically pays those fees and we’re compensated through the law offices that we work for.
Aaron: Nice. All right, that’s interesting. Who are you usually generally looking to team up with? Do you work with attorneys as well? How does that work?
Frank: Right. We cater to attorneys and real state professionals. We also can work directly for the customer, seller, and buyers. Through our real estate brokerage now, we have a lot more flexibility depending on the transaction the way it comes into us. We can operate in a few different ways.
Aaron: That’s awesome. Now, Frank, you also sell bank-owned properties and you list these short sales as well, is that right?
Frank: Correct. We’ve started doing REO sales and asset management for closure mitigation work over the last several years kind of spawned off of the short sale business, since we’ve been in distressed real estate, pretty much my entire career now.
Aaron: Do you have any fixer-uppers for sale right now?
Frank: Sure, we must have at least a handful on the market that are available. I know we have one out in West New Jersey now, it’s up for sale right now. We’re always getting new inventory coming in the door, new assignments.
Aaron: Where can investors go to check out your fixer-uppers for sale?
Frank: Our website is at castellorealty.com or nhmitigation.com. It can also be found on Zillow and LinkedIn.
Aaron: Okay. If you’re not a realtor and you’re not an attorney but you want to buy short sales, do you work with investors that are connecting you with sellers that want to do short sales?
Frank: Yes. We come across, again, these opportunities or these transactions come to us from a variety of sources, sometimes the seller client, sometimes it may come from the listing agent or a buyer. Depending on the situation, we adapt and we can figure out how to help out because there’s a number of different setups that we can follow.
Aaron: You run a short sale negotiating company, you sold $14 million worth of real estate last year, is a broker-owner, you own your own brokerage here at Castello Realty. About 10, 11 years ago, you were a pizza delivery guy, is that correct?
Frank: Yes, well, pizza delivery and pizza maker. I got to move it all up.
Aaron: Let’s clarify, Frank can make pizza, very, very good pizza.
Frank: That’s it. A few years of experience under my belt there. I realized that the long term wasn’t going to be what I was looking for in the pizza business.
Aaron: [laughs]
Frank: I realized one day that I needed something that had a lot more potential and watching TV, saw an infomercial late at night trying to figure out where I was heading when I was 19 or 20 years old and came across real estate, saw an infomercial about being a landlord, buying property and passive income and all the stuff that we’re now involved in. I realized that the potential there was quite large, self-directed. I decided to get into the business as an agent right at the beginning of the housing crisis. One thing led to another ended up getting into short sales and formed a business out of it and now we are a decade in.
Aaron: Was that Carleton Sheets you saw? [laughs]
Frank: It might have been Carleton Sheets. I mean, I think I ended up buying one of the books there. Did a little reading and then one thing led to another. I got my feet wet in the business and then found the niche and then just really worked on that niche. We’ve been lucky enough to still be in that area today and we look forward to continuing with what we started.
Aaron: It’s pretty interesting as you were able to work your way out of an industry that didn’t really have much future into being your own business owner in the real estate industry. What suggestions can you give to someone that wants to break into real estate but they work at a 9:00 to 5:00, maybe they work more than that, maybe they work a 8:00 to 8:00, whatever it is these days but they have a little money and they want to get into the real estate industry but don’t necessarily have the time?
Frank: Well, I mean, you have two options, you can go the passive route or you can go the active route. You can get hands-on. Of course, there’s a lot more details, a lot more steps, and challenges that you may come across beginner, things they may not have expected. I mean, you don’t really understand or learn some of these concepts until you’ve been through it.
There’s that route but if you’re on a limited schedule and you’re afraid to dive in all the way then an option would be to passively invest with a company that has been around for a while that has a system set-up that has a good team and a track record. You can invest with a company like that, that would do all of that legwork for you where you sit back as the passive investor.
Aaron: It’s interesting. With the flip business as well, so you’ve been an active investor also. You’ve been a passive investor of PCG, you’ve been an active investor, you sell the real estate. What suggestions do you have for active investors? Did you learn anything from your flips?
Frank: I think it’s really just persistence at the end of the day. It’s staying on top of all the little details and the moving parts. I mean, you’re constantly working with different people, you’re constantly facing challenges. You wake up one day and something happens that you don’t expect, you got to be able to react to that. That persistence that ultimately is what shines through, not giving up in the face of adversity or when things look like they’re going to fall apart and the transaction is going to be lost. It’s a little bit of an extra effort that sometimes makes it happen.
Aaron: Absolutely. That’s what it’s all about, right? We’re just problem solvers. Every day as active investors. Seth and I– My business partner, Seth, of course, he solves a lot of problems, I solve a lot of problems in the day. We’re always dealing– I deal with more investor issues, Seth more on the property management and the day-to-day headaches of property management or operating flips. Yes, it’s definitely a problem-solving job. I think that’s the better you are at solving problems, generally, the more you get paid in your industry, I’ve been told, right?
Frank: That’s right.
Aaron: It’s very interesting. All right, great. Then if I’m a realtor or an attorney and I need help with short sales, I want to break into that, where would they go to connect with you then?
Frank: To connect with me, again, visit my website. I always welcome a phone call to the office or an email to start a conversation. Again, we provide a variety of services and we’re always looking to recruit new agents to build on our team. We have a small team but we’re very efficient and we’re very effective in what we do. I’m looking to add maybe a few more team members. By the end of the day, it’s always about serving the customer and the client and figuring out what solution is going to be best for them.
Aaron: That is excellent. What’s your website, your phone number?
Frank: Website is castellorealty.com and the office line, 908-838-9550. I can also be found on Zillow or LinkedIn.
Aaron: Excellent. Of course, if you’re looking to do a passive investment in real estate, if you’re on the passive side and you want to start earning cash flow passively through New Jersey apartment buildings, peoplescapitalgroup.com is the place to go to get qualified and start participating passively in these apartment buildings that we buy almost every quarter with investors all around the country. We focus on buildings here in New Jersey so the rent will stay strong and the equity stays strong through good markets and bad.
Guys, I’m Aaron Fragnito, this is Frank Boccuzzi of New Horizons Mitigation here. Thanks a lot, Frank, for coming out today to-
Frank: I’m glad.
Aaron: -join us, you’re quite a gentleman.
Frank: It’s been fun. Thank you very much, anytime.
Aaron: You’ve really accomplished a lot in 10, 11 years here in the real estate industry. I’m sure you got a bright future ahead.
Frank: I look forward to the both of us the next ten years what’ll bring.
Aaron: Absolutely. Maybe we’ll be back in the podcast when you hit 20 million [unintelligible 00:10:10] have you back in the podcast.
Frank: Good deal.
Aaron: Whoever gets to the first wins, all right?
Frank: [laughs] You got it.
Aaron: I think we’re going to win that race, are you ready?
Frank: Put my running shoes on.
Aaron: [laughs] All right, guys. Thanks a lot for listening in. Check-in every week for a new episode every Friday here at People’s Capital Group. Check us out at peoplescapitalgroup.com and learn more about qualifying for those passive investments in New Jersey farm buildings. Have a good day.
