Podcast 206. Meet the Philly Real Estate Broker for Investors with Maria Quattrone

Average Joe Finances:
0:00

Hey, Welcome back to the Average Joe Finances podcast. I'm your host, Mike Cavaggioni, and today's guest is Maria Quattrone. So Maria, super excited to have you on the show. Thank you so much for joining me today.

Maria Quattrone:
0:12

Hi, mike. Thank you so much for the opportunity to share with your listeners. I'm excited.

Average Joe Finances:
0:17

Absolutely. Thank you. Thank you again. I wanna start this off the same way I start every podcast episode, and we wanna know more about you. So if you could share a little bit about yourself, share your story. Who is Maria Quattrone?

Maria Quattrone:
0:30

Thank you. So I'm born and raised Philadelphian. I have been in sales for the last three, almost three decades, 29 years. 11 of those years I did I call hard time in radio advertising sales. So I was selling air for Philadelphia radio stations. And then in early 2004, I applied for my real estate schooling. And then in March of 2004, I started my real estate career while still being I was dual careered for the next year. I was still in radio sales and so pretty much hit the ground running. So I'm the oldest of five children. I'm married, I have three little, they're not that little, but boy cats. And I live and work in Center City, Philadelphia, and I run a RE/MAX office and I also own a modern mortgage brokerage firm.

Average Joe Finances:
1:35

Awesome. Thank you so much. That's quite an impressive background too. Starting off in sales on radio and then getting into real estate and I understand the. Like dual career thing happening at the same time, as I was transitioning outta the military, I was also doing real estate as a real estate agent as well. So definitely understand what that feels like for sure. So now you also, you said you have a a mortgage. You're also a lender or?

Maria Quattrone:
2:01

Yeah, we're brokerage, so we're brokers and opened that just last year. So in a trying time. Sure. So that's going, it's going okay, but it's gotta get, working on getting it a lot better and hiring more people and you know how it goes.

Average Joe Finances:
2:18

Absolutely. Let's get into what it is you do on the real estate side, right? Because from what I understand, you're also an investor, right? I wanna know, for you Maria, what are some of the challenges you face while being a broker? And also an investor at the same time.

Maria Quattrone:
2:34

I think it's deciding where you spend your time. I think that, brokerage and having a rinse and repeat system some or the different types of real estate that we sell, which is not just residential, regular buyer, seller and investors, but we also do commercial real estate. Where we help clients, assist clients on the acquisition of land or a warehouse for adaptive reuse or a building, a warehouse that they'll take down and build, ground up, new construction. So those things, there's more of a rinse and repeat and it's hard to juggle that with investing in real estate cuz it's another, it's in a whole nother business. And there's a lot of challenges that come along with that. I think that's part of it. And then, you can't buy every deal either, and I always tend to give good deals to my clients, and then I'm like, oh, we should have bought that.

Average Joe Finances:
3:29

Yeah. Sometimes that, that can be conflicting. I've actually stepped back as a real estate agent now and focus more on my investing side. And it's hard, especially out here in Hawaii because commissions are really good. The average median household price out here is a million dollars. So it's, as a real estate agent it's pretty lucrative. But at the same time, I enjoy investing in real estate. It's just so much more fun to me to be that much more involved and hands-on, which as a real estate agent, I'm also hands-on. But after the transaction's over, that's it. I'm no longer a part of it except for every now and then following up with my client and saying, Hey, how are things going? But yeah that's why I was interested in where like what your thought process

Maria Quattrone:
4:09

So like, so in our business, we have a lot of clients that are investors.

Average Joe Finances:
4:12

Yeah.

Maria Quattrone:
4:13

And so we see them all the time because they buy from us. All the time, like not every day, we may do several transactions, 5, 10, 20 transactions a year with somebody.

Average Joe Finances:
4:23

Awesome.

Maria Quattrone:
4:24

And we have clients that I've worked with over the last 15 plus years. A bit in and out of the real estate game. Some of them in more, some of them in, out, in out, some of them in the whole time. So we have a lot of long-term relationships with people and that keeps things, interesting. It's not a regular buyer or seller that you won't see for seven to 10 years or if you just have a client ian party. So with the different segments of business that we have, We tend to do business repeat with many people. And then on the, in the straight commercial side, we also have clients that own a lot of commercial real estate. So some of them are exiting portfolios right now, so they may sell one a year. I have several clients that are like, I have the next, 10 years, I wanna sell one piece a year or two pieces a year, depending on what their strategy is.

Average Joe Finances:
5:16

Yeah. That's fantastic. Yeah. I, I think one of the benefits too to using your team is the fact that you also invest in real estate, right? So you have a really good understanding, right? When somebody's coming to you with what they're looking for, you know how to look for the right deals for them, because you too are looking at the same stuff.

Maria Quattrone:
5:33

Actually, I learned that through selling.

Average Joe Finances:
5:35

Yep.

Maria Quattrone:
5:36

I learned that through selling how to do the deal. I call it, if I can do a deal on a napkin, do the deal. I would just literally calculate the numbers on a napkin to see if the deal is deal worthy or not. Does it pencil out and without doing like this big whole performa, I could do, I call it do doing math in your head.

Average Joe Finances:
5:57

Yeah.

Maria Quattrone:
5:57

Not many people do math in their head anymore. I found out Mike, but I still do math in my head. And I can calculate numbers pretty quickly, especially when it comes to piece.

Average Joe Finances:
6:08

Yeah, no, that's fantastic. So usually if something passed the sniff test the napkin the napkin math then I'll look further into something and then maybe do like a whole underwriting process and see what that looks like. But it's gotta pass that first and right now. So actually I, that's what I'm gonna ask you too, like with how things are right now, especially in the Philly market, right? Cause I don't know about. Market, but I know out here in Hawaii, like it's still a hot market. So are you still finding a lot of real estate investors making like significant purchases right now? Or do you feel like a lot of them are hanging out on the sidelines to see see what's gonna happen?

Maria Quattrone:
6:45

There's both. We have clients that are actively purchasing all different types of property warehouses, vacant lands very large warehouses, development debtor. These, some of these are users. And then development deals where they may be out, 12 months in regards to actually closing on that parcel. And then there are people that are waiting and there are also people that are still, they have projects already in the works that already has financing in, so they're forging ahead in building and then others that they haven't yet been able to get the financing. And quite frankly, they're not able to get it because, The deal doesn't pencil out anymore in regards to the new construction prices and the interest rate. It doesn't make sense that the, what they underwrote it at two years ago using F 5%. So there are a couple points shy of making deal actually work on paper now. So they need to take a pause or they need to unload. That opportunity, and I talked to some very large scale developers last week, locally, both citywide and suburban in the Philadelphia metro market. And one of them had mentioned he was at like one trouble ready deal like every couple weeks, and now he's getting 15 a day that are coming across his desk and most of them just don't work. And so that's very telling in the that the tide has went out on many people.

Average Joe Finances:
8:14

Yeah. Yeah. I think that's what a lot of people are trying to figure out right now is like, Hey, when's gonna be the best time for me to buy? A lot of times you always say, oh, the best time to buy real estate was 20 years ago. The second best time is right now. But for some people that might not be the case. Depending on your actual situation. But I know a lot of people that are just like, you know what, I'm just gonna keep buying. It's all gonna, even out on the backend. And they really diversify what they're purchasing.

Maria Quattrone:
8:41

I think it depends what you're buying.

Average Joe Finances:
8:43

Sure.

Maria Quattrone:
8:44

If you're buying tenant occupied property in, single family rental portfolio, for example, we have one. Is coming to market. They have a about 260 units in total, but the two partners have about 173 units and the majority of those are tenant occupied. And then there's some vacant shells and there's some vacant land. Now that's income producing asset. Especially if you self property manage, you already have income coming in on day one with the sizeable portfolio like that, and though, in that particular area doesn't, it doesn't get too high up and it doesn't go too far down. And the cap rate is about nine and a half to 10. You have a better shot at something like that and holding it long term, you really, if you are a long-term investor, 10 years, 5, 10, 15, 20 years, you can buy.

Average Joe Finances:
9:40

Everything. Everything's the deal then.

Maria Quattrone:
9:41

If your looking for like that flip.

Average Joe Finances:
9:42

Yeah.

Maria Quattrone:
9:42

And then you gotta be really careful and underwrite that deal at assuming it might sell or a little less, but I will tell you though, the first time buyer inventory in our market is still very tight, and I think it will continue to be because the first time sellers cannot sell since they locked in at two and a half or 3%. And they're not willing to pay, be the se a second time buyer buying a home for 300,000 more and paying a 6%, 7% interest rate. So I think for the foreseeable future, until that is corrected, we'll see a whole segment of sellers sitting out of the market.

Average Joe Finances:
10:22

Yeah, and I think that's There was a conversation I was having last night at actually my real estate meetup. And a buddy of mine who's like very big into the multifamily side said, he actually took a step back and cuz we actually underwrote a couple deals together and they just, they're not penciling out right now, like the numbers don't make sense with current interest rates. So we took a step back and his focus now is looking at some self-storage and mobile home parks. Because even there, those assets are still doing quite well and so I think for every person it's gonna be different.

Maria Quattrone:
10:55

Some storages, a great business to be in. And mobile homes is, believe it or not, a lot of people don't get it, but they're hard to come by and a lot of people would love to pick those up.

Average Joe Finances:
11:07

It's such it's such low overhead, right? Because, you the mobile home owners own is owned by the person. Yeah. They own, you're running them the ground you're leasing the lot to them. It's a fantastic business model. But then I'm also looking at self storage too right now and thinking this was the conversation we had last night was that. With everything that's happening right now and people downsizing and selling their homes, moving into a smaller place, they need a place to put their stuff. So self storage I think is gonna explode again, just like it did two, three years ago. I think we're gonna see another self storage boom, but that's just my opinion based off of just some of the stuff I'm seeing in the market right now. I dunno what are your thoughts on that?

Maria Quattrone:
11:46

I think self surge is a viable option for investing. And even, if you're, if you don't, can't invest in something that, with a few partners like that, you could always buy in syndication, in a syndication deal and just have a piece of that.

Average Joe Finances:
11:59

Yep.

Maria Quattrone:
12:00

I know some people, some folks that are doing that as well. And that's also another option cause you're placing your money. Obviously there's risk, there's a risk in all real estate investment, but you're not doing any heavy lifting. You're not collecting money from tenants. You don't have to worry about the toilet breaking, you don't have to do a lot of other things, when the or new development, you don't have to have any of that. You have to have the accredited investor in order to be able to place your money there.

Average Joe Finances:
12:29

Absolutely. And that's one of the big things too, is making sure you have the right partners in your corner, right? Making sure you're talking with the right people. I think that's that's huge. Now, for you in particular, when you go from, when you put your investor cap on instead of the broker cap, what kind of like tools or like systems do you use to be successful?

Maria Quattrone:
12:53

20 years of being in real estate knowledge.

Average Joe Finances:
12:59

That's fair enough. That's fair enough. No, nothing specific when it comes to any tools or anything like that?

Maria Quattrone:
13:05

No. I use my regular tools that I use every day, so nothing there's no magic in any of this. No magic app or anything. Magic is the work that you've done and the sales that we've done over 3000 plus sales Yeah. Is the magic, right? Being able to walk through different situations, doing deals that have hair on them, not, knowing how to maneuver through and navigate through the system.

Average Joe Finances:
13:34

So what about when it comes to networking and relationship building? I'm sure you know over the years, especially, with everything that you've done, that you've built some significant relationships with investors and clients that you probably have a really great net network that when there's something good that hits, you know who to go talk to. Would you say that's true?

Maria Quattrone:
13:56

Yeah, so I was at an event on Saturday afternoon and I ran into a client we sold in three or four years ago two I dunno, 40,000 square foot warehouses. And they really hadn't been taken care of properly or rented out properly, and they picked them up. I think we sold them for over 4 million. And he told me that they're worth 20 million now and with what they did, and I just had met his wife, and his wife came up to me and gave me like the biggest hug ever. She's you made me rich.

Average Joe Finances:
14:36

That's an amazing feeling, right? When you have somebody that you worked with for a while and. Just over the years what they were able to do and the wealth that they were able to build through real estate. That's one of the things I love about it so much.

Maria Quattrone:
14:48

Yeah.

Average Joe Finances:
14:49

Like you said earlier, the, if your idea is to buy and hold it for 5, 10, 15, 20 years, you're always gonna look like a genius, right? Because it's, you're gonna appreciate that appreciation. That's one of the most wonderful things that I love about real estate is people focus so much on the cashflow side. They forget about that other little thing called appreciation that you know, yes, we have inflation, we have all these other things that causes, the dollar to be worth less. And how do you keep up with that? Real estate that appreciates is a great way and a great hedge against inflation. Not only does it keep up with it, it exceeds it.

Maria Quattrone:
15:29

Not just cashflow, but what is your cash on cash return, your internal rate of return? How much did you put down to invest in that property? Oh, okay. I only put a hundred thousand down. On that a hundred thousand. Your return on that year over year, 10%. That's one that's, people look, don't look at it always the right way. It's not just it's your cash on cash return, right?

Average Joe Finances:
15:53

Yeah.

Maria Quattrone:
15:53

Your cash flow. Your depreciation of against your taxes and then the appreciation right, of that asset? Yes. Over time, and we all know over time that real estate goes on.

Average Joe Finances:
16:11

Yeah, that, that's, it's just a proven fact, right? Even with what happened in 2008, 2009, right? That was a very painful time for anybody in real estate. But you look at that and it took a while to recover, but guess what? It recovered. It came back. And I look at the market now and I, and I tell myself too I don't think. We're ever gonna see something like 2008, 2009 again. But, there's, I think there's other smaller corrections happening in different markets, right? And it's just, it's all very market specific. I don't think we're gonna see like this nationwide, huge. Crash like we did back then. I think it's just gonna be very market specific. And so I, I don't know, like especially out here in Hawaii, like the market stays pretty stable. Like we had a couple of dips

Maria Quattrone:
16:57

like you're living paradise.

Average Joe Finances:
16:57

But it comes right back. Yeah. Yeah. I guess, I guess.

Maria Quattrone:
17:01

Not Philadelphia.

Average Joe Finances:
17:03

Philadelphia though, you're on the East coast, you guys got really good food out there too. You got the Philly cheese steaks, you got good pizza on the East coast, bagels, all that good stuff.

Maria Quattrone:
17:12

We have some of that.

Average Joe Finances:
17:12

Some of the things I miss, we also miss being from Long Island, New York. I miss that stuff a lot, but yeah. Yeah, you can.

Maria Quattrone:
17:19

What do you make it?

Average Joe Finances:
17:21

So we have, we've made our own bagels before and it turned out really well.

Maria Quattrone:
17:24

I said they, I hear it's all about the water though.

Average Joe Finances:
17:27

I don't know. I wanna, I keep telling my wife we should open up our own bagel shop out here. We'd make a killing.

Maria Quattrone:
17:31

I think you would.

Average Joe Finances:
17:33

But yeah. Awesome. Alright. Hey, so Maria, I know we are limited on time, so I want to transition this now into something I call the final round. It's where I'm gonna ask you the same four questions I ask everybody that comes on this show and gives us a better idea of how you are when you're in a tough situation or under pressure. So if you're ready to go, we'll get that party started.

Maria Quattrone:
17:54

Let's do it, Mike.

Average Joe Finances:
17:55

All right, Maria, you're gonna crush this. I know it. So what's the biggest mistake you've ever made in real estate?

Maria Quattrone:
18:04

I think the comparison game, I think comparing yourself to others. They did this, they're there, they did That is mentally a mind. F u c k.

Average Joe Finances:
18:19

Yeah. No, it is. Comparison is the thief of joy.

Maria Quattrone:
18:23

It is the thief of joy.

Average Joe Finances:
18:24

And I used to do it all the time.

Maria Quattrone:
18:27

Comparison and I'd all, the other thing I would say is I had a goal financially, and I hit that goal. I hit the goal and I never will forget the day when I looked at the number and I just did this, I looked to my right. I looked to my lap and I looked up and I looked down and I go, this is it.

Average Joe Finances:
18:52

Yep. Right on.

Maria Quattrone:
18:53

And remember, wherever you go.

Average Joe Finances:
18:56

You, you do that. You, if you compare yourself to others, you are gonna, there's other people out there doing more impressive things all the time. If you're the best in the world, then hey, good for you that, but that's never gonna happen. You don't compare yourself to others. Everyone has their own journeys in real estate.

Maria Quattrone:
19:11

That's right.

Average Joe Finances:
19:12

And yes, as long as you do yours according to your plan and how it works for you to set your goals and achieve them, that's what matters.

Maria Quattrone:
19:20

It's all about the journey.

Average Joe Finances:
19:21

Absolutely. Okay, great. So speaking of that, the next question kind of ties into this and that is, what is something that you've learned that you wish you knew when you first got started?

Maria Quattrone:
19:33

Take more risk, I would say more than I knew, more than I thought I did and everybody's really the same at the end of the day.

Average Joe Finances:
19:48

I like that we are, this is a comment I used to make to some of my junior sailors when I was in the Navy, right? As an officer, a lot of times. You get looked up to and everything and you have sailors that come to you for guidance and mentorship and one of the things I always told them is look, we put our pants on the same way every morning, one leg at a time.

Maria Quattrone:
20:07

That's right.

Average Joe Finances:
20:07

Unless you're really athletic and you just jump outta bed and you get both in at the same time, good for you. I can't do that. Everyone's a human. We're all human beings. We all have our own journey in life, regardless. And it's gonna be whatever you make of it. No, I really appreciate that answer. It's very genuine, okay. Maria, do you have any tips or tricks that you would recommend to someone that is just getting started out today?

Maria Quattrone:
20:33

Yeah. The biggest number one thing is to protect your mindset and who you surround yourself with. Then number two, time management. Understanding where you spend your time, how to say no, when to say yes, and really managing, say time management. I'll call it choice management. Deciding what you're gonna do daily, what activities you need to do, and focusing only on today. The only thing we can change is to what we're doing today. We can't yesterday. It's not possible to change and tomorrow's not here and it's not guaranteed. So micro commitments for today. Making and not saying, I have a goal of say, talking to 20 people. Now I have a commitment and honoring commitments. Cuz when you honor commitments to yourself, you say in integrity, and integrity gives you confidence, and confidence gives you more confidence. And you just build on it. And build on it. And build on it.

Average Joe Finances:
21:29

Yeah. It's another way of investing in yourself. So that compound interest works both ways, not just in your finances compound, but also in life. Yeah. Oh, I love that. I absolutely love that. I was sitting here just jotting down a whole bunch of nuggets, as you were saying that protecting your mindset time management and choice management. I like that word better too. I think choice management. Because I sit here and I'll time block, right? And I'll figure out, okay, here's what's going on for the rest of the week, month, year, whatever. But when I look at my day, it's okay, I have a couple different commitments today, and it's my choice. To keep those commitments. It's my choice to keep this schedule the way it is. And so I like the way you put that too, keeping up with your commitments, building up that confidence, letting it compound on top of itself. That's wonderful. Okay, so Maria, I will preface this last question with, besides your own, cause I know you have your own podcast, but do you have a favorite business investing or real estate related book or podcast or both?

Maria Quattrone:
22:29

I love listening to the Ed Mylett podcast. He always has really interesting people. I didn't listen to this week yet, but last week Sean, Michael, no, what's his name? Sean Han. The hell's his name. Oh my God. McConaughey right? Matthew McConaughey or Yeah. Matthew McConaughey. Yeah. Couldn't remember. I could see his face, blonde hair.

Average Joe Finances:
22:55

All right. All right. All right.

Maria Quattrone:
22:56

He was on there. That's right. He was on there. He was so good. He has so many, Dr. Deepak Chopra, Tony Robbins.

Average Joe Finances:
23:03

Yeah.

Maria Quattrone:
23:04

Dean Graziosi. Brian Holiday. Just some really cool people. And Bethany Frankl. Leann Rimes. Anyway. I love his podcast. It's something like I just put my headset on, I take a walk, or I'm at the gym. I just listen to that it's my favorite. I also love the book, the Compound Effect, which I already mentioned, and the Emith. You revisit it by Michael Gerber. If you're an entrepreneur, I think it's a book that's well worth reading, and not only once, but several times to understand that you need system processes and people in life.

Average Joe Finances:
23:40

Awesome. Thank you so much for that. Those are great recommendations. And yes Ed Mylett podcast is phenomenal. He has some awesome guests. That's one that I listen to as well. So it's it's definitely on my playlist. Okay Maria, that is it for the final round. However, I do have another question for you, and it's probably the most important question I'm gonna ask you today. And I know we, we didn't have a lot of time so we blasted through this, but you're from the east coast too. You could talk fast just like me. So if people listening to this on one and a half speed, I'm sorry, you probably don't understand what we're saying right now, but that's okay. Maria, I just wanna say thank you again so much cuz this has been, Absolutely valuable, but people are gonna wanna know where they can find more information about you and learn more about you, maybe listen to your podcast. So if you could share that with with us. Do you have a website, social media, anything like that you could share with us today?

Maria Quattrone:
24:28

So our website is mqrealestate.com. I'm on Instagram @soldbymq and my podcast is Be the Solution. And it's about being the solution in your life and business. A lot of real estate people on there. Some really great ones. Some really successful team and broker owners. Started that during pandemic also, I'm in Philly. We handle the Philly Metro Market, so Philadelphia County, Montgomery, Delaware, bucks County. And I know all the spots here. I've been here my whole life. I've been downtown for 30 years. So any referrals are greatly appreciated and we refer a lot of business out too. So retail, get to know me. I love to meet you and Mike, thank you so much for the opportunity today.

Average Joe Finances:
25:14

Yeah, absolutely. So normally I would ask if you have any final thoughts for the for our listeners here, but you just hooked us up right there. So I appreciate that. I genuinely appreciate you taking the time to talk with me today. I know you're super busy. Even when we started up you had to take a phone call real quick it's a testament to how much you're crushing it. So again, thank you so much. And I also wanna thank my listeners for joining me and our special guest Maria Quattrone today. On the Average Joe Finances Podcast, go leave us a five star review and tell us what you liked about today's episode with Maria. Aloha from Hawaii and have a great rest of your day.