Turning Construction Expertise Into a Thriving Real Estate Empire With Eric Schultz

Are you one of the many busy professionals working in offices day in and day out? Do you wonder how some people grow their wealth fast, retire early and play on work days? Well, you're in luck because Ginny Bolling hosts this show Pivots of Prosperity where she interviews people that can do just that play on work days. Many guests have become financially free. She also interviews people that are on their journey and people that are in support roles like attorneys, contractors, brain brokers and others. Commercial real estate is the common element. She is on a mission to be sure. Busy professionals know they can own substantial commercial properties too, like apartments, self storage facilities and others, and not have to do the work managing them. Passive investing is the key. Syndications are the typical method. Tax write offs are some of the biggest rewards. Ginny and partners find the deals, build a strong team and business plan, then offer the investment opportunities to passive investors. New episodes are released every Tuesday at 12, so watch for new releases. If you want to get involved, let us know. You need to get pre qualified to hear about most deals. See the show notes for contact information.

Hello, hello, this is Ginny Bowling with Pivot to Prosperity brought to you by Pivotal Real Estate Investments where we help investors build wealth and income through commercial real estate that improves communities. And today we have Eric Schultz with us. Thank you for coming on Eric.

Thank you.

So we met through Mastermind, that is Gabe Bolling, the Deal Room over in Tampa. And so you and I have talked a few times and, and I think it's very interesting what you're doing and I want you to share with the audience if you would. So go ahead and if you would tell us about you.

All right. Hi everybody. My name is Eric Schultz. I actually live in a little town called Reading, Pa. It's one hour west of Philadelphia. I own a construction company, have been in business actually June will be 20 years I will have been in business also. I have a real estate company started in real estate 15 years ago, owning singles and everything like that. Moving to in the last five years to multi units. And that's how Jeannie and I met because we're in a mastermind group. And how do you grow? You got to be around other like minded people that are doing the same thing because this is a team sport, it's not an individual sport, which took me a long time to learn. I was doing everything by myself, trying to raise money by myself, save money by myself. Everything was by myself. Right.

It could be tough.

That's a nutshell.

All right. And so you are doing construction Work in the world of renovations or new construction. Tell us more about that.

All right, so most of my history with construction has been antique work, restoration. So you got a 200-year-old farmhouse. We can come in, remodel it, or add an addition to it and modernize it, but keep it looking old. Log cabins we've done. My city that I live in, a lot of the buildings are 100, 100 and some years old. A lot of people like the old work. They want to save it, restore it. And there's very, very few contractors out there that can do that. So we do that. We also have done fixes and flips, but we're phasing that kind of out because it's very competitive. And I don't like doing cheap work. I'm not the type of person that just wants to slap some paint and polish and go, ah, looks great and, you know, cheat people out. I like to put out a good product, no matter if it's a rental or remodel a home, whatnot. I want to give people nice places and safe places to live. I've always been that way. I've done that with every single building I own, every apartment I've done, I done it that way. So our newest phase now is we're working with new investors or investors that are already in the game. But most investors really do not have a background in construction. They want to add units to a property or they find a building that wants to be rehabbed. That's where we come in. We can come in, we can break everything down, put a material list together, a cost analysis sheet together and get it up and running for them. And after it's up and running, if they don't have property management team, we can come in and fill that service too. So we are becoming a one stop shop for investors. And then our newest one is that any project or property we have that someone invests in, we will take them along the journey. We will teach them the process of how to go about, you know, adding units, how to, you know, restore a building. And that's only for people that invest in the properties with us. I'm not starting a mastermind group and just doing this on the side. There's a lot of good individuals out there that if you're looking for someone, we can, you know, Jeanne or I reach out to us and we can help guide you to become part of a mastermind group that Jeanne and I are part of because it is a wonderful community to be part of, right?

Yes. And so Your property management and renovation, those two go hand in hand. So tight, so much, especially when you've got tight schedules and things like that. I think that, that that's a real smart move, especially if you have. The more, the, the more that needs to be done, the more important it even is, I would say too. Do you have anything that you can share as far as systems or, or any, any nuggets that you want to put out there?

Well, I can tell you this, it's come a long way. Technology, you know, everybody kind of gets scared about technology. There are some good parts. So back in the day, you know, it was a phone call, hey, my pipe broke or my sewer broke or toilets. This. Now with things like LoopNet, can't think.

Of the other one.

Right off the top of my head, there is these programs out there that you can set up for your tenants that they pay online, they have a problem in the unit, they fill out an email, send it to myself, I will read it, evaluate it, and then if I need a plumber or electrician or heating and air conditioning guy, I can email them right away and put a PO attached to it and get the work executed so much faster. Nowadays, with some of these apps and programs that are out there, that kind of makes Java, makes the job a lot easier, you know, that I don't have to be getting blasted with phone calls at all kinds of crazy hours or, you know, It's Friday and 6 o' clock and someone's going, hey, you gotta.

Train them to use the system, right?

Yeah, we train them to use the system. Don't get me wrong, there are people that are a little bit more difficult about the system, but the system is so much nicer and it's nicer for everybody because it just is. I don't know how to say it. It's just so much easier because the days of going and have to knock on doors to get rent and are waiting for the check to come in the mail because the mail's slow or we just had two feet of snow or an ice storm or something like that. Everything's online. And it. These individuals that come up, these programs, they're really, really nice. And I don't, I don't have tenants complaining about that because we respond so quick, so much faster. When it's done that way, do you.

Require they submit pictures?

Some things. I just had someone submit a leak to me on a video and honestly, I couldn't see it. I had no idea. I looked, you know, I had to go there to actually Physically see it. So that's the downfall to some of the videos that are out there nowadays. You can't always see a problem.

So when it comes to Pennsylvania, you have snow?

Yes, we do.

What do you have to do? Property management wise, to keep the roofs from getting too much snow or to make sure walkways, people can travel and all that. What do you have to do?

Well, it's been quite some time since we had a shovel off roofs. That's been, I only ever had to do that once and I think that was 96.

Really. Wow, okay.

Yes, we had three feet of snow in a matter of a weekend. So right now all we do is bow, shovel the sidewalks and salt. Not that it's a rule or you have to, you don't have to. It's all depending on the lease, leases for certain things. So some of my single properties, the homeowners have to take care of the property or they have to take care of that because a lot of my singles are eventually going to be turned into owner financing and then individuals can buy their first home through me. So I just don't keep it a rental. I have one person right now that is, is going through the process. He's lived, he's rented from me for 10 years and he finally sit and said, hey, I would like to buy the property. I love it here. I want to buy the property. And I'm going, okay, this is how. And then I teach him how to go through the process. But getting back to snow and everything like that, long as it's not icy, everything like that. You know, you want to have insurance on your properties, you want your tenants to have insurance because insurance companies will make that happen. So you're avoiding lawsuits and everything. And you know, you're just doing it to make it safe for people. The people that don't do it. I just kind of just shake my head echoing that. Come on, it's the right thing to do.

So I don't know if you're in the properties that size. Boiler rooms are pretty common up there, right?

Right now, yes. But what we're doing to a lot of them is switching them over. For the simple fact is that unless you're putting locks on thermostats, people will put up their heat to 75 degrees and it'll be cold outside and you'll go by the property and the windows open. I, I, I, I'm not, I'm not going to pay for people's heat when they're, they want to do stuff like that. So almost Everything that we have, we converted over to that. Everybody has their own unit, their own electric bill, their own heating bill. If it's a gas fed property. Most of everything I own is in electric. Just for the simple fact is it keeps them accountable.

Are you using mini splits? Some.

Some are, some aren't.

So I just was on the phone with a developer or on the podcast before this with a developer. He said they are four and he's LEED certified and does all that green, green building and all. He said they're four times more efficient.

Yes, they're more efficient. Well, everything's has gotten more efficient. So the mini splits, I can't think of the other name that you put them in the wall. It looks like you're going into a hotel.

Wall units. The.

Yeah, the, the wall units that are mounted into the windows. Not the windows, but below the windows. I know a lot of radium, a lot of people use them for. The simple fact is if they go bad, it's easy to pull them out and replace them and they're inexpensive. So cost effectiveness. It's, it's better for an owner. I, I like mini splits myself, honestly. You keep the filters clean. They, they last a long time. You know, it's. And it's electric based. So that's how we treat everybody up here.

Interesting. All right, now. So do you have termites up there?

Yes, ma', am, we do. We have termites. We have mold. Not as, not as much as down south. So almost on all my properties I have some type of pest control system or someone that comes out and maintains it. Mold. Molds only created here as if you have like water damage or a poor bathroom because mold will form behind walls or pipe breaks behind a sink or in your kitchen. And you don't, you're never told about it. Mold happens very quickly, something I take very, very seriously because I do get sick. I. If you let me into someone's house and they don't, I don't know, they don't have mold and it's really bad. I will be sick in three days and could be in the hospital. So I am, I know mold inside and out and I know what's good, I know which ones are bad and I don't, I don't really mess with it. You know, I'm actually happy. I don't own too much in Florida or anything down Florida because I would be hiring other people to do the work because I don't want to be sick.

Can you smell it? As soon as you walk in the.

House most of the time.

Yeah, I know some people like that. And. And I recently had a pipe burst a couple years ago, and it flooded a place that was really built in the 60s. It was old. It activated some old mold that was behind the baseboards. And so we did the whole nine yards with the remediation, you know, cut out the drywall and. And because it. We had a lot of water that came in and. And I've never reacted to anything. I, you know, grew up with horses, so. Pretty, pretty thick system, I think. But sure enough, I did start getting some breathing problems at one point, which it had to have been the mold. I. I can't.

It'll start in your sinuses and work their way down into your chest. And it's. I don't know how to explain it to people other than, you know, one time it didn't bother me. But as I got older, now it's no joke, but there are people that live in homes that have mold and they wonder why they're sick all the time, but they have no idea because whatever you see on the surface outside, it's ten times larger behind the wall. And people don't understand that. So I take it seriously.

Right. Yeah.

I do what I do because I want people to stay and be healthy.

So you would hire out the mold remediation?

No, I'd probably have one of my guys do it.

Oh, okay.

We have respirators. We have everything that we need to do it. I'll put, you know, as soon as I go in and I see it, I walk back out. I've gone into customers, houses already, and I said, I'll be back. And they're like, huh? I go put my mask on. I said, I'm not going to. I'm not going to jeopardize my health because you don't understand what this could turn into or what this could happen to you. My health is very important.

Yeah. Oh, yeah. Because you. You also probably have extra sensitivities, I imagine, right.

To that. You know, I think I have a great immune system. You know, I. I did not. I have not had Covid. I have had. Not had that RSVs, whatever that's going on. I haven't been sick at all. And people are like in shock going, you didn't get coveted? No, I didn't get Covid. I try to take care of myself very well. My immune system stays up. I just. That's what I do. Yeah.

Yeah. Well, I want to also ask you, what do you specialize in as Far as your, what is your favorite job to be doing it? Is it kitchens? Is it any kind of trim work or flooring or what?

I want to say kitchens, but I like restoration work. I, I like, like, we've done a bunch of farmhouses and I like going in there and seeing the old barn wood. I, I like seeing how back in the day they put stuff together with wooden dowels and drills. And that to me is really, really a craft, a skill. I appreciate that. The woodworking like Philadelphia is really, you go, in some of these older buildings, the craftsmanship that these gentlemen had back in the day were just, just, it makes me, I go, wow, that's cool. You know, I wish I could learn from them because it's just a dying art. Do I do a lot of it? Yeah, I, I make it more modern because we don't have that and, or if they do want that, the price of the material and to do it is very expensive. I mean, to renovate a building and keep it in the 1900s era is expensive. The good example is we did a farmhouse three years ago, a couple moved from New York down to Pennsylvania. 160 acre farm. Had this little dinky thousand square foot farmhouse. I had to put on, they asked me to put on a 1500 square foot, three story addition and make everything, take the look from the old barn and put it into the new building. But we had to have heated floors, we had to have music in the ceilings, we had to have, you know, all our connections for WI fi everywhere, you know, all the bells and whistles, keep it looking old. So that's what I like to specialize in. Because that's, that to me is fun. It's.

A specialty. That's a real specialty too.

Right. You know, and also I have a, an art I want to call. I have an art degree, so a graphic design and illustration. So anything that I can use my creative skills to design and most people can't paint a picture of what they're looking to have done. I can come in and paint you a picture. I can show you designs and pictures and colors and help craft what you want for in your home. Because I really like giving people what they want. There's a lot of contractors out there that just go, oh, this is all I do. I do this style, I do that style. I do this product, I do that product. I go, no, I'm gonna, If you're willing to pay a little bit more, I'm going to go, okay, Jeanne, we're going to do this kitchen. We're going to go to my kitchen vendor. We're going to look at cabinet doors. I'm going to take you to my granite company. We're going to look at different sheets of granite, how to show you how it works. We're going to go do some tile backsplash. I can show you some lighting for underneath. Cabinet lighting or can lighting or puck lighting or, you know, mood lighting. You know, here we can put some warm floors in there. Just keep going. I just keep going with questions and trying to find out what you really like and build it that way.

So guided, kind of. That's very.

Yeah, I hold. I hold your hand a little bit. You know, that is some. Some people need. A lot of people should say need that. They need to be their hands held because they don't always know. They know what they want, but they don't know what they want, if that makes any sense.

Yeah.

Until you start painting the picture and showing them. Then it starts to become clear and they go, wow. You know, and even if they want to do stuff on their own, once you hire me, you get put in my phone, you start texting me pictures of tile and cabinets and colors, and I'll tell you what works, what doesn't work, what's a good product, what's a bad product, what I like putting in, what I don't like putting in. Yes. Because there are some things and there's products out there that I refuse to install or do for people because they're just. It's not good. It's just not good.

Very interesting. Yeah. Yeah. Well. So anything else you want to add before I ask you the big question?

Go for it.

Okay. So I ask everybody this, and that is, is there a pivotal person or event that has brought you to where you are now or propelling you forward to some goal or place of some sort?

Yes. Well, I should shouldn't say. And again, see if we got time here. There's been multiple events that have changed my life, so I'm going to give you two. I think we can get two in here. Well, the one was about 20 years ago, I got sick when I was going back to college for another degree. And I'm going to paint you this picture. And usually I ask people that are listening. Close your eyes. Imagine you're 26 years old. You just got married to your beautiful wife. Life is great. You know, I choke on a cup of coffee and you get a cough. So what does everybody do when they get a cough? You go to the doctors, you get some medicine. It doesn't go away. You go back again, do some more tests. It doesn't go away. He goes, well, we found something in your throat. We got to do another test. So almost a month goes by of nothing but tests and everything like that. Did the. Did the biopsy come back into the office again? We know what's wrong. I said, what's that? They go, you have non Hodgkin's lymphoma, throat and abdomen. I said, what's that? They go, it's cancer. So basically it's cancer of the lymph nodes throughout your whole body. So I was infected in my throat and on my liver. So that's basically stage four. They gave me less than 40% chance to live because it's being stage four in multiple process places on your body. What I do? I said, what do I do next? And I started following their regimen. But what I do is I bless my wife. Because my wife took it one step further. She started doing homework, started doing research on nutrition, health, everything like that, and came to me one day because back then I was a good old beer drinking McDonald's and Burger King and food, basically type of person. I just enjoyed life and that's how it was. And she said, that's it. We're cleaning you up now. It's more meats and vegetables and fishes and chickens and juicing. Juicing became a big part of our life because if you do homework on certain cancers, you have to find out what the cancer eats in the body. And if you can substitute some natural herb or vegetable or fruit or something like that to give the cancer something else to eat instead of your body, you can fight. It gives you a leverage to fight against the cancer. And that's what she did for me. And it was six months of basically hell that I went through to finally get clean, to get to that point where it went in remission. So I bless my wife a lot because she. She's a bull, basically. You know, here you're doing this every single day. Here's your drink. Here's your drink. Here's your drink. And got me through it because it. It's like a roller coaster ride. There's days that you feel great, and there's more days that you feel horrible. And I just keep picking myself up and keep going and. And keep. Keep trying. And that's one of the things, when people ask me, why do. Why should they work with me? This is that my individual. This is who I am. I don't give up. I get knocked Down, I get back up, knock down and get back up. And that's why I use this story is because no matter what you're going through, if it's divorce, bankruptcy, addiction, anything like that, there is a light at the end of the tunnel. You might not see it when you're in the heat of it, but it's there. And there's individuals out there that can talk to you or help you get through all this stuff. I'm one of them. Call me. I'll help you get through that. So that was the first one. The second one is my good buddy. Her name is Adina Breslin. She's a business coach. So I went to do a massive bookcase in her office, started building this beautiful custom book cabinet shelf, something that you would see in magazines and all that wonderful stuff. And as we're going along, the one week, she goes to me, she goes, hey, are you a millionaire yet? I'm on. What, what, what are you talking about? She goes, your business should be a million dollar business. And I'm like, she just kept asking me these questions. So why I think she's a pivotal person is mindset. She changed my mindset from an individual that was doing anywhere from 300 to $400,000 a year in business to now a company that is just shy of a million dollars in a matter of three years. And when she changed my mindset to think bigger, understand what it means to think bigger, to have more confidence, how to grow the business, how to be a leader of people and how to communicate with people, how to understand everybody's points of view and how to grow a business. My whole life changed because I was that individual that was like this all day long. And, you know, she calmed me down. She taught me time blocking. She taught me how to block out certain amount of time to get this done and then how to transition from this, how to go through a day and handle the adversity that I, I get all the time. She basically says that my. One of my major skill levels is I'm a problem solver. I can take a lot of, a lot of problems and just, just about solve them, figure out a way to solve this problem. So she was a huge part of my life and she's still part of my life right now. We actually have a meeting tomorrow morning. We usually meet once or once every week or every other week. And we are now in the phases of leadership, getting rid of limiting beliefs, you know, because a lot of people don't understand that when you grow up, your Parents might have told you that you're dumb, you're slow, you can't do this, you can't do that. And it could have been a coach or it could have been anything that our bodies are made to catch these negative thought processes and we don't realize it when we're younger. We just go through life and even as we get older, these limiting beliefs get instilled in us and we don't understand how to get rid of them or to get out of them. And you're just stuck that way. You're just stuck with these beliefs or limiting beliefs and you don't understand how to get to the next level. And the only way you're going to do that is to find that person. If it's a coach, if it's a business partner, if it's being part of a group, there's all different kinds of ways to do it. I just met this woman at a function. We got mastermind group together. Next thing I know, she became my coach and I pay her a good, good amount of money. It's. Nothing's ever free. But she's, she's changed so much in my life. I wouldn't, I probably wouldn't be here now if it wouldn't been for her because she's the one that said start thinking bigger and learning and educating yourself and everything like that is so, so important.

That's great. That is, it's so true. And, and you know, I had, I'm old school too. I, I had never thought about mentorships and things like that, but once I decided to seriously start being an investor and looking at what investors were doing, it was, it was obvious that you need to get into some of these, these programs and, and do, do some different things. You can't do it alone. You just can't.

No.

And like for anybody that's watching this, that's new at this, I would sit and say, it's nice to have an end goal. Okay. But don't get fixated on it. Just enjoy the process. If you enjoy every single day and enjoy the process and just keep going every single day. Take a step, take a step, take a step. And next thing you know you're going to look back and go, wow. I mean I sit and go, listen, I've been in, in the multi unit now, I, for my first three years, I did not get a single property, I did not close a single property in three years. But I kept taking a step, taking a step, kept my head down, keep going. You know, there's days I needed to call certain individuals that were ahead of me saying, yep, Eric, you're on the right path. You know, we closed a commercial property in 17 units last year. We're ready to close another 14 in three weeks. And then some of the people you meet along the way, like my buddy Brian Dawson, you know, he's way established.

He. And he.

He sees things that I don't even see right now. And he told me the last week, he's like, eric, you're right there, man. You're right there before that. Your life is going to change, and you don't even know how it's going to change. You're getting so close, you know, so you just got to keep believing in the process. And it will happen. Just believe it will happen. I mean, I can say that from remodeling, it took me five years. And then all of a sudden, it's like you could just see the changes. You could see the changes. You know, year 15, you could see the changes, you know, and now we're ready to start growing again and changing even more.

They say, just don't quit. That's the thing. You only fail if you quit. And it's not bad to fail either.

Exactly.

Go back and yeah, that's when you get. Learn the lesson, right?

And if you do fail at something, because there's gonna be hundreds of times you fail, stop, do your little pout, get over it, and then sit there and I call it data dumping. You get. Pick up a notepad and whatever in your brain, just write it down. Just don't, even if it's not a full sentence, anything, just dump all that information that you just went through down. And then reread it. Like, walk away, come back, reread it, and then go, okay, what. What's my lessons here? What should I take away from that? Because one of the things I do a lot is going to. It's on me. What could I have done better? What can I have learned? How do I adapt this? How do I change the situation that it doesn't happen again? It's. It's always on me to control those things.

Yep, that's good. That's really. And on that note, we're going to have to just have you tell people how they can get in touch with you.

All right, Easiest way on the screen there. It's Eric Schultz. My phone number, 484-955-6020. Or you can do es remodeling. Pretty simple. At comcast.net our website is remodeling burkscounty.com that's I've had that for a long time so they're probably my best ways you can find me on LinkedIn, Instagram, just put in my name, everything like that. We do have our own little Sunday morning I have a little blog, it's called Sunday Morning Church with Eric. We usually talk about something related to life and how to get over it and usually I threw throw a little fitness workout in there to hopefully get you motivated to do something because you guys are down there, I'm up here in the cold and last week we did one it was 32 degrees but we worked out outside and it was great.

Very good. Well we'll put that contact information in the show notes too so. Yes. Well very good. Thank so much for coming on and I hope that we'll well, we'll stay in touch for sure.

Well thank you for having me.

You're welcome.