Today’s guests are Mel & Dave Dupuis.
Mel and Dave Dupuis are the real estate couple who specialize in Creative Financing. With over 20 years of combined experience, 240 units bought with no money and no joint venture partners, and 1,700 students in their mentorship program.
Show summary:
In this episode, The Dupuuis share their journey in real estate, focusing on their use of creative financing to grow their portfolio. They discuss the importance of having an exit strategy, not relying solely on market appreciation, and the need for a strong, diversified team. They also share their approach to international real estate transactions and how they navigate the complexities of different financing methods across countries. Despite the challenges, they view their mistakes as learning opportunities, emphasizing the importance of adaptability and due diligence in their success.
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Intro [00:00:36]
The shift to creative financing [00:01:08]
Common mistakes in creative financing [00:05:22]
Negotiating a Property Purchase [00:09:38]
Defining the Buy Box and Locating Sellers [00:10:47]
Building a Team and Scaling Across Countries [00:15:15]
The team and its structure [00:19:30]
Building the team over time [00:20:23]
The worst deal and mistakes made [00:21:27]
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Connect with Mel & Dave:
Facebook: https://web.facebook.com/InvestorMelDave/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/investormeldave/?hl=en
Web: https://investormeldave.com/
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC-tZnYKP3Klse6plRKKBVOw
TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@investormeldave
Resources: https://investormeldave.com/resources/
Connect with Sam:
I love helping others place money outside of traditional investments that both diversify a strategy and provide solid predictable returns.
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/HowtoscaleCRE/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/samwilsonhowtoscalecre/
Email me → sam@brickeninvestmentgroup.com
SUBSCRIBE and LEAVE A RATING. Listen to How To Scale Commercial Real Estate Investing with Sam Wilson
Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/how-to-scale-commercial-real-estate/id1539979234
Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/4m0NWYzSvznEIjRBFtCgEL?si=e10d8e039b99475f
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Want to read the full show notes of the episode? Check it out below:
Dave Dupuis ([00:00:00]) – I know a lot of different people say, you know, only five units and over only six, 16 units and over. Some people are very. I’ll buy a duplex tomorrow. If it makes me money, I’ll buy a single family home tomorrow. If it makes this money, I’ll buy a 20 plex. So it’s more or less looking at what is the deal doing? What is the cash flow? How much effort do we have to put into it? You know, time versus effort versus money. And what’s the team’s bandwidth as of right now?
Intro ([00:00:23]) – Welcome to the how to Scale commercial real Estate show. Whether you are an active or passive investor, we’ll teach you how to scale your real estate investing business into something big.
Sam Wilson ([00:00:36]) – Mel and Dave Dupuy are the real estate couple who specialize in creative financing. They have over 20 years of combined experience, 240 units purchased with no money and no joint venture programs, and they currently have 1700 students in their mentorship program. Melanie, welcome to the show.
Mel Dupuis ([00:00:53]) – Hey, thank you so much for having us.
Mel Dupuis ([00:00:56]) – It’s great to be here.
Sam Wilson ([00:00:57]) – Absolutely. The pleasure is mine. There are three questions I ask every guest, or in this case, guests that come on the show, and I’ll let one of you tackle this. Where did you guys start? Where are you now? And how did you get there? And you have to answer it in 90s or less.
Mel Dupuis ([00:01:08]) – Okay. We. Perfect. I’ll get started. So Dave and I were married couple. I had two properties. When I met Dave. He had the one who we slowly started buying. Properties hit the common roadblock of running out of money. So then we got into real estate, into creative financing, and that was a game changer for us. That’s when we bought 12 properties in less than 12 months. That was 56 units. And now we’re applying the same strategies of no JVs, no money, none of our own money in five countries. Boom 90s or less, boom.
Sam Wilson ([00:01:38]) – 90s or less. I love it when you guys decided to scale your business.
Sam Wilson ([00:01:43]) – Was real estate the only thing you were doing or did you have your hands in a job? What did that look like?
Mel Dupuis ([00:01:49]) – Yeah.
Sam Wilson ([00:01:49]) – Go ahead. I was a full.
Dave Dupuis ([00:01:50]) – Time firefighter malware at our local college. So yeah. So this was a side hustle that that became the main thing, right? Became the bread and butter. Right?
Sam Wilson ([00:02:00]) – Right. Okay. Cool I love it. And I’m assuming that now real estate is your full time gig.
Mel Dupuis ([00:02:05]) – Exactly. Yeah. We’re both able to to to leave the 9 to 5 job. The golden handcuffs.
Sam Wilson ([00:02:11]) – Yeah.
Dave Dupuis ([00:02:12]) – Yeah. We’re proud to say that.
Sam Wilson ([00:02:13]) – That’s awesome. Good for you guys. Okay, so you ran out of your own money and you said, all right, I got to go out and figure out a new way to do this. What year was that?
Dave Dupuis ([00:02:22]) – 28, 2016. I think we had six properties. Yes, Red, rich dad, poor dad and went, what have we been doing wrong this entire time? And, you know, light bulb moment.
Dave Dupuis ([00:02:33]) – Obviously a lot of people have that same moment and then got educated on creative financing and other people’s money. And then 2017 is like Mel said, that’s when we had the 12 properties in 12 months.
Sam Wilson ([00:02:43]) – Got it. Okay. 12 properties, 12 months. What do you mean creative financing is like that? That thing that you know, every investor dreams of, but very few are able to actually crack the code on how to make creative financing work, let alone doing it in five countries, which we’ll get to hear later on. I think of the show. But what did you guys how did you guys establish and or get your first property under, you know, creative financing, owner financing, whatever you did on that. Like what what was the thing that you did and then how did you develop a replicable system behind that?
Mel Dupuis ([00:03:15]) – I mean, part of it was mindset, right? Realizing that if all these other people can do it, I’m not the first one in world that there has to be a way.
Mel Dupuis ([00:03:22]) – So realizing the mindset first and then making it a win win as well. At first we were all about we wanted to win. We wanted the best deal. But with creative financing, if I’m going to get into a deal, none of my own money and I’m still the sole owner of the of the property, I do want to make it a win win with, let’s say, the seller, for example, or somebody who’s lending me money. So really making it a win win. And once I showed them as well the exit strategy. So people want to make money, right? We all want to make money. So as long as they’re able to find the right deal, where you’re able to do that and you make money, they make money, but they also want to know how you’re going to be paying the box. So we have a built in exit strategy that we’ve always done where it’s numerical, it’s logical. So we can actually review our numbers and know that we’re able to pay that person back because you’re being on Sam.
Mel Dupuis ([00:04:06]) – Not every deal is going to make financial sense where you can pay them back. So really knowing our exit strategy before we enter the deal.
Sam Wilson ([00:04:12]) – Okay, I like what you said there. You said you said that you have the same exit strategy with every deal. It would seem like in creative financing, you would be dealing with a lot of nuanced sellers that want this or they want that or they want, and you’re trying to. I would think that you’d have to. Again, I’m not a seller financing or excuse me, creative financing when we get that right creative financing person, it’s just not something I’ve done a whole lot of. But it would seem like you’d have to craft that exit to each individual seller uniquely, and it sounds like that’s not the case. No.
Mel Dupuis ([00:04:43]) – Sorry to Claire. Sorry to clarify. Absolutely. So every deal is I just meant that every single deal needs to have an exit strategy on every deal. So on every deal I have to have an exit strategy. But every deal absolutely look different.
Mel Dupuis ([00:04:55]) – Looks different. The interest that I pay on every deal looks different. The term looks different. But essentially at the end of day, what I’m looking for is that if I’m boring X amount of money and the terms is X amount, am I able to pay them back or not? And if I don’t, then I need to go back and renegotiate or pass on that deal. Right?
Sam Wilson ([00:05:12]) – Right. Absolutely. Okay. So give me give me some of the things maybe that you see people commonly doing wrong when approaching creative financing structures.
Dave Dupuis ([00:05:22]) – Okay. So to compound what Mel said on their exit strategy, this is the thing. People are just waiting for that market appreciation, right? They’re just like, oh, the market’s going to keep going up. And when we when we really dove into creative financing, we interviewed a lot of people who built a portfolio and unfortunately had had gone belly up. And that’s what we were noticing. They were banking on interesting rock bottom interest rates. Excuse me. And the market continue to go up.
Dave Dupuis ([00:05:48]) – And we’re like, well, that’s out of your hands, right? Like no one can control that as we’re seeing now. You tell people that from 2020, 2021, they would have said, no, it’s this guy is going to continue, right. Going up. So, right. That was the big thing is making sure that we’re not just dependent on those. And then also the thing with creative financing, I see people, they don’t give themselves enough runway. They think, you know, six months and it’s like, well, six months comes very, very quickly. Even 12 months is pretty short. Like, right. So I see the runway and yeah, the exit. What they’re building their exit strategy around. Right.
Sam Wilson ([00:06:21]) – So you mentioned two things there. One appreciation rising interest rate. What what are. So it sounds like some of the things you’re seeing is people are tying these deals to interest rates and saying, hey, we’ll pay Prime Plus whatever it is on a floating on a floating rate.
Sam Wilson ([00:06:37]) – Is that is that kind of one of the things you’re mentioning there? Am I missing something there?
Dave Dupuis ([00:06:40]) – No. You’re bang on. Where. Yeah. They’re underwriting and then going Cape. As of right now the deal makes sense. Like you said kind of at this interest rate. And the second it bumps up like we’ve seen they’re underwater and they’re they’re scrambling. And now they’re looking at liquidating and in a down market. So it’s it’s underwriting and stress testing your deals from day one with that worst case scenario. Like for example, we’re buying a deal right now in Ohio with is it 8 or 8.5% interest and a deal in Orlando with 9% interest, and people are going, you’re bonkers. And it’s like the deal still makes sense. We’re still making hundreds of dollars per per. These are ones a single family and one’s a condo where you typically do multi. Family, but they’re making hundreds of dollars every single month. Cash flow. And the rates will go down at some point.
Sam Wilson ([00:07:27]) – So the value of the property will go up over time.
Mel Dupuis ([00:07:30]) – So it’s yeah, there’s so ways to get into this.
Sam Wilson ([00:07:33]) – Got it, got it. Okay. Cool I know this is live. So either way we’re just going to do a couple quick housekeeping things. If I can get you guys to make sure you’re really close to the mic, they’ll be really helpful because your audio is kind of going in and out on this end of it. So if everybody’s listening, they’re hear you over here and then coming back in. So anyway, I love hearing you guys loud and clear. Thank you very much. Let’s keep moving on that. You mentioned not enough time. How do you broach that length of time with the seller? And again, I know every deal is creatively structured, but I bet every seller is going to go. They want less time. And you say I need more. How do you guys handle that?
Dave Dupuis ([00:08:06]) – So okay with the sellers and I love that question, Sam. The runway that we’re giving ourselves is going to be based on the value add properties.
Dave Dupuis ([00:08:13]) – So for example that’s what we like buying is doing the typical BR right. Doing the value add having specifically something that um, I like the low hanging fruit. I say we like the low hanging fruit. Have we done the big gut jobs and get the sledgehammers out and open up the kitchen? And yeah, we’ve done those right. But are the ones that we love the, the, the um, the rinse and repeat ones are the ones where we can go in. It’s some flooring, it’s some paint. Add some value, add 100 to $150, minimum rent increase per unit over a short period of time. Right. So those are the ones that we’re looking for. And those are the ones that we kind of concentrate on. Um, now do we differ from that. Yes. But that’s kind of our and when we build out the exit strategy, the length of time, that’s where we’re talking with the seller. Okay. So let’s say you have a ten plex. Like right now we’re looking at a couple of buildings in Texas and some are 20 units, some are 40.
Dave Dupuis ([00:09:05]) – Some are like, okay, for us to stabilize and reposition this asset, I’m going to we’re going to need at least three years. Right. So let’s say that if I can pay you back sooner awesome. But let’s give ourselves enough runway. So that’s kind of how we’re looking at a deal by deal scenario.
Sam Wilson ([00:09:19]) – Got it. No, I like that I like that, and you mentioned 20 to 40 units. I mean, why are people in a position such that creative financing is really the only exit that they have as a seller? Like, how are you? What’s happened to these assets such that this is now what their desired exit is?
Dave Dupuis ([00:09:38]) – So with these ones actually were were negotiating back and forth, they had bought it. They’ve done a lot of work to it. It’s like halfway to to the finish line. And they’re like, you know what? We decided we’re not these buying whole type people. We’re going to make some money which good for them, they’re going to make money. We’re going to, you know, pick up the baton or carry the baton, whatever saying that is, and bring it past the finish line.
Dave Dupuis ([00:09:59]) – So they’re just realizing that, you know what? This isn’t what we wanted to do. We’d rather hold notes instead of actually be, you know, investors. So in this particular one, that’s that’s what’s going on.
Mel Dupuis ([00:10:09]) – The thing is everybody is at different stages. We’ve done that on some of our properties here that we’re holding financing for, and we’re putting those investments somewhere else as well now too. So it’s realizing that that not everybody has the same exact plan as you as an investor. Some people want out because there, Tavis, some people just want to do something different. Some people may want to invest in a different area, and that’s what we’re doing as well. So we’re doing owner financing on one end, but yet purchasing with owner financing on the other. So again, as long as it’s a win win. And why do we do this? Because it benefits us. It’s always that’s always the answer. Why would anybody lend you money? It has to benefit them and you have to show them your exit strategy.
Sam Wilson ([00:10:47]) – When you.
Sam Wilson ([00:10:47]) – Define.
Sam Wilson ([00:10:49]) – It.
Sam Wilson ([00:10:49]) – Sounds like you have your by box fairly well defined, but yet at the same time, you mentioned a single family residence, a condo in Florida, and then a ten or a 20 plex somewhere in Texas. How do you define your buy box, and then how do you locate those sellers then that are willing to entertain a creative financing offer?
Dave Dupuis ([00:11:10]) – Okay. Love that you said that. And and it’s true. Because some people will say, well, you’re doing short term rentals in Costa Rica and you’re. Yeah. So I agree with you. Hour by box ends up becoming basically bandwidth and time versus effort versus money. Right. So and I’ve never been and I know a lot of different people say, you know only five units and over only 616 units and over. Some people are very I’ll buy a duplex tomorrow. If it makes me money, I’ll buy a single family home tomorrow. If it makes this money, I’ll buy a 20 plex. So it’s more or less looking at what is the deal doing? What is the cash flow? How much effort do we have to put into it? You know, time versus effort versus money.
Dave Dupuis ([00:11:46]) – And what’s the team’s bandwidth as of right now. Right. So um.
Sam Wilson ([00:11:50]) – And that’s going to.
Mel Dupuis ([00:11:51]) – Change as well naturally. Right. If, if the team is working on a big new project and they’re limited on time, then having something that’s a bit more of a turnkey might be a better fit for right now compared to if we have time and we have an amazing deal, a large multifamily, for example, then hey, let’s go after that one. Like one year, for example, bought a 50 plex and a and a four plex. And some people say, well, again, there’s so, you know, fairly different sizes. Yes. But they both made financial sense. And that’s something that really helped us succeed in the long run, is that we weren’t only looking at one certain deal where we’re looking at a lot of deals in whichever one is, is the right deal. Again, depending on on the cash flow, on the appreciation future appreciation value as well, that we’ll see.
Mel Dupuis ([00:12:38]) – And yeah, the return on our on our own time or our team’s time as well.
Sam Wilson ([00:12:42]) – Are there certain kind of clues that as you’re looking at properties that you say this might be a property that an owner would take a look at a creative financing solution on every deal?
Sam Wilson ([00:12:58]) – Yeah.
Sam Wilson ([00:12:59]) – Okay. Maybe, but but but to me, I’m going to be the devil’s advocate here and say, like to me, you’re saying, hey, every deal. Okay, well, why don’t we all just get on, you know, costar something else and just start calling? I mean, I’d rather just beat myself with a brick, then do that just blindly and hope to actually hit gold. So you got to have more to the source than than just that.
Mel Dupuis ([00:13:21]) – Yeah. No. And when I say every deal, I mean that I’m I’ll always find a way. Because even if I find an amazing deal, even if the owner is not willing to hold financing, that’s only one of the ways that we use with creative financing.
Mel Dupuis ([00:13:34]) – There’s promissory notes. You can use secured funds like somebody for one. So yes, I will if I find amazing deal and I know I can have an exit strategy, I’ll definitely speak with with the owner and try to make it a win win, because they may not be thinking about it and they might say, no, you’re bang on. But if it’s amazing deal, then I’ll find the capital elsewhere as well.
Dave Dupuis ([00:13:52]) – And something else that Sam, what I’m looking at when we’re looking at deals and we’re analyzing in our cash flow analysis matrix, when the rents are very under market, that’s what I’m like. Okay. So they’re asking this price. They might not be necessarily aware of what the market’s doing. I’ll look at the market rents. You’re half of where the market rents are or you’re only, you know 6,070%. No one’s going to qualify for this because the underwriting at the financial institution is just not going to make sense. So that’s what I’m like, hey, I’ll give you your price or close to it, but you’re gonna have to hold financing until I can actually reposition the asset.
Dave Dupuis ([00:14:25]) – So those are the ones that and I find those ones we love it because we know probably the reason it’s been sitting on the market is no one is qualified for it unless they’re coming with a big down payment. So those are the ones that we get excited about.
Sam Wilson ([00:14:36]) – Right? No, I think that’s that’s yeah. You hit a couple nails on the head there. We’re in a deal right now where we mean we were in the in the running for it. And then somebody else came in with some astronomical figure and we’re just like.
Sam Wilson ([00:14:50]) – I can’t beat that.
Sam Wilson ([00:14:50]) – Yeah, I can’t beat that. And of course, what’s happening right now? Well, they can’t get financing on it. Exactly. You can offer what you want all day long. So I think that’s that’s really interesting what you’ve mentioned right there. Let’s move then I guess into one other part of this conversation and they go, this is a short podcast. There’s so many things here I want to cover, but scaling across five different countries, I mean that just in my mind, it just sounds incredibly challenging.
Sam Wilson ([00:15:15]) – Tell me, what are some of the secrets to the sauce that you guys have done to make that even a possibility?
Mel Dupuis ([00:15:21]) – Having an amazing team, right. Knowing that I don’t know what I don’t know, and that’s okay. And really relying on on the experts. Right. Cross border attorney investor focus agents. So really building our team has been we couldn’t do it without them. There’s just no way because we are so far away. And and often we’ve purchased properties on scene. However we do our due diligence by a distance.
Sam Wilson ([00:15:44]) – Wow. All right. So team is one part of it. What about the finances I mean that seems like that would get a little bit squirrely when you’re going okay. Yeah we’re buying stuff in Ohio. We’re buying stuff in Florida. And did I mention Costa Rica? And then what bank is open? Where and then when? When? I mean, it sounds like an accounting nightmare. How have you guys solved that?
Dave Dupuis ([00:16:04]) – So yeah, the play in Costa Rica, Mexico and Dominican is different than North.
Dave Dupuis ([00:16:09]) – America. So like we loved it. We highly leveraged debt in Canada, in the US. Good debt. Yeah. No. No worries, no lambos. Right. Good debt. Um, but in Costa Rica, Mexico, Dominican. So Mexico, Dominican Republic. Uh, well, as far as I know, we can’t qualify it right as a foreign national. And there’s no financing. Okay. In Costa Rica, there are some mortgage brokers that can do it. They typically cap out around 60% loan to value. I have not used that, just to be honest with you. It’s just a different place. So for example, it’s more of a seller financing, right? Just like in Canada, in the US seller financing. Well, the most recent one in Costa Rica, the guy was from like Sweden or Switzerland, never met him. Was all done through the agents. Right. Um, and the down payment was a promissory note from back back in Canada. So same structure deals, same difference.
Dave Dupuis ([00:17:00]) – Now the thing to play there is still get the lifts, still get the appreciation. Um and then sell right. Don’t like selling but liquidate a few so that you have enough funds left over. Let’s say you bought three and you sell two. Well, then left enough funds are left over to pay off completely the the the one left over. So a little bit of a different play but still other people’s money.
Sam Wilson ([00:17:20]) – Yeah okay. That’s that’s that’s really. And again, how do you even filter through all of the opportunities in real estate to find those 2 or 3 or those half a dozen, whatever you’re working on, on those various countries, like how does how does that even happen?
Mel Dupuis ([00:17:35]) – Well, I mean, we do analyze a lot of deals. We we look at a lot of deals at this point. We have team members that that help as well. But but when we first started, I was just looking at a lot of deals. Sometimes just after a while you get quick edit, where are you able to look at it? Deal.
Mel Dupuis ([00:17:50]) – You basically know at least like, I’m not even like you said, don’t waste my time on this one. Right? So we definitely don’t waste our time if it’s obvious that the deal doesn’t make sense or I won’t have my exit. And then, yeah, I put inside my my cash flow matrix and it’s very quick. It tells me if my pillars make sense or not and tells me if I have an exit strategy. So that’s kind of how we we filter through them.
Dave Dupuis ([00:18:09]) – An investor focus agents right in those areas. They’ll feed us the deals to.
Sam Wilson ([00:18:13]) – Got it. Got it okay. Very cool. Let’s see all the things that we’ve covered here. We talked a little bit about some of the earmarks or hallmarks of creative financing, you know, missteps that people have made. We’ve talked you guys have not done any joint ventures. No Syndications you’ve done everything up to this point, creative finance, is that right?
Sam Wilson ([00:18:33]) – Yes. Except for the first six.
Dave Dupuis ([00:18:35]) – It was traditional financing before.
Sam Wilson ([00:18:37]) – Yeah, before we started.
Mel Dupuis ([00:18:38]) – Yeah.
Sam Wilson ([00:18:38]) – Before you, before you figured out this, this kind of method. We’ve talked about how you guys find sellers. We talked a little bit about your team. Not much. Maybe we’ll come back to that. Um. And then scaling across various countries. I think that’s that’s absolutely amazing. And again, maybe that is part of that conversation is the team because that’s I mean, finding your agents, finding your your mortgage brokers, finding the sellers. I mean all of that takes team. And you said you’ve done this even without seeing some of these properties. I think it’s really, really courageous. So tell me about the team that you guys have behind you there on the ground in Canada or maybe elsewhere around the world? What’s that been like to build that team inside of your own company?
Mel Dupuis ([00:19:13]) – Well, worldwide is definitely what our team is, is built. So we actually have very few team members located locally. Pretty much all of them are in Canada, in different areas across Canada. And I think we have like 7 or 8 different countries and as part of our entire team.
Mel Dupuis ([00:19:30]) – So we do have a very diversified team, and that allows us to really have a lot of connections. Number one, a lot of introductions. And the thing is, like I also know my lane, I know, you know, thinking like, oh my gosh, buying a property without seeing it yourself. How scary is that? But the reality is, I also know that I’m not the expert at Foundation and I’m not a licensed electrician. And I also know me walking through the building. I wouldn’t know those kind of things anyhow, so I rather build a strong team where they can do their due diligence on, on, on my behalf. Report back to me. Of course I do my due diligence and videos and all those kind of things as well. That’s how I mean, even locally now. That’s how we we even do it locally as well, because I know what my strengths are and what my weaknesses are. And, you know, it’s to find the deals and managing the assets and the, you know, raising funds and all that that comes with it.
Mel Dupuis ([00:20:23]) – So our team now, yeah, it’s a diversified team, of course, lawyers, accountants, insurance company agents, mortgage brokers, who’s open to creative financing. And then the whole bookkeeping department, the finance controller CFO. So social media marketing. So we have a lot of different divisions of course. So and but this also didn’t happen overnight. Right. Like when Dave and I first started a brand new investor, we started off with Dave and I, and I was, you know, we were the ones cleaning and doing the dump runs as well. So this is just something over time that we’ve built as well.
Sam Wilson ([00:20:59]) – I love that, I love that, and I love the, the, the kind of reference there because yeah, in doing the dump runs boy been there.
Sam Wilson ([00:21:07]) – Been there too many.
Sam Wilson ([00:21:07]) – Times where it’s like, all right, well there’s all hands. It’s just my hands on deck. Okay, great.
Sam Wilson ([00:21:12]) – Do what you gotta do.
Sam Wilson ([00:21:13]) – Right? You got to do what you got to do in the early days.
Sam Wilson ([00:21:15]) – I love that. Told me one thing. On the creative financing side, what is the worst deal you’ve done and or a deal you wish you hadn’t done? And what did you learn from it?
Dave Dupuis ([00:21:27]) – Rate of financing side. I think of your first deal, but it wasn’t creative finance.
Sam Wilson ([00:21:34]) – Maybe there’s none.
Mel Dupuis ([00:21:35]) – I don’t know. We don’t really regret any. It’s real estate. I don’t really I mean, we’ve made a lot of mistakes.
Sam Wilson ([00:21:40]) – Okay, give me one of those then.
Dave Dupuis ([00:21:42]) – You know what? It was probably the business structure. Honestly, Sam, initially everything was owned personally, and it had just completely our total debt to income and our total debt service ratios were whacked. And it has nothing to do with the creative financing. It’s just we had 18 properties in our own name, and we couldn’t even buy a house for ourselves because the banks were like, you’re out to lunch. Like you got to like your your ratios are gone, right? So that was probably one of the biggest ones was just the business structure was terrible.
Sam Wilson ([00:22:09]) – That is that’s that’s not funny. But it is 18. It’s funny.
Sam Wilson ([00:22:12]) – Now.
Sam Wilson ([00:22:13]) – Yeah funny now. Right. You got 18 properties and they’re like you can’t buy your own house. Sorry. Oh that’s that’s a that’s a brutal bit of news right there. Like this doesn’t make any sense at all man. This has been fantastic. Mel and Dave, thank you for taking the time to come on the show today. Certainly have learned so much from you guys. I love the way you’re doing it and how you’re doing it. If our listeners want to get in touch with you and learn more about you, what is the best way to do that?
Mel Dupuis ([00:22:36]) – Thank you so much, Sam. So we’re all over social media, YouTube, Facebook, Instagram. Username is always investor Mel Dave investor.
Sam Wilson ([00:22:44]) – Mel Dave will make sure we include all of your social media handles there in the show notes. And thank you again for coming coming on today. Certainly appreciate it.
Mel Dupuis ([00:22:51]) – Thanks so much.
Sam Wilson ([00:22:52]) – Thanks, Sam. Hey, thanks for listening to the How to Scale Commercial Real Estate podcast.
Sam Wilson ([00:22:56]) – If you can do me a favor and subscribe and leave us a review on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, whatever platform it is you use to listen. If you can do that for us, that would be a fantastic help to the show. It helps us both attract new listeners as well as rank higher on those directories. So appreciate you listening. Thanks so much and hope to catch you on the next episode.
