John Despres (29) is a Real Estate Agent and Investor who has learned to maximize his income through buying and selling property. John has been a Real Estate Agent for 4.5 years and bought his first property approximately 4 years ago. In the last year, he reached 10 total properties. He used most of these properties to pay off lenders and 1031 into a bigger apartment building. Currently, he has 3 properties left and will be selling 2 more properties in order to continue leveling up and getting bigger apartment places.
“Once I learned how to cold call apartment buildings effectively like a professional, my life changed. I look at it like printing money out of thin air simultaneously while building my network, making new connections, and building my bank account,” states John.
For the past few years, John has been focused on fixing all the properties he had purchased and getting them ready to sell, and learning how to be an investor – how to do renovations, learning the costs, what materials to buy and where to buy them from, finding the right people, learning the steps and processes of the building departments, etc. While John has been successful at property investing, he notes it has been a learning experience, where he has had to learn everything on his own.
“Everything I have done so far has been learned from scratch. Both as an agent and an investor. I had never done anything like this before. A complete renovation of a property is very very detail oriented and so much goes into it that you almost have to be willing to learn the stuff to protect yourself because in construction, if you don’t have the right people around you – You will 100% be taken advantage of,” states John.
As a self-taught investor, John notes the importance of finding people who can support you and steer you in the right direction. While he has always been money oriented from early on and always looked for opportunities to make money, John was lucky to find a great mentor from day 1 in the real estate industry.
“From my perspective, who you work with and who you are able to learn from is very very important. I was blessed with the opportunity to work with my broker Al Sciola from the start. He has taught me everything I know in real estate. Someone I really look up to a lot and would do anything for, he’s helped me change my life,” states John.
While Covid-19 came with challenges for many, John notes it actually helped his business as it made it easier for him to work on properties for himself. At the same time, new opportunities have come up as more people want to sell and move as a result of the pandemic.
This year, John plans to keep building his personal portfolio to 100 apartments. He would like to break $100M in apartment sales for the year and sell a building with over 100 units. So far, his biggest sale has been 39 units, and he plans to get over 100 in one sale, turning this into the new normal for his future sales. John is also getting his real estate license in a few other states in addition to MA including FL, TX, CA, and NY.
“I’m looking forward to expanding into new areas, meeting new connections, and building both my networks & my net worth. I figured the world’s kind of crazy right now. I might as well go where the money is flowing to and away from,” states John.
Learn more about John and his real estate projects by following him on Instagram here.
