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| Immigrant entrepreneur: | Eduardo (Eddie) Garcia |
| Company: | Realty of Chicago |
| Place of birth: | Mexico |
| Employees: | 200 |
| Age started business: | 26 |
Show notes
Eddie traveled on foot from Mexico with his older brother and his father when he was 5 years old. He had no idea what was going on, and was totally oblivious to the fact that his dad carried their clothes in ziploc bags. On that journey, that came in handy! When they crossed the sewer water, they had to change their clothes and that’s when his dad whipped out fresh clothes out of the ziploc bags.
He was on track to be an employee and his dad always pushed him to become an entrepreneur. His dad always knew that Eddie had so much more potential than being stuck at a job.
So when Eddie told his dad he was going to drop out of college, his dad made him promise that he was going to become a millionaire by the age of 30.
Without any real plans he got into real estate, by accident. Now, Eddie holds one of the most successful real estate companies in Chicago and he runs his company from day 1 all with cash flow – absolutely no mortgage loans, and no bank loans!
He’s been recently featured in Crain’s 40 under 40 list!
Quotes by Eddie
I don’t think I’m the smartest, I don’t think I’m the brightest, but I just think I’m the hardest worker out there.
My first year, in 2012 I was working from 9 in the morning till about 2, 3 in the morning.
For sure the first 3 years it was 15 hour days every day.
I sacrificed my personal life so that I can have what I have today.
I still, today, buy everything with cash as far as our properties and investments.
My dad always told me, “You’re illegal so make sure you get good grades in school, or else you’ll end up deported.”
My dad was my biggest mentor.
A lot of people overthink a lot of things and it just slows them down drastically.
The failures in the very beginning it’s so crucial.
I came here illegally, if I can do it, you can do it.
Make decisions fast.
It’s going to be very very hard.
I didn’t have money to eat sometimes. My girlfriend at the time would have to give me money to feed me.
I struggled immensely.
I fell on my face so many times.
I probably read about 4-5 hours a day on my phone.
Where to find Eddie
Links mentioned
A day in the life of Eddie Garcia
[read more] Alina Warrick (0s):
Welcome to the Immigrant Entrepreneurs Podcast, episode 37.
Eddie Garcia (6s):
I guess, just luck, right? Like, you know, like when we cross, we could have got caught by the US border patrol but we didn’t. I remember there was a few close calls where, you know, my dad said, go, you guys have to hide, because there were ATVs coming, but it was just like regular people on the ATVs, so we thought it was not border patrol. Me and my mom got caught five times just crossing and, the border patrol gutter, four times. And then the fifth time she made it.
Alina Warrick (29s):
My name is Alina Warrick and today we have Eddie Garcia on the show. Eddie traveled on foot with his family from Mexico to Chicago, which took them several days. They crossed through the desert and slept in bushes to eventually cross the border. When they came to Chicago they lived in an apartment with a total of 11 people, and they only had one bathroom to share. It’s crazy to think that he’s now one of the biggest real estate brokers in the Chicago area. In fact, his company is ranked number 29 out of the 4400 realty companies in Chicago.
Alina Warrick (1m 13s):
His company Realty of Chicago sold 370 million dollars’ worth of properties only in the last year alone. So let’s hear all about Eddie’s journey and how he built his real estate company, all with cash. Yup. You heard it? No bank loans, no mortgages pure cash to flow. So let’s dive right in. Eddie, thank you so, so much for coming on the Immigrant Entrepreneurs podcast. I truly appreciate your time. And I’m really excited to hear all about your journey. So welcome to the show.
Eddie Garcia (1m 51s):
Thank you so much for having me. It’s an honor to be on here.
Alina Warrick (1m 54s):
Well, let’s talk about your immigrant journey. Tell us where you’re from and when did you come to the United States?
Eddie Garcia (2m 1s):
I was born in Mexico City, Mexico. We were just super poor. My dad always said, Hey, this is what poverty is and where a few levels below it. So we made the journey to Chicago in 1989. So I was about five years old and we came to Chicago, we didn’t have any family members here, so we were the first ones to come. We lived in a one-bedroom apartment with 11 other people.
Alina Warrick (2m 25s):
Wow.
Eddie Garcia (2m 26s):
We used to sleep in the living room. I think people slept in the kitchen. So I mean, it was just, you know, but I was so young, I didn’t know any better. I thought that was normal. So it was fine.
Alina Warrick (2m 35s):
Where did the 11 people come from?
Eddie Garcia (2m 37s):
It was just other people from like, like our Pueblo from Mexico that we all just kind of came and as soon as some came, others came, we were all super poor. So we didn’t really have money to go rent, individual apartments. So we just kind of help out that way. And I think we lived like that for at least three, four years. And we live in a 20 unit apartment and we lived in a one bedroom apartment and we had a lot of people there.
Alina Warrick (3m 1s):
Wow.
Eddie Garcia (3m 2s):
We were definitely interesting. No privacy.
Alina Warrick (3m 5s):
I bet. And everything was shared, I’m sure. Everyone
Eddie Garcia (3m 11s):
Oh it wasn’t a one bedroom, five bath. It was just one bedroom, one bathroom. So yeah, it was definitely an experience to, you know, but stuff like that, you never forget and it kind of always keeps you grounded no matter how high you go. And it was kind of, I’m glad that I went through that experience.
Alina Warrick (3m 27s):
Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So we’ll get back to that, but I really wanna know is, that your parents wanted to start a new life in the United States. Is that why they wanted to move from Mexico?
Eddie Garcia (3m 38s):
So when my dad had my older brother, my dad used to have to beg to be able to feed my brother. So, you know, he literally, you know, his work at the airport in Mexico City selling donuts and you know, he just didn’t see a way out of it. And then once my mom got pregnant again with me, you know, my dad knew he had to do something because you know, more than his paycheck from the airport, wasn’t cutting it to pay rent and you know, clothe us and feed us. So he decided to jump on a plane, you know, back then security is not what it was, what it is today. So you could literally just get on a plane. And then he got on a plane with his buddy. He didn’t know where he was going to land.
Eddie Garcia (4m 19s):
And he thought he was going to Baltimore. He ended up in Chicago. He didn’t know anyone here and back then the blue line didn’t go all the way to O’Hare? So he got out of the plane, ran on the runway, got on the train tracks, ran to the first station and then he found a place to live and eventually he brought us over here as well. So then he came through, he flew here and then he came and got us and we cross through, you know, traditional way, more or less where you go out to the desert. And I still remember that stuff because you know, I was five years old. So it was kind of, I mean, I thought it was a cool experience back then, but now I realized how dangerous that was.
Alina Warrick (4m 59s):
Wait a second. So you guys traveled through the desert on foot?
Eddie Garcia (5m 4s):
Yeah. Yes we traveled, because once you cross the Rio Grande, it’s still a few hours of desert to finally get to the first little town where you can actually change your clothes and I remember that my dad had clothes for everyone in Ziploc bags and bags and I didn’t understand why, but I understood once you get into like the sewage water, it’s obviously you have to, then take a shower and change your clothes, you know? So that was the reason for that. I remember being very, very thirsty that we didn’t have any more water. You know, definitely an experience, you know, as a five-year-old to remember that.
Alina Warrick (5m 39s):
Wow. So it was you, your brother and your mom, that was traveling on this journey?
Eddie Garcia (5m 44s):
Yeah. So this journey was just me, my brother and my dad.
Alina Warrick (5m 49s):
Oh, okay. What about your mom?
Eddie Garcia (5m 51s):
My mom came later. So my mom, I’d never asked why she didn’t come with us, but I remember it took my mom almost five times to come here. She got literally stopped at the border five times and got sent back. But by the fifth time she was able to make it here.
Alina Warrick (6m 9s):
Wow. That’s crazy. Oh my goodness. So how long did it take you guys to just cross the border and go through all of that? Was that a day journey? Was it a couple of days?
Eddie Garcia (6m 20s):
The desert and that stuff, I mean well, if you count it from Mexico City to just the border, that’s probably like a day and a half, two days, then the actual crossing the river and then going to a desert that’s probably for another day and a half. And then we took a Greyhound from like the first city in Arizona, I think. And then we came up to Chicago, which took another two days. So almost like a week, a little more than a week.
Alina Warrick (6m 45s):
Okay. And where did you guys sleep when you were crossing the desert?
Eddie Garcia (6m 48s):
Literally on like, next to a bush.
Alina Warrick (6m 52s):
Wow. That’s crazy. That’s insane. That’s insane. And you know what? I always talk about this, but the immigration process in America is so long, is so convoluted. And I completely understand how people are crossing the border because it takes forever to do documents and getting everything illegalized and I can totally understand how people are building a new life and creating a new life here in America to have to go through that journey. That’s crazy for you to, to, to go through all of that a five years old. Wow. Thank you so much for sharing that. Yeah. So tell me, what was it like growing up in Mexico and what parts do you remember?
Eddie Garcia (7m 38s):
You know, from what I remember is more photos But and from what the stories of my mom told me, but it was just to me it was a good life. I didn’t know any better. I had my mom and you know, all my cousins and my aunts and you know, we live in a little like little apartment complex and yeah, it was fun. I remember, you know, just running around half naked, nowhere on the road. But other than that, I was just, you know, it was young. Yeah. Not that much. It was just like a number of crossing the border coming over here. And then whatever my mom tells me of how life was in Mexico.
Alina Warrick (8m 12s):
And so you said it, it took her five times to cross the border. And why was that?
Eddie Garcia (8m 18s):
I guess just luck. Right? Like, you know, when we cross, we got caught by the us border patrol, but we did it, you remember there was a few close calls where, you know, my dad was like, Oh, you got to have to hide because they were saying to me is coming in. But it was just like regular people are on a two weeks. And we thought it was us border patrol. You know, my mom got caught at five times just crossing and the border patrol got her four times. And then also at times she made it
Alina Warrick (8m 42s):
Look at that.
Eddie Garcia (8m 44s):
Yes, she gave up, but she didn’t, she went to see her kids. So,
Alina Warrick (8m 48s):
So how long did that take her? Was it what was the time-frame until you get to see her again?
Eddie Garcia (8m 53s):
Thank you. It was more of the 60. Oh,
Alina Warrick (8m 56s):
Okay. Okay. Got it. Is it all, let’s go back to when you guys first immigrated, you live in an apartment with the 11 people who tell me more about the struggles that you guys had to go through it.
Eddie Garcia (9m 8s):
You know, I think when you’re young, you don’t know you’re very innocent and you don’t really see like the struggles that you’re parents go through. So I didn’t know any better than that. It’s not normal to live with 11 people in a one bedroom. You know, I didn’t know that people could have their own bedroom and their privacy, you know, like what the American dream is. If you remember going to school, you know, we would have to walk to school. Me and my brother, because my parents were both of them. My mom worked at a chocolate factory and my dad worked as a mechanic and they were saving money and we were literally growing up with the other nine people there who were there. So, but yeah, I mean, I still remember it. It was, to me it was good memories. I mean, other than getting a bit by a dog, but other than that, it was good.
Eddie Garcia (9m 49s):
I mean, I, there was always food on the table. There was always He. It was just your basic.
Alina Warrick (9m 53s):
Yeah. So did you guys go up on government assistance?
Eddie Garcia (9m 55s):
You know, it was one thing that my dad had always kind of prided himself and I think back then it was called snap, but we never accepted that. It was always when he told me that once we kind of grew older, do you want us to be on that and that he didn’t want, well, we have kids too. She took great pride in making sure that he told us that he worked hard for us and to make sure that we were in clothes, but you didn’t know, he didn’t grow up on the government systems.
Alina Warrick (10m 18s):
Got it, got it. Okay. So did your parents kind of know English when they came to the United States? How were they able to pick up jobs fast?
Eddie Garcia (10m 27s):
No, no. They knew nothing. I mean, they literally came from Mexico and my dad, I think he has eighth grade education. My mom has made me like a fifth grade education from Mexico. So I mean, they just, they didn’t know any English. So they learned now there are very fluent, they speak English, but back then it was getting lower jobs. I think my dad went to the first mechanic place in, just told him, Hey, let me allow me to let me switch it for free. As long as I learn the trade. So the owner said, okay, that’s fine. If you’re not going to charge me, you can sweep you and clean and you learn to trade at a higher you, if not, then, you know, thank you.
Eddie Garcia (11m 8s):
But no things. And I think just, I was like a, an entry job at a factory and they took her right away. So I don’t think any, anything special.
Alina Warrick (11m 16s):
And how does she learn English? Did she take college classes?
Eddie Garcia (11m 19s):
It took some college classes and then she just learned it by watching it probably English TV and just talking to people. But I mean, she speaks it well, my dad is very fluent by my mom’s, you know, more or less Okay
Alina Warrick (11m 30s):
Got it. Got it. Okay. Awesome. Fabulous. Okay. So Eddie, before you tell our listeners about your company and tell me a little bit about the path you took and did you try to go into any other fields before starting your business?
Eddie Garcia (11m 44s):
I actually started at the age of 13, my dad, he gave me a hundred dollars and said, Hey, go get an idea that says that your 18 years old, so you can start working. So I went to in Chicago as a straight call, 26th street were, they have like a lot of illegal IDs and all this stuff. So I went there, I had a fake ID and the ID said it was, I was 18. So I literally went to work at the zoo. I mean, I worked at a clothing stores. I worked at a grocery store. I worked everywhere and I think, you know, I, and I think about it, that kinda helped me develop my brain and my social skills and everything else. So that when I was 21, 22, I already had a five, six years of being in the workforce, interacting with other people, customer service, and a, you know, I would have to work every summer.
Eddie Garcia (12m 33s):
Every winter break, whenever school was off, I would even work during or after school after doing my homework. So it really helped me develop a lot of skills that I have. Now. I went into a little bit to management. I worked for this company in a similar to a GameStop. It was called game crazy inside Hollywood videos. And am I starting from the bottom as, as a key holder? And then I got a, a, an assistant manager job that I went to manage their smallest store that I want to manage their flagship store in. Chicago when it went very, very well. And I thought that I was going to go into management in my district manager really likes me. And he said, Hey, you really have it. You could be a regional manager.
Eddie Garcia (13m 14s):
If you pursue this career, I’ve always been good with kind of managing people, leading, helping people a better or their skills. And I enjoyed it. And a, my story was always ranked very, very high. And then when I was climbing the corporate ladder, I told my dad and my dad, you know, had this self conversation, but I didn’t understand it at the time, but I understand that now where he wasn’t a happy for me, he was like, and he just said like, son, like you don’t wanna ever work for anyone else. You wanna work for yourself? Wow. And I was 20 and I have gone from literally making some dollars an hour or two making, you know, closer to $40,000. And my remember, I was so happy with like, you know, all of these accolades from the outside world in my dad was just not having it.
Eddie Garcia (13m 57s):
He was like, no, that’s not, that’s not what you wanna do. You wanna start your own business? You wanted to do this. And I just, it took me a few years to accept it, but that kind of opened my mind to other things. And then yeah. Then I got into real estate, so,
Alina Warrick (14m 11s):
Okay. So tell me, how did you get into real estate? Did you have friends that were already in that industry? How did you pick real estate?
Eddie Garcia (14m 20s):
So real estate. I got into it by accident because one of my dad’s friends or the dad, you know, the person that helped my dad get his or her first house, I started seeing like things that he was doing. And I was like, Oh yeah, I always ask my dad, what is this guy? Do you always drive a nice car? Or, you know, he had it like a Mercedes that’s 500 at the time. And I knew that it was nice. So what does he do? He was like, he’s a real estate broker. And I was like, that’s what I need to do. So I asked my dad if I could drop out of college. And he said, as long as you promise me that you’ll be a millionaire by the time you’re 30. And that I was like, yeah, that works. So I dropped out of college, I got my real estate license and you have to quit my job at the gang crazy store as a manager.
Eddie Garcia (15m 3s):
And I became a realtor. I had like maybe $7,000 saved to my name. And I remember I spent the $7,000 on ads, like little billboards throughout the city. And I only had enough money for six months. So, you know, it took me six months to close my first transaction. I close my first transaction, how I was able to make $6,000, which I paid the next six months. And at this time it was still living in my parents’ house. So, you know, I was still being fed by them and living under their roof. And then from there, I mean, it was a very, it was a hard struggle. I remember my old boss, my first like broker owner of a real estate company. He like grabbed me a $13,000 for a transaction.
Eddie Garcia (15m 45s):
I closed. And back then 13,000 hours to me, it was a lot of money. I mean, it just meant everything. And it went through a lot of ups and downs and there was a lot of times where I probably should have quit or, you know, I would have came up.
Alina Warrick (15m 57s):
Hey, you robbed you out of $13,000.
Eddie Garcia (15m 59s):
Yeah. And he took $13,000 on a transaction. Yeah.
Alina Warrick (16m 4s):
Hm. And so how old were you when you decided to leave
Eddie Garcia (16m 8s):
21? When they became a realtor. Okay. Yeah. You couldn’t be in a wheelchair until your 21 years. So my got my license at 21 and this happened around 22 years old and I didn’t know any better. So I just didn’t contact an attorney and I just kept going on with my life and closed the other transactions. And, but yeah, but that happened Then six years later, I decided to open my own office, which is I named that realtor of Chicago in 2012. That’s when we open or when I opened it, we had no realtors. We had no name ID. We had no brand, no structure, you know, we have, we work and we start out with an 800 square foot office. We sold about $3 million where the real estate, which was nothing.
Eddie Garcia (16m 51s):
And last year or so we grew from $3 million last year, we sold 370 million.
Alina Warrick (16m 58s):
Oh, wow. What a journey Okay. So how old were you in 2011 when you started to reality of Chicago
Eddie Garcia (17m 5s):
2012? I think I was 26, 27.
Alina Warrick (17m 10s):
Okay. Okay. So that’s still pretty young. So when you were working as a realtor agent, I’m assuming you were working for, or is it a broker company or a Realty company underneath someone? Right correct. Okay. So you, and you did that for six years where you kind of building up your clientele, your expertise, or your experience to eventually start your own royalty, right?
Eddie Garcia (17m 38s):
Oh, you know, it’s a great question. I never envisioned opening. Well, I never envisioned being a realtor. I think no one goes up and says, Hey, I want to be a real estate broker. And I never envisioned an office. The only reason I opened the office in 2012 was because I had friends that for whatever reason, kinda saw my journey and they saw what I was doing and they wanted to work for me. So in my state, the only way you can do that is you have to have a physical office. So like literally, like we came from a club at six in the morning and we just say that, Hey, let’s open a real estate company. And so I could have my friend’s work for me. So that’s how it started.
Eddie Garcia (18m 17s):
And my friends are like, Hey, I want to be a real estate broker, what I’ve got to do. So I told him what they had to do to get licensed and they want me to work for me. So then I found out that I had to have an office of a physical office location to have agents work under me. Yeah. I think if it wasn’t for that reason, I probably woulda never opened an office. So there was never a dream. There were like a vision to do that.
Alina Warrick (18m 37s):
Got it. Yeah and the reason why I was asking that is because maybe because you promised you’re dad by 32 years old, you’re going to become a millionaire. So I was thinking the next step for you is to open up your company and then to grow from there. But I’m sure you succeeded that promise to do with your dad.
Eddie Garcia (18m 56s):
Yeah, no, no. You know, I think I got into real estate and then I started investing in real estate, which helped me get to that goal fairly quickly. So I started, I opened another company called rock capital and rock capital buys, properties and cash fixes them and then resell them. And that’s been a very lucrative, the real estate sales. Also. I have been very lucrative, the brokerage, I just took it to another level since we open our doors, we’ve closed over a billion dollars in sales. Wow. So, I mean, like I said, going from extreme poverty to where I’m at today, so it’s a big blessing.
Alina Warrick (19m 30s):
So this is all stemming, but from your dad hopping on a plane, not knowing where he was going with his friend and he landed in Chicago right?
Eddie Garcia (19m 41s):
Correct. Yeah. He said he was going to Baltimore. So this is something that shouldn’t have been possible. I probably should just have it in Mexico. Yeah. Don’t know what my life would be if I were to be out, if I would have stayed in Mexico city with my parents. So it was like the American dream
Alina Warrick (19m 56s):
And the shout out to your parents’ Oh my goodness. For them in and for all of their efforts. Right. So, and so Eddie, how long did it take your businesses start seeing some real traction in the beginning stages
Eddie Garcia (20m 11s):
And you know what the average realtor sells between like seven and 10 homes a year? I think I was doing 20, 30 homes a year, fairly on my second or third year
Alina Warrick (20m 23s):
Chicago or when you were so
Eddie Garcia (20m 26s):
Low, is that solo solo or, you know, the average realtor in America sells between seven and 10 homes a year. And I think it was doing by the 20, 30 or 40, the first thing, you know, I started in, Oh, so I mentioned that I invested in my life savings into ads. So I’m very traditional slash very millennial. So my traditional marketing, I do a lot of ads on the streets. So I have, I started with six now I have a 104 billboards all over Chicago and suburbs people. And they’ve been not there for over a decade. Some people really know who I am on the street. We get a lot of phone calls from there were also massively big on social media organically.
Eddie Garcia (21m 8s):
We probably get 70% of our businesses on Facebook. Wow. We’re not paying for it. We kind of teach that to our agents. So I mean, if you’re in Chicago market, you know us now, so we started with no brand new identity. Now, no matter if you’re in the North side, South side, downtown or suburbs that you know what a realtor Chicago and you’ve dealt with business with us. So yes, it’s just a lot of hard work at the beginning. I was my head, the ads I was investing in traditional fliers, you know, have my girlfriend at a time passing out flyers at the church. Her mom was passed when he was on the street. I eventually hired to people to help me pass out flyers. And I just started leveraging growing and growing. It went from six signs to 10 to 12 to 20 to 50 to 75.
Eddie Garcia (21m 51s):
I really mastered Facebook is Facebook came in in 2008 type of thing for us. When I joined the wet 2010, I started getting referrals just from people that were on social media following me. So yeah, that’s more or less are, are key to success.
Alina Warrick (22m 5s):
Got it. Got it. Okay. So what makes it the reality of Chicago is stand out? What, is there something that you can say is our passion? Is it our drive? Is it are customer service? Is there some sort of secret talent that you can bring to the reality of Chicago? Because Chicago is a large city. So what makes you guys stand out?
Eddie Garcia (22m 29s):
Yes. So currently we’re at number 29 out of 44, a hundred offices. Wow. Congratulations. Thank you. Thank you. So I think what makes us different is we’re very young company. As far as the average age of a, of the agents here, the average age of a realtor and America is about 62 years old. And my average age is about 27 were very millennial, or we were on a social media before and did virtual showings before, you know, it was cool to do it and not everyone is doing it because of COVID. But then all of the realtors who had to learn It other brokerages have to learn that because obviously the COVID happened, but we were doing it since 2010, 2011, we were taking professional photography.
Eddie Garcia (23m 13s):
We had invested, you know, a lot of money and hiring people to be our photographers. Now we have photographers on staff, videographers on staff. We have a writer on staff, we have graphic designers on staff. So all of these people, or literally all the tools that you need to really sell real estate in today’s world, because everything’s on Instagram, Facebook, Snapchat. So it’s just, I think that’s what makes us special. And you know, it’s just, my agents were so young and they grew up with an iPad or a computer. So to them, you know, translating sales now on Facebook and social media is very easy where I think your traditional real estate companies a little older and they have to learn the skills.
Eddie Garcia (23m 54s):
And there were a few steps behind and that’s, what’s allowed us to catch up so fast
Alina Warrick (23m 59s):
Just using all the tools that are available. So that’s awesome. So I saw a YouTube video of you and it was something like a day in the life of Eddie Garcia and I saw you driving around and Chicago in a nice black Hummer. So it was that your personal driver?
Eddie Garcia (24m 18s):
No, no, no, no, no, no. So that’s my, that is my truck I had for over 10 years. And I was kinda one of the first cool cars that I’ve bought once I saw kind of a hell of a bit of extra money, but that is one of my agent’s. And we were just kind of going around trying to kind of show people what it is. I think that was like a 14 hour day, a 15 hour day, a 16 hour day. When people ask me that, Hey, what did it take to be successful? I mean, it doesn’t, I mean, I always say that work beats talent. I don’t think I’m the smartest. I don’t think I’m the brightest, but I just think I’m the hardest worker out there. And I will put 20 hours if I have to, to fix the problem or to solve, you know, to, to solve an issue.
Eddie Garcia (24m 59s):
And I have done literally, I think my first year, 80 2012, ’cause now it had this huge responsibility. You have to pay rent. You know, I have an office, I had people that depend on me. So I think that year I was working from like nine o’clock in the morning to like two, three, four in the morning, Saturdays were there from nine to four in the morning. Wow. No, I was literally like going home for a few hours to sleep showering, come back. And I did that for a year, for years. I am for sure. The first three years, it was 15 hour days everyday. I had no life. I, you know, I sacrifice my personal life so that I can have what I have today.
Alina Warrick (25m 37s):
So in that YouTube video, I’ve the very end. There was like a little snippets. And as you said, a 16 hour day, you had a 185 Facebook messages or five in person meetings, 15 Snapchat updates in any one phone calls. Is that what it is still today? Or is that a little bit different?
Eddie Garcia (25m 58s):
I think that’s a little bit different now because I went from being an individual agent to overseeing over a 150 realtors. So now my main focus is in Inspiring them helping them, taking them out to lunches, dinners. I am making sure that if there’s anything else we could do to develop a higher new trainers, bring in your managing brokers, hoping you off. This is we’re going to open our fifth office this year. So it’s more of a CEO position. I still handle sales, but I have a team that handles my direct sales. If I have a legacy clients that I helped five years ago, that really wants to go through us. Then we’ll still not so many with them, but the majority of the time is spent with my team.
Eddie Garcia (26m 38s):
But yet it’s a, I think last year I did about 31 million, which is a 118 myself. And again, the average realtor does seven and 10. So whenever a realtor does it, 10 years, I did a new one. And that is still on top of growing the business by 115 million year over year, even though COVID and the riots and everything that we had last year and our business. So exploded and grew.
Alina Warrick (27m 1s):
Wow, good job. So much hard work.
Eddie Garcia (27m 3s):
How about the, the Hummer? I actually ordered the, since everyone knew me on social media was like, Oh, you started with the Hummer and stuff like that. So I actually ordered the new Hummer that’s coming out of the all electric Hummer. So I can’t wait till I get it in. I believe it comes in in September, October.
Alina Warrick (27m 19s):
So it’s like a signature piece because I know a lot of real estate agents do drive around with nice cars is, you know, is that like, if this is the successful realtor, if he comes in a really nice car, I think the clients are like, okay, I think they know what they’re talking about.
Eddie Garcia (27m 35s):
Yeah, no, for me it was, I think everyone knew that I drove that Hummer. And even though like I had a verb for 10 years, so it was like a 10 year old truck and I still like kept it up and it was clean and people knew me as, Oh, he drives like the black Hummer. Now they made the all electric calmer kind of excited to get that in and get it in. So I could kinda take a nice picture. I’m sure people and be like, Oh, you started with the Hummer and now you’re back to the a hundred.
Alina Warrick (27m 57s):
Okay. So Eddy, did you have to raise any capital at the start, your business? And they know you, you said you had like $7,000 in savings. Was that when you were running it as a solo, what about when you were starting Realty of Chicago?
Eddie Garcia (28m 10s):
One of the cool thing is that I didn’t, I always wanted to do it on my own and I’ve never asked my dad or how, yeah, it’s, I, I think I had a seven, $6,000 so that when I spend that money and he literally had no money left when I started the brokerage, I was making a little bit of sales, but, you know, I always invested, I always liked to feel poor. So what I always did is I always bought houses and cash. So I’ve bought over a hundred properties and every single house I ever bought was in cash. So even if I made $200,000 on the month of October, I would go by a property and then bringing my bank account to zero again. So I always invested in real estate and the real estate investing really just kind of grew the business and gave me the capital to buy, you know, another office in another building, invest in opening a fourth office of fifth office and buying fancy computers, fancy printers, you know, and whatever we needed the commercials on TV or invested in more marketing, I’m an investor in payroll.
Eddie Garcia (29m 11s):
So yeah, it just literally after 2012 was a great year of 13 was a great year of 14 was a great year of 15 was a great year. I mean, it just exploded too last year. It just was an incredible year.
Alina Warrick (29m 23s):
Okay. So I do have to ask them, normally Realty transactions are always ran through a bank loan. So how did you develop your whole entire business model through cache? Did you eventually like save up money for your first property then when you sold that you made that profit and you reinvest in to do the second house, or how did you bring up this whole entire model of making everything through cash?
Eddie Garcia (29m 51s):
So I learned in 2000, you know, because when I started real estate was at the end of our things. And then we went through huge recession to us. In the end, I saw the play of the biggest players in town go under. And there was a big company in my neighborhood that he was, he owned a lot of houses here, a lot of offices and he lied, lost everything. And that really kinda stuck by me. So I didn’t want to make the same mistake. And my dad has always been very thrifty and now he’s very successful and he can drive almost any car he wants. He still drives like a, like 1994 Subaru. He never flies for his class. He was just very humble. So that, that like, you know, mentor and I saw what happened to real estate in 2008.
Eddie Garcia (30m 35s):
So the same thing I did with my billboards, where I say, you know, I’ve had my life savings of $7,000 and leveraged that to me to make some money in marketing. I did the same thing once I had a few sales, I think I had like maybe $32,000 in savings from real estate commissions. And I literally went and bought a house that I was 31,500. I had like when I was left to rehab it, to be, to take my girlfriends out, to eat that. I remember it with some hard times I went and bought the house. I have no money left and my house flooded and there was a huge rain storm in Chicago in my house, flooded three feet of water. I was, I had no money. My girlfriend at a time would literally stay with me in the house, in the cold with no plumbing.
Eddie Garcia (31m 17s):
You would like, lemme you use money. I like to eat and to pay my MLS fees or whatever. And remember that house that I bought, I bought it for like 32,000. I maybe put $15,000 into it. And this was during the greatest recession, like in 2008 and everyone thought I was crazy that I had a blast all my money into the property when every day, like the housing market was crashing in a free fall. I sold that house in like December for 150,000. Oh wow. And you know, I was super young. I was maybe 24 years old and I sold that house four, sold it for a 152. So I mean, I was all in maybe 50, 60,000.
Eddie Garcia (31m 59s):
So I made like 80,000, $70,000 profit. And then instead of buying like an escalator or a Mercedes, I went and bought to other houses. I have fixed those. I sold those. Then I bought four houses when I bought six and I bought eight and it just kept going that way. And that’s how I meant it literally cache. But yeah, that’s a funny story. When I went and bought my first nice car in Miami, I remember I wanted to get a bank loan and just because I was like, Oh, you know, like, let’s go get some credit. And I remember that my banker at chase, as I can get whatever a car you want, or, you know, you’re fine. And I applied with chase and they declined me and they only approve me for like a Kea. And I had a call, my business banker Chicago at, it was like, Hey, chase is in Miami.
Eddie Garcia (32m 41s):
He’s telling me I can’t by the car at one time. And they’re like, what? Let me talk to them. So we call them the salesman. He was like, there’s no way you’re going to buy this car. Or, you know, he was just dreaming and the bank or spoke to the underwriter. I had chased the, Miami say like, Hey, this guy, he is my client very successful. He owns all of this property. And the underwriter’s like Yeah, but there’s no like loans, whereas what’s going on. And I don’t see anything that he was like this man, literally he bought a house in cash. And as he went to buy 10, 15, 20, 40, I handle his accounts. He is good. So then the salesmen is like, I’ve never seen this before, but your good to go and you can take the car. Yeah. So
Alina Warrick (33m 17s):
Are you crazy? So you were just showing proof that being in Realty, you can still have it made with the cash transaction Yeah
Eddie Garcia (33m 26s):
Yeah. Yeah. I’ve always even to today, like the My, our main office is all cash. There is no loans. We don’t have any credit card debt. Our company is very safe, very healthy because you know, you never know if the market crashes tomorrow, we’ll be fine. We don’t have to be selling 1500 houses a year to pay the bills. So I’m always never wanted to repeat the myth. You know, like what I saw it in 2008 where people just went under. So that’s why I still today, I still buy everything and cash as far as our property is investments. And if the market ever pulls back and I need to sell something, I just cut a 20%. It will sell, make a prophet and sell it right. Or keep it. So the market, the back up. So
Alina Warrick (34m 5s):
Yeah. What a genius business model. So good stuff. Good stuff. Eddie I wanted to ask you, did you have any mentors that helped you out to start your business?
Eddie Garcia (34m 16s):
I didn’t. The real estate business has kind of cut throat. And I remember I went to a few people that I saw, they were top producers in my field and, you know, I asked me why, but they don’t know how to ask correctly, but it just, they weren’t open to the idea of helping because obviously then you’re growing your competition, but it was literally just learning mistake after mistake. I remember when I listen to my first property and meaning that someone wanted, he said, okay, we are crazy enough to have you sell our house. I listed that contract on the buyer’s contract because they didn’t know any better. And I literally on the buyer and I put seller and that was it. The brokerage I started out, or if it was just a very small shop, they know what they were doing in, in all of these like little, like, things that have happened to me is how I created at like the company that I have.
Eddie Garcia (35m 3s):
Right. Having better managers, having trainers, having, you know, these resources because I understood what I went through. So now when I bring new realtors, I want them to have a wealth of knowledge, a wealth of people here, like, Hey, we’re here to help. We can help you with this. So I don’t want people to go through the same process that I had to go through it. So.
Alina Warrick (35m 23s):
Cool. What do you think most prepared to you to become an entrepreneur? Is there anything that you can see specifically that prepared you in any way?
Eddie Garcia (35m 32s):
My dad, I always saw, my dad worked 15, 16 hour days. You have a job and that he had another job. I would only see him on Sundays and on Sunday’s when I saw him, he would make me read the wall street journal. He would make me read on a newspaper from Mexico not to go out, to play with my friends. He would tell me, I have to practice on the keyboard for an hour. Cause back then, you know, people who are barely getting into the computers. So he knew that being able to type really fast and accurately was going to be a good quality and Phil and yeah. You know, my dad just, you know, always would tell me when I would leave the house. When I would go to school is like, make sure you study because you are illegal.
Eddie Garcia (36m 12s):
And if you’d get bad grades for me to report it. So he told me that every single day, you know, on my way out to the school. So it was just kinda of like, my dad always pushed me, pushed me, pushed me. And that’s why when I came into, you know, I guess he prepared me to the real world because the real world is not a nice sometimes, you know, people are taking advantage of you are backstabbing. You know, he prepared me for all that. So it was kinda good. And I think if he would have nurtured me in a shelter, sheltered me a lot, I wouldn’t have been ready for this. And that probably would have quit and said, Oh, dad, real estate was too hard. You know, I’m going to go do something else.
Alina Warrick (36m 43s):
So how long were you guys illegal residents in Chicago?
Eddie Garcia (36m 47s):
Well, in the U S we are legal, so we were 12 years old. That’s when we became us citizens.
Alina Warrick (36m 54s):
And what was that process? Like you said that he kept on reminding you that you were illegal. Did you know like what the repercussions were or did you think that that was normal? Or how was that transition? Like,
Eddie Garcia (37m 7s):
I didn’t, I didn’t put too much time into it. I just remember he would tell me all the time, but, you know, I would go to a high school or a grammar school and I would hang out with your friends. I was just normal with them. Sure. Of the schools that I went to. There was a lot of illegal students. There are too, you know, we grow up in a 90%, you know, Mexican community. So, but yeah, no going into the school was normal, but I remember my dad would always remind me, Hey, you know, your legal made sure that you study. I think he just did it just to push me, but I don’t say my dad was my biggest mentor.
Alina Warrick (37m 39s):
Yeah. It’s so powerful. Okay. So I’m really interested to know how do you look at failures and how do you overcome them?
Eddie Garcia (37m 47s):
I think one of my biggest qualities or like reasons for success is that failures. I don’t know if I enjoy them, but I take a step back, think what I did and I have to fix it. Also. One other thing too, is when I make decisions, you know, like, or we’re opening up for the office or we’re doing this, or are we doing that? Whatever we’ve done on buying that property? I never think about it. I was just do it. You know, I never say, Oh, let me sleep on it. Or I’ll think about that tomorrow. We’ll decide just even from when I open the office, literally coming from the cloud though. Okay. Let’s open up. Let’s work. This is going to be the location to assign, or at least buying an investment property, opening another office. I just literally just react and I don’t do it.
Eddie Garcia (38m 28s):
I think a lot of people, they overthink a lot of things and it just slows them down drastically. I think a lot of people take in a very personal leader is almost kind of a part of life. I have failed so many times and I feel many times, but I just had a few good luck things that I’ve done good that have helped me and people remember those, but I’ve had many failures just like everyone else. And whenever something bad happens to me, I just keep moving forward. I’m already, well, the next block, a few seconds later, like I just don’t care. I guess maybe it was a good word. Yeah. Just that affect me.
Alina Warrick (39m 2s):
That’s really good to put that in perspective to just brush it off. Sometimes it is hard if there are a big failures, you know, but in the beginning stages when we’re growing or businesses have failures, they’re not that big. So you can fail all of the time, but when it’s a huge corporation or when it’s, the company gets bigger, things can be kind of a hard. So I guess the accepting failure is, as it is and keep on moving forward is the key. Right?
Eddie Garcia (39m 28s):
Yeah. And I, I think it’s maybe the opposite as far as I think the failures at the very beginning are very crucial because every decision you make it at the very beginning can kill your business. I think now that we’re at a large scale, it almost insulates us a little bit. You know, we make mistakes here and there, but we have so many managers now that all we do is focus on how can we build a better, how can we do a better, how can we help the age? How can you know, where do we have to open another office? What marketing, what do you have to do on social media? Or what’s, you know what I was thinking the next step, but I think it’s a lot, but yeah, we’re, we’re super careful, but you know, I think it was just a lot more crucial at the very beginning, especially when it lost the $13,000 that the broker took for me.
Eddie Garcia (40m 12s):
And that was devastating. I remember it. I was, I was super sad. I probably cried, you know, there was an attorney, I was in Costa Rica for Christmas, for new years in the day. Like literally it was, it, it was December 31st. I was closing my last deal. It was the old number one 18 for myself. And as an attorney that day, the day before, just send this email, Hey, just so you know, M the realtor, a fact you’re not gonna get paid. And that, I was like, Oh my gosh, this is so crazy. Like I remember I got a raft, $13,000 at the beginning of my career. And now this guy’s trying to take like $11,000 for me. So Puerto Rico, but Now, Eddie Garcia is completely different. I have legal council. I have an amazing team. And even when I’m trying to do it at the last minute, in the last hour, before the end of the year, you know, he got our attorney involved.
Eddie Garcia (40m 57s):
We got our superstars involved in the attorney life. I think that a day later, just to say, Oh, I’m sorry. Never mind your right. That’s your mind? So that didn’t work.
Alina Warrick (41m 7s):
Okay. And you were definitely prepared at that time and lets switch gears and talk about successes. Are there any successes that you would like to outline from your Immigrant Entrepreneur journey? And I know you’ve mentioned So so many already. Is there anything else that you would like to add?
Eddie Garcia (41m 24s):
I think right now, what is going to take us to the next level is a, we just signed an agreement with a local college in our area for us to be the provider of real estate classes for the school. And that’s going to help us grow to the next level because we want to get two to 300 realtors for a hundred realtors, 500 realtors. And to get to that scale, you know, we can do it the way we’ve been doing it as just referral social media people walking into our stores, you know, referrals from other realtors. But I think literally on the next level is this move that we did where now we potentially are going to have 320 students sign up with more than college.
Eddie Garcia (42m 6s):
And now we can probably hire a, a, a, a hundred of them. So that will help us grow exponentially. So that’s of course the success that we’ve been working on for the last few months,
Alina Warrick (42m 17s):
That was amazing because in college they don’t provide like a real estate major. Right? ’cause the only thing that you need to do is get that Realty license. But where are these classes offered or are they now are offered? And how did you guys come up with that idea
Eddie Garcia (42m 35s):
Literally happening on social media or someone a high in their department reached out to us then when we met with them and when we met with them, we met with the president, like everyone, full board meeting, where we told them what we’re trying to do. And they said like, Hey, why don’t you offer you a real estate classes and our institution? And then I was like, wow, that’d be amazing. So I’ve been working on it for the last three months. We’re going to have our first class at the end of this month, which is going to be 18 to 80 students. So what are, we’ll have 80 students if we need more of a ramp up more but yeah, it’s potentially its, you know, that’s kinda of are something that I’m very proud of right now.
Eddie Garcia (43m 14s):
I’m going to say, Hey, what’s something you have accomplished.
Alina Warrick (43m 17s):
Yeah. That was awesome. And then, so no one else offers these classes.
Eddie Garcia (43m 22s):
They do. So there’s probably like maybe 50 places that offer them, but there’s really no one that offers them. Like in our community, everything is like far away or Northwest suburbs, downtown Chicago, the North side. But to be like in our neck of the woods, it’s not many offices have done that. So we wanted to make sure that we provided that in our community.
Alina Warrick (43m 44s):
Got it, got it. Oh my goodness. I’m so excited for that good job. And it is so what does the American dream mean to you?
Eddie Garcia (43m 52s):
The American dream means opportunity means that you can change your life. This country has afforded me a lot of things. And now that I can travel the world and, and C other countries, I mean in this country is still amazing just to be in a level playing field that you could do whatever you want when you come here. I mean, if you want to be on government assistance, you can do that. If you wanna become the best manager at our company, you can do that. If you want to be an entrepreneur and no college degree and open, you know, get into real estate, which is a super competitive and getting a field where you could succeed in, in a fight with the best you can do that. So to me, the American dream is an incredible, I feel like I’m living in it right now.
Eddie Garcia (44m 35s):
I’m very blessed. Now what I’m trying to do is to bless others, by trying to help them also achieve what I did and not even know, like, okay, I came here illegally. I’m Brown is just like you guys. I didn’t know any better. And if I can do it, you can do it. So yeah.
Alina Warrick (44m 50s):
And that means that anyone coming here from other countries they can read to their American dream as well. Right
Eddie Garcia (44m 58s):
Correct. Yes.
Alina Warrick (44m 59s):
So is giving back either volunteering time or giving back to the community is something that is part of your business values.
Eddie Garcia (45m 7s):
Yes. So, you know, for me, the reason why I’ve given the school supplies is because I know what it is to go to school with an old school bag. And you know, once you get older, you start realizing that you were poor, right? When you were five years old, six years old, you really don’t notice it. But once other kids start making fun of you or do you start seeing that they get a new school supplies, stuff like that, you do realize that you’re not the same as them. So every time that we do every time that we give out school supplies, when the school year starts, we get them a name brand Elmer’s glue, Crayola, crayons, scissors four. There is no books, really a nice school bags is not the cheap ones.
Eddie Garcia (45m 47s):
When we do the Thanksgiving, we get thousands of turkeys every year to families in need because we also didn’t have, you know, what Turkey for Thanksgiving. So it just, you know, stuff like that. I am very blessed to be where I’m at. So I always encourage it. I get businesses around us to contribute and make the venue larger. And I think this year we fed 20, we’ve had 15,000 people since we started the program, we’ve had a 50,000 people. So it’s a blessing to be able to give back
Alina Warrick (46m 17s):
In this school supplies are going too, where just in the neighborhood that you guys were passing them out, where are you guys partnering up with someone?
Eddie Garcia (46m 25s):
So we’ve put it out on social media and the I’m telling you everything on social media or we’d just literally put a flyer out, but they were giving us a lot of supplies because we have been doing it for so long people who already know it. They kind of messages, are they, Hey, are you going to give, when you guys give me the school supplies? And so people always kind of expect it as something that we’ve done, almost a tradition and our lines literally go for a blocks this year for what we did at the Thanksgiving event. And the line must’ve gone ate city blocks in cars, or just like literally, like, it was amazing. I mean, it’s just literally kinda crushed my heart at that same time. But to see a need in the community for eight or at least eight Sydney blocks.
Eddie Garcia (47m 5s):
Just like people get up in their cars, waiting for a Turkey for the school supplies. People will line up. And it’s just all of these little kid’s come in and we don’t ask for ideas, but when I asked for registration and they don’t have to be from our town and it can be from anywhere, the cool thing we did this year with the turkeys is we open it up to all their offices. So all four offices at the same time, on the same day he gave to her keys away, which is pretty cool. Even then we had eight city blocks at our Berwyn location. All of our other offices were jam-packed as well. So that just kind of tells you how drastic, like the need was in our communities, how they were hurting because of COVID and you know, a lot of people lost their jobs, so
Alina Warrick (47m 45s):
Wow. What an amazing part to be, and to be a blessing, the community that you are surrounded. And so that’s so, so awesome. Eddie what are some things that you would advise the next is spiring Immigrant that wants to start their own business. So listening to you or right now
Eddie Garcia (48m 3s):
My tell him is going to be hard, is going to be a lot of hard work. Don’t give up, make decisions for that, you know, just make them fast, take your losses learned from them. Yeah. And it’s, it’s going to be a very, very hard, very difficult, but if you really want it, you know, like I told you, I didn’t have money to, and sometimes, like I remember my girlfriend that time would have to feed me and give me money to like, literally it’s so crazy to be able to say that, right. Like I remember I did have money to take her out, to eat or to pay my bills. So literally I struggled immensely, but I know that I wanted it more. So. Yeah. So even though when I had all of, you know, I fell on my face so many times I caught back up and a bunch of water.
Eddie Garcia (48m 48s):
And as long as you learn from your mistakes, you’ll be fine. You know, it’s okay to make mistakes. You just learn from them, improve from them, then you have to be
Alina Warrick (48m 55s):
So, so powerful. Awesome. Thank you so much for sharing that. Is that it? To wrap it up? I have some super-fast questions if you are okay with that. Okay. What time do you normally start your day?
Eddie Garcia (49m 6s):
So now my, my life is getting a lot more balanced before I was working 15 hour days. Then I’ve always been kinda of like a night owl. So I would always would say two or three or four in the morning to work. But now I wake up probably a little earlier now. So I’ll wake up, maybe six 30 service clients, emails, check with my assistants, see if there’s any issues for the day, look at the calendar, but I don’t usually get into the office. So maybe nine o’clock. And then I have all my meetings have changed now to just making sure that my agents are good. What are the next moves? Are we going to make? And I’m trying to leave the office now by six o’clock and then usually have dinner with one of my agent’s or I have a launch or something, but, but, you know, my days are a lot of getting a lot better than before.
Alina Warrick (49m 55s):
Good, good. And so happy to hear that, but we have to understand that it was not like this in the beginning stages. So,
Eddie Garcia (50m 3s):
And you talk to me three years ago. I mean, I was literally 15, 16 hour days. I think there was a day that I, I don’t remember if I, I didn’t sleep, but I mean, it was just, I mean, to get to where I’m at, took a lot of work, a lot of hard work, a lot of sacrifice a lot. I’m not going out, but it’s something that now has paid off and I’m really happy with that.
Alina Warrick (50m 23s):
Right. So the next one is how many employees do you have? And I, it will include the agent’s as well
Eddie Garcia (50m 28s):
With, so we have a construction company and with the media team, we have agents, we have staff, I would say probably close to 200 now.
Alina Warrick (50m 36s):
So you have a construction company. Oh, the remodeling one.
Eddie Garcia (50m 39s):
Yes. So all of our projects get done by our construction team or they have been with me for over 10 years. We also have a staging team. So now, you know, we offer on top of professional photography of videos and, and graphic design. We will stage our client’s houses. We will paint their houses. We will make these houses as amazing as possible so that when they hit the market, they sell so that it was literally like sets us apart from most companies that don’t have those services yet.
Alina Warrick (51m 8s):
Yeah. And you guys are a one stop shop for everything real TV related or is it the next one is how often do you watch TV?
Eddie Garcia (51m 16s):
You know what? I probably read four to five hours a day on my phone, but I don’t watch as much TV as I used to. I’m a big movie guy, but right now with COVID, it’s kind of been very depressing because of the movie studios have stopped filming. So literally no movies have been coming out, but I try to Netflix here and there on a Sunday, I try and take it off and just watch TV, watch a football game. Kind of clear my mind.
Alina Warrick (51m 42s):
You said that you read, you read like books on your phone,
Eddie Garcia (51m 45s):
You know, like wall street journal Chicago, you know, sometimes, I mean, any a news article by nine o’clock I’ve read everything that has.
Alina Warrick (51m 55s):
Okay. And the last one is how many hours of work do you normally put it in on an average in a week?
Eddie Garcia (52m 1s):
Probably 60 Then that’s now. I mean, before I was doing a lot more by about 60. Yeah. Awesome.
Alina Warrick (52m 9s):
Well, Hey Eddie thank you so much for coming on to the Immigrant Entrepreneurs podcast. What an amazing journey to have traveled through the desert and to become who you are right now, what a successful business. You’re running a lots of different businesses too, and I wish you all the best of successes and I hope to stay connected with you.
Eddie Garcia (52m 32s):
Thank you so much, best of luck with your program as well. And thank you so much for having me today.
Alina Warrick (52m 38s):
Alrighty guys, thank you so much for tuning in. If there are any links that were mentioned in this episode, make sure to check them out on my website under this Episode to find all the links conveniently located in the show notes. I just wanted to ask or a quick favor. If you could please leave a review wherever you’re listening to this podcast. All so if you’re an Immigrant Entrepreneur and would love to be on my podcast, please email me and we’ll get connected. All of see you guys all in the next time for another exciting and impactful episode, take care.
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