HEATHER EWING: The CRE RUNdown

Ep. 68 Georgy Marrero - Baseball Town to Silicon Valley: How a $1000 Gamble Paid Off

• Heather Ewing, CCIM • Season 1 • Episode 68

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Georgy Marrero shares his fascinating journey from AI engineer at Meta and Amazon to successful commercial real estate investor and developer, revealing how he applies his deep tech background to revolutionize the CRE space.

• Made the leap to commercial real estate seeking autonomy, freedom, and purpose
• Started with a house for his grandmother that unexpectedly yielded a 20% return in seven months
• Evolved from residential to multifamily, light industrial, senior housing, and land development
• Learned underwriting through YouTube, podcasts, and forums before advancing through networking
• Integrates AI across his business, from construction monitoring to marketing and underwriting
• Emphasizes that AI supplements but doesn't replace human expertise and critical thinking
• Moved from Dominican Republic to California at 17 with just $1,000
• Balances emotional intelligence with logical analysis when making important decisions
• Draws courage from past successes when facing new challenges
• Defines living fully as creating impact beyond himself to benefit family and others

Connect with Georgie on LinkedIn and Instagram by searching for his name: Georgy Marrero.


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Speaker 1:

Thank you for joining me on Heather Ewing, the CRE Rundown. We are coming to you with a great guest. It is none other than Georgie, and he is of Equus Georgie, welcome.

Speaker 2:

Thank you, Heather. Very happy to be here.

Speaker 1:

Definitely so. We met through LinkedIn, like I do many of my guests. It's an emporium for great professionals that are hard hitting, that are overcoming challenges and are really hitting their stride. Can you share with us a little bit more about yourself?

Speaker 2:

Absolutely Well. So I'm in the commercial real estate space, like a lot of the listeners are, and a little bit different is. I come from a deep tech background in AI. So before being full time in commercial real estate, investing and development, I was doing AI engineering at Meta, facebook and Amazon and also had my own startup. Today I focus a lot on the commercial real estate, but also bringing AI into the space, which is a very unique intersection.

Speaker 1:

Oh, that would be heavenly. I mean, you couldn't ask for a better setup, right.

Speaker 2:

Yep, yeah, it's the new and the old together.

Speaker 1:

Exactly what drew you into commercial real estate.

Speaker 2:

I think it was autonomy and freedom, and that means very different things for different people, and even my own definition of them has been evolving with time. But I think with that evolution my purpose has gained more clarity and you know I couldn't be happier with what commercial real estate has allowed me to do. But it was autonomy, freedom and purpose.

Speaker 1:

That's terrific. So, delving in a little bit further, how did you make the transition? A lot of times people will identify here I am. This is what I want, but the gap seems too far right, where it's so big that I think it's almost like the deer in the headlights where they get frozen. Can you break down or share a couple of the steps that really helped you to make the transition?

Speaker 2:

Yes, heavy education. Investment in education was, I think, the key, because investing you can do it in so many different ways. So investing you can do it in so many different ways. But I figure that if you try to do it on your own, figure it out all on your own, you can get into a lot of different rabbit holes. So networking and finding people that were already on the path and were successful and were auto-corporate, that was one of the things that I did.

Speaker 2:

But honestly, heather, I didn't start that way. I started just jumping in and doing some deals and I started with residential real estate first. The first active deal that I did wasn't really an investment. It was actually a house for my grandmother at the time. But the geek in me decided to underwrite the deal just like if it was an investment, and I'm very glad that I did, because a few things happened where my grandmother didn't want the house after I finished it and I just sell it and I made about a 20% return. Seven months at the time they didn't know what I was doing, but it came out really well and that turned on the light bulb and I continued investing. That got me into duplexes, condos, short-term rentals, and then I made the leap into more multifamily. I mean bigger multifamily in the dozens of unit 80 units, 70 units, 100 units and nowadays I have light industrial. I do developments in the senior housing space, horizontal development with land, and I don't know what's going to be like in five years, but I'm ready for it.

Speaker 1:

Right, there's always an opportunity for growth. Right.

Speaker 2:

Absolutely.

Speaker 1:

So another question that if someone is new or wanting to get into the arena, too right of breaking it down a little bit further. So you buy your grandmother this house, which is fantastic, and the underwriting. Where did you learn how to underwrite? Did you attend different networking events? Did you ask to mentor with someone? Did you go to our friend YouTube, or was there another source that you used back then?

Speaker 2:

Okay, so the first underwriting I did. I still have the spreadsheet and I would be embarrassed to show the underwriting that I did if I still have the spreadsheet and I would be embarrassed to show the underwriting that I had at the time. Yes, my underwriting skills have evolved significantly after that, but I was going on YouTube, listening to a lot of podcasts just like this one and reading forums and I just put a few pieces together. It made sense. I did not characterize all of the risks, but just enough for that particular time.

Speaker 1:

Right.

Speaker 2:

And the evolution I mean several years later, once I really understood how a performance should look like, how to correctly estimate going in and exit, cap rates and vacancies and what a costar report is in all of these things. I learned that through networking and groups and mentorships, just by being in the circles where there were people already acquiring these properties. So at the beginning it was all self-thought, by just listening passively. And then how I evolved my underwriting skills was being surrounded by people that knew what they were doing and having a quick feedback loop of here's what I think it should look like and then telling them, then telling me you know, this number should change Right.

Speaker 1:

Well, and I think that's the beauty too, is that, as you put the time in and you keep going up different rungs of knowledge, of understanding how to underwrite, also reducing liability risk, and I, of course, always like to plug that it's really important to have great broker relationships, because so much of that is the deals that are not on the market that you hear about and I'm a broker myself, as you know and it's the relationships that we cultivate over the years decade plus that. That's where, yes, it is one simple call, but what people often forget is it's all of the years of providing value, contributing, doing deals, great returns, that type of thing that really do present those types of opportunities. So kudos to you, too, for continuing to put yourself in the arena where you can. Obviously you're working hard and you're doing the best of your ability, and then they're able to take you up to that next rung and the next and the next, which is always very exhilarating, in my opinion.

Speaker 2:

Yep, I totally agree.

Speaker 1:

Definitely so. Circling back to the AI, so you had that in the initial years. How do you see it shifting and changing and where do you anticipate commercial real estate going in the next couple of years?

Speaker 2:

Oh, that's a fascinating question. Ai has been evolving, as everybody knows, so rapidly, and I think there are still many years of evolution. And I think there are still many years of evolution. I believe that we're not yet using it to its full potential.

Speaker 1:

Definitely.

Speaker 2:

The way that we use AI today for the commercial real estate investing. It touches everything from acquisitions to the financing all the way to the operations, and I can give some examples. For instance, there are construction projects that we're doing, and my expertise has been computer vision cameras that tell us what's going on, how much progress was made. That helps us a lot with the supervision of the projects. That's just one small way that we use it, of course, in social media and treating parts of your business like a marketing and sales funnel. There's a lot of ways that AI can be deployed there, not just in content creation, but also in the follow-up. As a broker, I'm pretty sure follow-up is one of the most important things on how business is made. Same for investing and development as well.

Speaker 1:

Definitely. If you think about it, that consistency and the follow-through is what does create and maintain the trust with your different clients and also talking with new people.

Speaker 2:

Absolutely. And lastly, on the acquisitions, ai has. Probably a lot of people remember when you used to ask AI what is two plus two and it said I think it's three. But today is a little bit different because now it has different tools and sometimes I'm experimenting with AI and I'm doing some calculations and it's saying just drop the rent roll unit mix and the T12. I'll actually help you do that. I'm like whoa, slow down. I didn't know. You knew how to do this. And when you actually share those information with the AI, now it's writing its own code to do parts of the underwriting. But I do want to caution that you still need to know the math and the why and the inners, because AI can only help you so much. You always have to be a critic and challenge some of the assumptions. So AI does not replace that knowledge, it just supplements it very well so you can do things faster.

Speaker 1:

Definitely, and I agree, you have to fact check things. And that's where sometimes I like to just pull up different comps for the Madison market here in Wisconsin, where I am, and sometimes they're on and other times it's like that couldn't be further off. It's citing a triple net instead of the base rent, but it has it reversed or it's just a very different numbers. So again it comes back to those relationships where when you broker different transactions, you definitely know not only all of the rents, the TIs, abated rents, everything else that went into the deal, which is priceless, costar, the other MLSs, they're nice but they're definitely not the full story. So I agree completely, fact-checking is crucial.

Speaker 1:

Now we were talking earlier and you were born in the Dominican Republic, which I think is fantastic. Share a little bit more about that and how do you think that's helped you to really get ahead in investing?

Speaker 2:

Yes, so I grew up in the Dominican Republic, in this city called San Pedro de Macorís, which is a big baseball city. If you look at the aerial view, there's a bunch of stadiums for baseball, and we were speaking a bit about sport as well, because I know you're a marathon runner. Yes, I used to play baseball. I did 10 years. Everybody from that town plays baseball, but it was a very humble family that I grew up with, and I always told a story about how I started in the world of tech, and I was around seven years old where my dad bought a computer. That was one of the major gifts that he gave me.

Speaker 1:

Yes.

Speaker 2:

And my mother put dial-up internet at the time, so that was one upgrade that she did.

Speaker 1:

Yep Brings you back, doesn't it?

Speaker 2:

It does it does. So I was just a very curious kid with a computer on the internet just exploring his curiosity. So that the part of where I'm exploring the curiosity was is very important, because even today, everything I do is driven by my curiosity. But when I fast forward, when I was 17, I had to decide what to do and I had a few scholarships and ability to go to universities in the Dominican Republic and I decided to not do that and move to California.

Speaker 1:

That's a bold move.

Speaker 2:

Yes, I had about $1,000 to my name. I didn't have financial support from my parents because they couldn't, so I just moved to figure it out. In one year I was already working in a software company, making almost six figures, and I was just 19.

Speaker 2:

So, every time I am doing a new business or I am working on a new real estate deal and it seems daunting and I feel the fear in my body. I try to remember all of the, all of the things, all of the moments that I was brave and and I think, having that log of moments that I didn't know what was going to happen but I still jumped and I came on the other side. Even better, that helps me take the leap at the next and the next event.

Speaker 1:

Definitely. It's like a muscle, just like a physical muscle, that the more you do something, the stronger it's going to get and the greater ability you have to trust it. I always say that there should be an excitement for what you're thinking of, but also tempered with a little fear, and that's when you know you're on the right path.

Speaker 2:

Absolutely, absolutely, yeah, fear. Fear can mean different things. Fear can mean really not do that, or it could mean you should really do this.

Speaker 1:

Well, and that's for me, that's how I differentiate between the yes and the no. How do you differentiate the fear of yes versus no.

Speaker 2:

The way I do it. I'm I'm a very logical person, but I also listen to my emotions and that's the whole EQ uh system and all of that. But I feel something and that's really the feeling, that's the emotion. But then I write it down and I and I and I think about, about it logical, if many days pass and I'm still thinking about it, or maybe sometimes months maybe. I remember when I was still a w-2 worker, I I knew I felt like I needed to jump into entrepreneurship full time because I was limited in my success there, and then I waited three months and I still felt that so if I get that recurring nudge of you should be doing that thing, you should be doing that thing, I I stop and I try to listen to it and I try to find a way. So that that's one that's with time but also getting the feelings and the logical side of things on paper. And if there's really no catastrophic risk, I tend to just go ahead and take the leap at that point.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, definitely, and that's a nice thing is everyone, I think, can sense in different ways and you kind of learn your own tricks of the trade. If you want to say, in making those decisions of it's trial and error, right Of these are the indications, this was the decision, what was the result, and life is a series of those and that's where you also hope that people continually refine that and get better.

Speaker 1:

But I really do like balancing the emotional EQ along with the facts and understanding the upside and the downside, because you have to be able to accept either if that's the choice you're going to make. So, jumping back a little bit in time again, when you moved to California, did you start investing? You were making the six figures. Did you start investing then or did making the six figures? Did you start investing then or did it come later?

Speaker 2:

It came later, but there was an event about six months before moving to California and two books that I read, and one of them was Robert Kiyosaki's Rich Dad or Poor Dad, and the other one was Napoleon Hill's Think and and grow rich yes napoleon hills really gave me the courage.

Speaker 2:

it just showed me that if there's a will, there's a way. Rich that poor. That explained to me the importance of of time, that it's way more important than money and that money is just a, that time is the most valuable resource, and it made me understand how real estate allows you to really make your wealth reclaim your time. I'm just going to put it like that succinctly. But I didn't have money and I still wanted to do the tech, so I just put the book in my back pocket and I just went with Napoleon Hill's book and I just decided to make my own journey, going to California and then subsequently going into University of California, berkeley, to study AI and all of that. It wasn't until I started working at Meta as a full-time engineer that I started investing in real estate. That's when I pulled Robert Kiyosaki's book out, I reread it and then I started on that journey of investing.

Speaker 1:

Which is a great point, because so many times people think that you know, we as professionals read something and then it happens right away, and sometimes it does, but other times, such as that is, the seed is planted, it's germinated and over time then the bamboo shoots up right, which is really important.

Speaker 1:

And I also think something I've noticed over the years is people want to make a decision and they want a guarantee that they are going to get this result at this time point and this and, as you know, the only promise in life is change and things of that nature, and you can control how you react and what you choose, but that's your own domain. But something I like to share with people is that I liken it to a tree and you make a choice, and so you're going up the tree and you might veer off a little bit more to one side, and you're continually going up. It may not be the exact destination that you thought, but typically it's something even better that maybe you couldn't conceive, similar to moving to California. I'm sure you never conceived you would be where you're at today. Right, it wasn't the exact vision, but it's even better.

Speaker 2:

Absolutely, it's even better.

Speaker 1:

Definitely so. My last hard hitting question for you, Georgie, is what does living fully mean to you?

Speaker 2:

Yes, what does living fully mean to me? I'm a very family oriented person and you know, nowadays a lot of the things that I do goes beyond what I can do for myself, but what I can do for my parents, my siblings, my aunts, uncle. So I think living fully to me means giving and just having an impact that goes beyond my own life, my immediate life.

Speaker 1:

Which says it all right there. Well, georgie, thank you so much for joining me, and how can people connect with you?

Speaker 2:

LinkedIn is a great place, as well as Instagram. Those are the two social media that I'm typically on the DMs and the messages that I respond myself. So just my full name, georgie Marrero, and I'm sure it's going to be linked on the notes as well.

Speaker 1:

Perfect, it sure will be, georgie. Thanks so much for joining me today and I look forward to connecting with you further on LinkedIn.

Speaker 2:

Absolutely. Thank you so much, Heather.