Justin Stoddart
Welcome back to The Think Bigger Real Estate Show. I'm your host Justin Stoddart, very excited about today for any of you that have aspired to be a real estate investor, and or you've aspired even to work with real estate investors. I know a lot of this audience is residential real estate agents wanting to serve people and help them not just buy and sell homes, but to really build wealth through real estate. Today's episode is going to be ideal for you because you're going to learn more about the commercial lending space from someonr that truly is an expert. Before I get into introducing him, I want to remind you that my mission is to wake you up to help you recognize the potential that's within you, and then to inspire and help you to live a life in pursuit of that potential. And I'm grateful for the guests that come on because they are hand selected because people that can help us think bigger. So again, I want to welcome today's guest Robert Barthelmess with BGI Capital. Truly an inspirational story, as well as now hehas built a small little company and brand that is helping a lot of people be real estate investors or better real estate investor. So Robert, I want to thank you for coming on to the show today. Very, very happy to have you here with us.
Robert Barthelmess
Justin, thank you for having me on your show. I'm a huge fan of your show. And I want to start by thanking you work for everything that you do for the industry, or the material that you put out there. It's phenomenal.
Justin Stoddart
Awesome. Thank you, Robert. Really appreciate that. You know, Robert, I found that we have some things in common that we both have a love of family. I think that's probably true of most people, but we probably take it to the next level. Robert has five children. I have six. Robert tell us really quickly. What is your favorite part about being a dad?
Robert Barthelmess
You know, jumping into the whole experience, right? It's a very family oriented person, otherwise I wouldn't have five kids. So it's a really the whole the whole pie. Yes. Being able to give to them to be with them to guide them to form part of their lives.
Justin Stoddart
Powerful. You know, I'm a fan again, part of the thing, that the mission I have on the Think Bigger Real Estate Show it's not just all about business. It's about actually having business, either to an ideal life to a better life. And I think you probably feel that way as well as your career is a vehicle to help you with and serve the people that you love the most. So, you know, always fun being around people like you that all love family.
That's kind of your core value. Let's get into your story a little bit, right? You came here from Peru, and have had phenomenal success. I oftentimes, envy and please don't take this wrong, because I know that there's many, many benefits of being actually born here in the US, but it's so I'm always so impressed by people who migrate here. And they come and they have amazing success as you have had. And I think there's something about leaving a country that maybe doesn't have the same fertile soil for
a business standpoint as the US does and you come here with a different perspective. And you maybe you don't take it for granted like, you know, like maybe someone that they like myself would because I've always been that's all I've ever known right? Would you say that moving here from somewhere else puts you in a in a unique position to be able to recognize how much opportunity there is here in the US?
Robert Barthelmess
Definitely, Justin, I am the biggest us fan that you will find. I am I consider myself an American. I moved to this country in 1982. So I am all I am everything USA one of the things that you find when when you come into this country is that it really is the greatest country in the world. Right, by different by different measures. It is the greatest country in the world for entrepreneurs. It really provides you with the with a full open platform where limitations really does exist. When you come from a country that is phenomenal. I love my I love my country as well. But when you come into the US, it's like a blank canvas. Right? Being able to start a company, you log into the internet, you open an LLC in less than 10 minutes. You know, there's there's very little regulation, there's very little limitations that keep you from being able to do what you want to do. If you're looking for financial structure, if this is the capital center or across the world, so really, you know,
when you're coming from outside from another country and you come into the US, you find that there's such an incentive to explore and do, you know, do whatever it is that you want to get done. Again, I always say that I'm the biggest fan of this country, I think that it is the land of opportunity. If you're in the US and you think of it you can create it.
Justin Stoddart
Boy that's inspiring, Robert, just that in, in and of itself, you know, is worth, you know, having you on the show, I know, we're just getting into the value, but you have some like you come in and say someone who's who you know, who's who's lived somewhere else to, again, recognize is something as simple as opening up an LLC, something as simple as getting financing for you know, for property or for an idea. That's just not it's not the same in another country. And so I want to thank you for sharing that. Let's talk a little bit about BGI capital. Tell us a little bit about what you do. And maybe the problem that you guys solve that maybe isn't solved by some of the more traditional forms of funding.
Robert Barthelmess
So BGI capital is a full service commercial, real estate lending. One of the greatest advantages that our company has is we manage our own funding. Right. So we're direct lender, our funds are discretionary. So decisions are made in house. So when we're dealing with a lot of investors and you know, we work with a lot of seasoned investors, as well as with first time investors, one of the greatest advantages is that we can really sit down with our clients understand what their what their business plan is, guide them into their process, and make the tailor make a product specifically for them which works phenomenal for first time investors, right, we take the time to sit down with at work working through this whole process and put something that really helps them be successful.
One of the things that we do offer Justin aside from having our own private fund, we also full service commercial mortgage brokerage operation. So for the larger transactions for the more seasoned investors we can put together cans tructure deal integration with institutional national investors as well.
Justin Stoddart
That's really, you know, what I see as some of the value right as you guys have the ability with your own funding, as well as the ability to go get it at a larger scale when necessary when needed. Would you say that not having what you just described keeps people from either starting or succeeding at a higher level because they don't have someone who's really kind of tailor making, and really even asking the questions of like, where is it you're ultimately trying to go with this, right, I think sometimes banks just come in and say, I mean, they look at it on a project by project basis, without actually getting to know who are the people and what are the people's goals. Right. And I think there's a lesson in that for all of us that are in well paid sales profession, right, whether it be title, you know, whether it be real estate, whether it be lending. Moving into that more advisory roll, I think it's critical for us remaining at this average transaction. But again, tell me, you see that that's pretty unique in your industry. And a...
