Real Estate Pros · June 26, 2026 · 18 min listen

How Emilio DiSpirito Built a Real Estate Empire in Rhode Island

Show summary

In this episode, Emilio DiSpirito shares his journey in real estate, his strategies for building wealth, and insights into overlooked markets like Woonsocket, Rhode Island. He discusses how networking, strategic pivots, and community revitalization can create strong opportunities in real estate investing.

Key takeaways

Emilio DiSpirito started flipping homes in 2020 out of necessity when his real estate advisory team had no inventory to sell clients; that work grew into 50 flips and roughly 150 total transactions.
He and his brother once ran eight simultaneous flips with about $3 million working in the marketplace, before a higher-end waterfront luxury flip outside their usual first-time-buyer niche led to losses and the dissolution of that business partnership.
His advice after the failed luxury flip: 'stay in your lane' and know your own skill set (he says he can't swing a hammer and found a construction-focused partner, Edwin, to pivot into new construction and building).
He runs multiple real estate businesses (two brokerages, a team, investing, flipping, new construction, a media company and podcast) but deliberately keeps everything within real estate rather than diversifying into unrelated industries.
Partnering with an analytically-minded operator (Joe Fazio) to systemize operations, referencing the book Traction, was the turning point that let him delegate and scale multiple businesses.
He sees overlooked mill towns like Woonsocket, Rhode Island as a strong opportunity: a city once among the wealthiest in the world, now undervalued, where he's selling land at record prices and working with local leaders and investors on community revitalization.
He emphasizes networking beyond transactions: helping people with small favors (e.g., getting a friend's group a table at a packed restaurant) builds relationships that circle back to business opportunities.

In this episode

About the guest

Emilio DiSpirito is a real estate advisor and investor serving the southern New England marketplace, mainly Rhode Island and surrounding Massachusetts. He owns two real estate brokerages, operates a real estate team, invests in and flips homes, builds new construction, and runs a media company behind his podcast, Wealth Architect.

Listen to the audio

“We had eight houses we were flipping at the same time. We had something like, you know, three million dollars out, you know, there in the marketplace working for us.”
Emilio DiSpirito

“Your network should have people in place that can help you move the needle.”
Emilio DiSpirito

“It's not only about all the big moves, it's about the experience. It's about the small things. It's about helping each other out and meeting each other wherever you need it, whether or not it benefits me.”
Emilio DiSpirito

house flippingRhode Island real estateWoonsocket, RIreal estate networkingbusiness delegation and systemsnew constructionreal estate brokeragecommunity revitalization

Questions answered in this episode

How did Emilio DiSpirito get started flipping houses?

In 2020, his real estate advisory team had no inventory to sell clients, so he decided to build inventory by flipping homes himself. That effort grew into 50 flipped homes, which then bubbled into about 150 total transactions.

What happened when Emilio and his brother tried a luxury flip?

After flipping 50 first-time-buyer type houses together successfully, Emilio and his brother took on a higher-end waterfront luxury flip outside their usual lane. It took much longer than expected, consumed a lot of capital and time, and they took a loss, which led his brother (a retired 22-year Coast Guard chief warrant officer) to exit the flipping business entirely.

Why does Emilio DiSpirito like the Woonsocket, Rhode Island market?

Woonsocket is an old mill town in Northern Rhode Island that has a bad reputation for crime and lower-priced housing, but Emilio notes it was once one of the wealthiest places in the world and has real charm. He's working with investors there, selling land at record prices, and pursuing a vision of community revitalization alongside local leaders.

How does Emilio DiSpirito manage several real estate businesses at once?

He stays strictly within real estate (two brokerages, a real estate team, investing, flipping, new construction, and a media/podcast company) rather than diversifying into unrelated industries. He credits partnering with Joe Fazio, who handles the analytical and systems side, as the turning point that let him delegate and scale, referencing the book Traction.

What does Emilio DiSpirito say about the value of networking?

He gives the example of getting a friend's group of 18 people a table at a packed restaurant, La Maseria in East Greenwich, with one phone call. He says networking isn't just about big deals, it's about small favors and helping people whether or not it directly benefits you, and that this eventually comes back around to the business.

Resources and links

Full transcript

Emilio DiSpirito (00:00)

Yeah, I mean, I think the biggest one was like I said, stay in your lane. So we had my my brother, my brothers and I had a business where we were flipping homes together. And, you know, my brother was in the Coast Guard for 22 years. He was getting out of the Coast Guard as a chief warrant officer and he’s an engineer. And he’s like, What am I gonna do? And I said, Dude, you can build anything. You can do anything. You know, why don’t we?

work and flip houses together. So he came out and we had eight houses at one time. And that might be small compared to what some other people are doing, right? But it was just my brothers and I. We had eight houses we were flipping at the same time. We had something like, you know, three million dollars out, you know, there in the marketplace working for us.

Michelle Tack (02:18)

Welcome to Real Estate Pros Podcast. I’m Michelle Tack, the podcast leader. I have an amazing operator, Emilio DiSpirito, that is here with us today. In preparation for today, what I found what was great about Emilio is that he’s a real estate advisor, but from being an advisor, he has created a wealth for himself.

has invested himself, has helped others to invest, and also has a very ⁓ good and representative podcast called Wealth Architect that he is leading. Emilio, say hi to the team.

Emilio DiSpirito (02:51)

Hey, hey team, what’s up, Michelle? Thank you for having me on.

Michelle Tack (02:54)

Absolutely. That’s a lot, Emilio. ⁓ can you for those folks that may not know about, you know, the real estate advisor position and then burgeoning into these other businesses, a little bit about what your focus is and what markets you serve, please.

Emilio DiSpirito (03:14)

Yeah, so I cover the southern New England marketplace, mainly Rhode Island and surrounding Massachusetts markets. ⁓ over the years, you know, I’ve I’ve had a passion for helping people build wealth in real estate. And back in 2020, when there was no inventory to sell, I have a team of real estate advisors that work with me. They had nothing to sell. So I said, you know what, we’re gonna build the inventory, we’re gonna bring the inventory. So out of necessity.

Has started flipping homes. 50 homes later, after that, those 50 homes bubbled into several other transactions. it they turned into about 150 total transactions, just the way that things flow. And it literally was able to get my team through one of the hardest places with inventory in the marketplace. And since then, we’ve just been growing, growing, growing, growing. ⁓ and I took it from there now to building, investing, flipping.

All of that and guiding and advising others.

Michelle Tack (04:12)

That’s that’s ⁓ amazing journey. ⁓ in terms of operationally, you’ve got a couple of different businesses going on at the same time, right? You’ve got your wealth architect, you’ve got your real estate advisor, you’ve got ⁓ investments on your own. I know that you’re working on a a big project or will be working on a big project in ⁓ Rhode Island. How do you keep the businesses ⁓ if we think about the business overall?

operationally efficient when you’re doing a lot of different tasks, a lot of them strategic and and some not.

Emilio DiSpirito (05:33)

Well, you know, you kind of you stick with what you know. And what I know is real estate. So you’re not finding me opening fast food restaurants. You know, I own a I own two real estate brokerages. I I own operate a real estate team. I have my real estate investing, my real estate building, my real estate flipping, my media company, which is all about real estate, and my podcast, which, you know, is ran by my media company. So it all goes around that same message. So with that.

I operate and run small businesses and I have a full team of support behind the scenes that help me to operate all of my small businesses. I know real estate, they know real estate, and it all goes hand in hand. And I think that once, once I, once I linked up with my business partner, Joe Fazio, he’s the analytical guy. I’m like the face of the business, the sales guy, the marketing guy. You know, once you find that ⁓ this is a book I think called Traction, once you find that.

person that can handle the analytical side of things, help you systemize things. You can then delegate, systemize, and keep things moving forward at lightning speed. And really that’s where it all changes. For me at least, that’s where it changed.

Michelle Tack (06:45)

Understood. I know that in preparation for this podcast, as you continue to grow, that’s one of the areas that you’re focused on in terms of delegation and finding the right, you know, it’s always a a little bit of a ⁓ you know, a heartache, right? When you have to give off some some of that. ⁓ but good. I I’m I’m pleased to hear that. Let me ask you, everyone, regardless if they own one business or eight or ⁓ no matter how successful they are, and I’ll use that.

Emilio DiSpirito (07:01)

I love it.

Michelle Tack (07:13)

term as people define their own de su success. There’s been ⁓ you know, a place and time when ⁓ things got real. ⁓ where maybe a deal went south and you had to pivot super quickly and either salvage it. And if you weren’t able to salvage it, it became a momentous time in your career where it really changed things for the better, from from the outcome of being more perhaps resilient or not.

Can you talk about maybe a exact example of something that comes to mind that ⁓ is fairly current where you had a, you know, pivot quickly, it could be a deal, could be whatever it comes to mind for you.

Emilio DiSpirito (07:53)

And we ended up going for a higher end luxury home to flip a waterfront home.

And it was outside of our first-time buyer type of houses that we were doing. And you know, we we’ve we flopped that one. You know, we took a little bit of a beating on it, but we always did so well with what we were doing. That one took forever to to to flip. It took a lot of our time, a lot of our capital. ⁓ just just it was just it it beat us down so hard where my brother said, Listen, I I don’t even want to do this anymore. You know, I don’t want to stress this stuff.

I’m retired. So we literally closed the doors to that business. And then I found myself in the marketplace, still hungry, still wanting to do that. My brother saying, I’ve already put the work in. I’m good. We flipped 50 houses together. I’m good. I just want to, you know, relax. God bless him. He earned that. But me, I found myself without a partner. I can’t swing a hammer. I I don’t I don’t know how to do any of that stuff. I will break stuff. So I had to start literally, you know, back at square one.

And I did. And you know, I had to find a business partner that does this. His name is Edwin, ⁓ that can help me. And you know what? We pivoted and I said, you what, we’re gonna flip a couple houses together. We did that, but now it’s going into new construction and building, and that is by far so much better. So that that that pitfall, that hit, that you know, thing where my brother and I we dissolved our business relationship, but we kept our brother.

relationship and our family bonds and all that, which is way more important. It actually ended up working out better. You know, it it it just did. So

Michelle Tack (10:55)

Yeah, that that that’s really instructive. As you look forward for the next twelve months or twenty-four months, what are you concentrated on in terms of opportunities you’re excited about, ⁓ that you’re putting energy into? Can you speak to that please, Emilio?

Emilio DiSpirito (11:09)

Yeah. So I am I’m so excited about marketplaces that other people overlook. Okay. Especially like in Rhode Island or or New England towns, and you might get it in like, you know, more more metro areas ⁓ around the United States. You have these like old, you know, multifamily mill towns. So all these old mill complexes that were there and the mills got converted into housing, maybe or something else.

but there’s all these old multifamily homes. And in Northern Rhode Island, okay, there’s a town, a city, and it’s called One Socket. And it it’s literally One Socket has a bad rap. Okay. It’s one of those towns where investors and people just say, ⁓ there’s kind of crime, there’s a lot of like, you know, lower price housing, this, that, whatever else. I the you know, I just I don’t want to go there. It’s an old run down city. Now I know.

That when Socket was one of the wealthiest places in the world at one time. And it literally it’s got, it has a charm to it. And I want to bring that charm back to that community. And I’ve been working with investors, and we’ve been breaking records, selling land at at crazy prices over there. We’re bringing people in, we’re rising, we’re we’re bringing that community back up. I know it’s going to happen. That’s the grand vision. And ⁓ that’s what I’m working on.

Is the overall betterment of that community? Let’s get rid of the drugs on the street. Let’s get rid of all the the the stuff. Let’s help people get into great housing and let’s build great housing and attract people, working class people to this community, support the local businesses and turn it back into a thriving community.

Michelle Tack (12:53)

I think that’s awesome. And correct me if I’m wrong. I believe it was in the New York Times. They had a done a article and they had ⁓ focus on one socket and areas that needed that were going through changes. And again, I could be wrong, but really focused on that area of and describe it just as you had about it had to be well wealthy, you know, Mills moved out, but it still has a cachet of of of good people and ⁓ needs people to come in and, you know, or they’re starting to move there. So

⁓ that sounds like a great opportunity ⁓ for

Emilio DiSpirito (13:25)

Want to

say yeah, I want to say one thing too. So, ⁓ you know, ⁓ a colleague of mine, his name is Don Martone, he’s a real estate agent, he owns a company called Bond Brokerage, ⁓ out of one socket. He’s stepping up to the plate, he’s seeing what’s going on in this community, and he’s saying, you know what, it needs better leadership. Now, I like the current mayor, he does good things, but Don is real estate and community focused, and he’s going in so

Your network should have people in place that can help you move the needle. And I give credit to anybody like Don Martone because he’s going in and he’s doing this. So you you know, you gotta you gotta take the initiative, you gotta take the action, whether you’re a builder or you, you know, you’re you’re in the the political scene or both. ⁓ you you just gotta make it happen.

Michelle Tack (14:15)

Yeah, that I think that’s very salient. I was going to talk to you about your network. you gave an example just now of how a a a mayor, a connection with a mayor can help with that network. Do you have other things that are sort of out of the norm in terms of network that most people would not think of?

Emilio DiSpirito (15:13)

Yeah, man. I mean, like if somebody wanted to charter a private jet, I got him. Like, you know, ⁓ I I got a call from a good friend of mine, Sam Alba, total beast developer, great guy, owns innovations realty here in Rhode Island. Shout out to Sam. You know, he’s like, Emilio, I I’m trying to get into this restaurant. I know you’re friendly with the people that run it, La Maseria in East Greenwich. I got 18 guys. It was a super busy night. Michelle, I said, bro, let me make a call. Made a call.

He got in right away. They somehow found seating in one of the busiest restaurants in Rhode Island for Sam and 18 of his guys. And they had a great time. That’s the power of a network. It’s not only about all the big moves, it’s about the experience. It’s about the small things. It it’s about helping each other out and meeting each other wherever you need it, whether or not it benefits me.

Michelle Tack (16:05)

And I think it goes back to what you said in the the preparation for this podcast is what I really like about what I’m doing is I’m servicing others. And in in that, even if I don’t get anything back from them, right, you’re you’re helping others and then eventually it comes around on the business. So ⁓ I appreciate that. You’ve been an incredible ⁓ you know person to spend some time with and get to know your businesses better.

⁓ Emilio, I’m sure there’s ⁓ people that would like to get into the podcast. They may want to know about what you’re doing in terms of investing, you know, in Rhode Island, et cetera. Can you give your contact information ⁓ before we wrap up for today?

Emilio DiSpirito (16:44)

Sure. So if you want to follow us @wealtharchitectpodcast on Instagram, @wealtharchitectpodcast ⁓ that is my podcast channel. We have interviewed people like Pace Morby, I’m sure you know the name, Jordan Stupar, ⁓ sales coach, ⁓ Hal Elrod, best selling book author. Like we’ve had some really amazing people, and this podcast right here is all about building wealth mentally, physically, spiritually, and financially.

For the total package. Okay. So you could be the total package. That’s where that’s at. And you can also follow me on my personal Instagram page @EmilioDiv E-M-I-L-I-O-D-I-V. Follow me. I’ll follow you back.

Michelle Tack (17:27)

That’s great. Emilio been a fantastic guest to those that have ⁓ listened from our subscriber base. We appreciate. ⁓ and if you ⁓ find the ⁓ content of value, please ⁓ share that with others. And those that have not subscribed yet, we welcome you in. Thanks a lot, Emilio. Good luck in the future.