Long Game, Big Gains: How Johnny Q Scaled to 30 Doors with Buy & Hold Real Estate

Johnny Quilenderino (00:00)

two units on each level, so six units. And it was in the middle unit. And sure enough, those tenants were not listening to Ms. Marlowe. So ⁓ within 90 days, I had to evict everyone. Because nobody was listening to our property manager. We had the bug team out. We were spending $1,000 a shot, heating the building up, doing all of that, nothing.

Finally had to evict everybody when we evicted everybody. Boom, we got it. We, we cleared the bed bugs within, I think it was within 45 days that after struggling for 90, for 60 days, we cleared it on 45 days. Done. no, no, no bed bugs.

Quentin (00:31)

Hello everyone. Welcome to the Real Estate Pros podcast. I’m your host, Q Edmonds. Excited to be here, excited about my guest. Listen, I have somebody who has a keen eye. He knows how to look at a property in with seconds. He can tell you if you can get cash flow out of it. And so listen, I’m excited for you to learn his methods. I’m excited for you to see things through his lens, through his perspective.

And so listen, I want to introduce you guys to Mr. Johnny. I did not go over his last name with him. And so I don’t want to try to butcher it. So if you want to say it, I will let him. But Mr. Johnny, sir, how you doing today?

Johnny Quilenderino (02:47)

I’m doing well. appreciate Quentin and the last name Quilenderino just go by Q and I’m good brother

Quentin (02:54)

But one Q to another, I appreciate it. That’s why everybody called me Q. And so I appreciate you, sir. And listen, I’ll be honest, Mr. Johnny, I want you to take us into your world. I want you to tell us what your main focus is these days. Tell us a little bit maybe about how you got started in real estate if you want to. And then tell us what markets you’re operating in as well, Sir

Johnny Quilenderino (03:15)

All right, let’s start with what markets we’re operating in. right? So we’re in the Hampton Roads area. So all the way from Suffolk all the to the Virginia Beach. We have about 12 properties units out there. And then we have a network of investors that either bring me properties and say, hey, this is great. Or we have a network of friends that say, hey, I need some help.

and I help them out in one way, or form. But bottom line is we’re up to 30 units total. And in that area, I am one of the key investors that people reach out to and say, hey, I need some help. Does this cash flow? What should I think about? And that’s what I’m here to do is just tell them, hey, this is good or this is not good.

let’s move forward with this or let’s not move forward at all. And I’ll tell you this, said no. When I was purchasing, I said no to 50 properties before I said yes.

So I analyzed 50 properties before I said yes. that’s the grind, that’s the carving, that’s the how you make your name, because you’re buying, when you truly buy, they know, hey, you put an offer in, they know, if you put an offer in it, he’s good, he’s ready to go, he’s done. You might as well check that one off as sold.

Quentin (05:34)

Man, go ahead, you got it, yep.

Johnny Quilenderino (05:36)

Yeah, so I’m a buy and hold investor. So back in 2017, I came back from a deployment. was still in the Navy at the time. And I came back from a deployment and my wife and I, we knew my time was coming to an end in the Navy eventually. ah 2020, it did happen. I did retire. But in 2017, we were both active duty, both making money. And I just came back from a deployment. I had 40K and

was talking to a buddy, he’s like, hey, have you thought about real estate investing? And I’m like, no. He’s like, well, you already have three units. Why don’t you think about real estate investing? And I did. I did what most new investors do. They go to bigger pockets and all, Mr. Money Mustache, all of those, right? And I studied. I studied for six months. And got to studying.

Quentin (06:26)

Yeah. Yeah.

Johnny Quilenderino (06:33)

My wife kicked me out of bed one night because I was literally in the, I’d be in bed and have a phone and looking at properties or looking at bigger pockets or looking at Mr. Money Mustache and hey babe, we could do this. And finally at about six months into it, I got the sit down that come to Jesus, the shit or get off the pot comment from my wife. And then I executed.

Quentin (06:42)

Yeah.

Johnny Quilenderino (06:58)

And the first property we looked at, she actually came out there with me and totally did the inspections, everything, got to inspections, everything. And I said, no, there wasn’t. And she’s like, what, what, what’s wrong? I’m like, well, foundation was bad. This was bad. You know, it wasn’t going to be, it wasn’t going to cashflow, right? When it was all said and done, it wasn’t going to cashflow initially. But at the same time, I seen two other properties.

one about 30 miles away and I was like, hey babe, let me go look at these and called my real estate agent up, said, hey brother, I wanna go look at these two, call the guy up and he just so happened to have that property plus another property right down the road for sale. And I asked him, I’m like, so what’s your pain point? Well, if you know anything about Hampton Roads, the Hampton Roads Bridge Tunnel.

is crazy. It can back up and cause you hours to get across the bridge. Well, he’s traveling across that bridge every day to manage these properties. And one of the things my wife and I both said was, if we invest and we get into this business, we will not personally manage Jack. As in zero, we will right into our right into our business plan. You know, I’m CEO.

Quentin (08:06)

Well, bye.

Johnny Quilenderino (08:12)

property managers and underneath his tenants. Anything changes from that, you know it’s not gonna fly. It’s not gonna fit our business model. and I walked through those properties and said, yes, we got them both. It was a four unit and a three unit. We got them both in 2017 for a total of $135,000, seven units.

Quentin (08:35)

man.

⁓ man. ⁓ man. ⁓ man. ⁓

Johnny Quilenderino (08:39)

Seven years, $135,000

and it was a, I figured out his pain point and I said yes and I said, I’ll take them off your hands. And he was definitely your mom and pop business guy. you know, he’s like, Hey, I got a, I got a local guy there that’ll do the maintenance. And I’m like, Nope, I don’t want that. I want someone that’s, I’ve, he’s like, you’ll be your PM and all that. I’m like, Nope, don’t want all that. I was like, it needs to be.

Quentin (08:46)

Yeah.

Johnny Quilenderino (09:06)

Above board. Everything has to be above board. And that’s what we did. And that’s how we set up the first initial seven units, double close in March of 2017. That was our first closing. First investment quarter. Double closing. And then…

Quentin (09:19)

Man. Yeah, yeah. Wow.

Johnny Quilenderino (10:00)

Fast forward to May, we had two units that were empty. We filled them all up and then fast forward to May and we’re cash flowing now $500 a month. you know nice and easy, $500 a month and we had one empty. We’re like, okay, so when that one comes in, that’s gonna be $600 a month. Small bills, right? wife and I both own several properties at the time.

You know, we had a, she came in the Navy and bought a property. I came in the Navy, bought a property. And then when we joined forces, we bought a property together. Well, her property was actually in, in Quincy, Massachusetts. And she was like, Hey, this one doesn’t cashflow. I’m like, okay, let me look at it. So I did, did some analysis and she’s right.

Negative cash flow, $200 Okay. But we knew it appreciated. This is still 2017. this is now, know, May we’re on that high of holy crap. This actually could work. And now it’s June, it’s the first week of June. And I looked at the property and said, okay, let’s see if we can sell it. Let’s do a 1031 tax exchange.

And she’s like, okay. So while she was, you know, getting her paperwork ready, I contacted a real estate agent and executed, started executing the sales side. But then also I was running around Hampton Roads looking at six unit buildings.

And that’s where we found our first six-year-old building. And I actually ran her around to all of them that I was gonna look at. was like, okay, baby, look at all of these. was like, okay. And I was like, which one do you like? And I already had it selected. This is the one we’re gonna buy. Because this cashflow has the most potential, most steady income potential, all of that.

Walked her through, walked her through five different properties. Then each one, she’s like, ooh, like that one. I like that one. This one even better. The ones we actually were going to buy. She’s like, nope, don’t like it at all. Like, well, this one cash flows the most. It’s like what? I’m like, this one will cash flow the most. And sure enough, boom, we pick it up. We do the 1031 tax exchange. We sell her house.

September, I think we, yeah, we closed September 9th on her property for the sale. And the 13th of September, we picked up the six unit building.

Quentin (12:17)

Wow. Wow.

Johnny Quilenderino (12:18)

Fast

1031 stack exchange ever for that guy, for that QI.

Quentin (12:23)

Yeah, yeah. Man, this is great. So you know, I mean, you know your stuff. I love it. I love you taking down the journey about how you and your wife got started. You’ve given us the nuggets. You know your stuff. And I absolutely love it. I love this success story. I love where you’re going. And so let me ask you this. I know there are moments like when things get real, right? There’s moment when things go sideways, when you have to divot fast. And so you mind sharing maybe a moment like that for our viewers.

Johnny Quilenderino (12:41)

yeah.

Quentin (12:48)

that may be struggling, that’s at different parts of their journey. So they would know how to overcome adversity.

Johnny Quilenderino (12:55)

Yeah. you know, 2017 was a great year to pick up properties, but it was also a tough year because we picked up properties and now we picked up problems. And ⁓ specifically, ⁓ well, let me finish out 2017. We actually bought, 10 more units in 2017. We’re buying another six unit building and a four unit building or five unit building, but the five unit building.

Quentin (13:06)

Yeah, woo.

Johnny Quilenderino (13:22)

that one was mislabeled as a four unit and I picked it up because I knew nobody else could buy it because it had to be a commercial unit commercial purchase.

But let’s go back to that six unit building that we did a 1031 tax exchange and it was cash flowing two grand.

We’ll charge it over to our property manager as per our business plan.

And I get a call, ⁓ yeah, we bought in September, I get a call in October. Hey, Mr. Q, like, hey, Marlo, what’s going on? He’s like, we got problems. Like, oh boy, what do we got? And this is my first experience with bed bugs. and yes. So to give you a picture of the building, the building is a three story building and each unit,

Quentin (14:41)

Wow.

Johnny Quilenderino (14:53)

⁓

two units on each level, so six units. And it was in the middle unit. And sure enough, those tenants were not listening to Ms. Marlowe. So ⁓ within 90 days, I had to evict everyone. Because nobody was listening to our property manager. We had the bug team out. We were spending $1,000 a shot, heating the building up, doing all of that, nothing.

Finally had to evict everybody when we evicted everybody. Boom, we got it. We, we cleared the bed bugs within, I think it was within 45 days that after struggling for 90, for 60 days, we cleared it on 45 days. Done. no, no, no bed bugs.

Quentin (15:24)

So.

Johnny Quilenderino (15:35)

But now we’re trying to, we’re trying to put these things back on the market. Well,

During my inspection period, I looked at everything. I’m pretty good at looking at everything. I thought I was good, but I wasn’t. I failed on the part where if you know anything about electrical, in that building, it had your service line coming in, which goes to a quick disconnect. That quick disconnect goes to

your seven panels. Well, I opened up all seven panels, but I never opened up that quick disconnect. And we had a certificate of ⁓ occupancy going on. And the last thing they wanted to look at was the electrical panels. All right. And he opened up all seven panels. He’s like, all right, these look great. But then he opened up that quick disconnect. And in there was instead of two fuses, there was two copper pipes.

Quentin (16:08)

wow.

Johnny Quilenderino (16:29)

inserted instead of fuses and I’m crap yeah I was like crap so I got I got dinged on that ⁓ it took me $22,000 and seven ⁓ or five months to reestablish that you know take all those panels out put all those panels back in and then re-tenant it so total of about seven months to do it all

to change that all. Did it suck? Absolutely. And were we hurting? Were we hurting for a little bit? Absolutely. I had my military pay coming in and it was literally going right back into that. but now, fast forward to now and that specific property, you know we’re getting $1,200 a month. So 7,200.

Quentin (17:02)

Absolutely. Yeah.

Johnny Quilenderino (17:27)

PITI is only 3,500. So we’re cash flowing above cash flow. It’s just coming in, right? And it’s 100, we don’t have problems with occupancy on that one at all. So what I tell people, it’s time, right? It takes time to solve the problem and it’s gonna take time to rebuild. But once you get past the problem and the rebuild, things just start to flow again.

Quentin (17:33)

Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah.

Johnny Quilenderino (17:57)

right? Because all the other properties were flowing. All the other properties were flowing at the time. So I didn’t really have, I knew that, okay, we have a problem with this specific one. But the rest of them are cash flowing. let’s, you know, balance it out that way. And that’s what we did. But that ⁓ was a tough moment. That was a tough moment. That was a tough moment. You know, there was, but there was never the, hey, we need to sell. That never went through my mind. I don’t

Quentin (17:57)

Yeah, sir.

Yeah. Man, I love it, man. Yeah. No, please, keep telling you. I’m sorry. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah.

Johnny Quilenderino (18:28)

I never got to that point. It was, hey, we need to refinance. But it was never, hey, we need to sell.

Quentin (18:33)

Yeah. Yeah. But no, that’s, mean, that shows your expertise at the buy, the buy and hold method, you know, being a buy and hold investor that you are, it shows, like you said, you got the keen eye, you know, you know, when the cash flow is coming. And so you just stuck tight and now you turned it around and the cash is flowing and you sound like it’s going really good for what you’re saying. So listen, so let me ask you this. What are you most focused on, scaling, solving or scaling next? What’s the next real goal for you, Mr. Johnny?

Johnny Quilenderino (19:03)

All right, so right now we’re at 30 units, right? The next set of goals is to acquire up to about 50. And then from 50, the next set is 100. But in between, I don’t know if I’m going to 1031 up and consolidate down. as you know, roofs, ACs, they all start to add up after a while.

And Right now, if you look at what banks want and they’re saying, hey, I want six months of, you know, six months of not materials, but six months of equity and six months of, oh shit money, really, set aside. Well, that’s 240,000 if I added it all up on my units. And I’m like, no.

Quentin (19:48)

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Johnny Quilenderino (19:57)

that’s not going to happen. So it’s can we consolidate the units down, you know, and find maybe 1031 to, you know, one of our, a couple of our smaller buildings to a larger building and then go up that way, scale up that way.

Quentin (20:15)

Nope, I hear you understand. I hear you. You sound like the man with the plan. You got to figure it out. You know what’s next. We’re going from 50 to 100. I get it. And so listen, I think this is going to be one of the last questions I want to ask you. I want to talk about relationships a little bit, because you mentioned somebody that I think you said you had somebody that you called some of the agents, and they was able to help you out. I know you’ve talked about the relationship. Of course, the relationship with your wife, what y’all got going on. So when it comes to businesses,

in business and building relationships. Like, how have you grown your network? Like, what’s been the biggest difference for you when it comes to relationships?

Johnny Quilenderino (20:55)

So internally with my business, one of the things that makes me stand out versus other, you know not really mom and pops, but in the middle between institutional and mom and pop is I pulled guys aside and said, hey, do you want to be my contractor? Do you want to be my property manager? Because if you’re my property manager,

I’m going to lean on you heavy. And, I got four property managers to say yes. And I had, ⁓ two contractors said, yep, I will work with you. I’ll be your HVAC guy and I’ll be your everything else. And that, that relationship there, has allowed me to grow, has allowed me to, steadily grow there with respect to outside the business in

Being in real estate as a real estate agent, that’s actually helped me expand a lot. And people knowing who I am and hey, he’s an investor also. He also has that investor knowledge and he could help you with it if you want to talk cashflow and you want to hey, long-term, because I don’t play the small game as in one to two years. I’m playing five, 10, 20 years out.

Quentin (22:11)

love it. You say, I’m not playing the short term, I’m playing 20 years out. You’re playing it for the long term. And that’s the way I think that’s why you have been so successful is because you’re always looking ahead. You can analyze what’s right for right now, but also you’re looking ahead to see where, what’s the next step and how can I project and make sure I’m right where I need to be for the future as well. And so I love it. I love everything you’re doing, Mr. Johnny. I want to thank you so much for sharing with us.

Listen, before we wrap, if someone wanted to reach out to you, connect with you, maybe collaborate or learn more about what you’re doing, what’s the best way for them to get in contact with you,

Johnny Quilenderino (22:50)

Yeah, I’m on Instagram, jqisyourrealtor or look at my full name, Johnny Quilenderino but jqisyourrealtor is the easiest one. you know, reach out, reach out there, touch base. I’m an open book. I’ll tell you, I’ll tell you the hardships. I’ll tell you the fun times, you know, you tell me what you want to hear and I can tell you the story, a story to back it up.

Quentin (23:10)

Yeah. Yeah.

I love it. I love it. Well, listen, there he is, Mr. Johnny Q. Listen, I thank you so much. I thank you so much for your time. I thank you so much for your story. Thank you so much for your perspective. It was definitely a pleasure having you on and allowing our viewers to see things through your lens. So I just want to thank you again.

Johnny Quilenderino (23:30)

Thank you, Mr. Quentin. I appreciate it.

Quentin (23:33)

Absolutely, absolutely. Now listen, y’all got the value of this conversation. You can’t tell me you didn’t. So please just make sure you’re subscribed. That way you can always continue to get the great value that our guests are bringing, just like Mr. Johnny brought today. So Mr. Johnny, thank you again. And to everyone else, we will see you on the next time.