EPISODES
Episode 30.
William Sweet, Las Vegas Raiders offensive lineman and CEO at Sweet Ventures, LLC
You’re listening to the real estate of things podcast. All Right, my good friend William Sweet, founder of Sweet Ventures LC, joined me again for another sit down. We went way off the beaten path. I Shot William and note the other day. was like Hey, hop on the podcast with me again. Let’s just chat. No bullet points, no game plan, just come in here and talk with me. We went through the Jacksonville market. We talked about his Tesla car rental business. Diversification, diversification, diversification. Love it. Thank you for listening. Welcome to the real estate of things podcast. I’m your host, Dalton Elliott. I’m joined again one of my favorite guests, William Sweet. He is the founder of sweet ventures. Ll See, William, thank you for joining me again, my friend. Hey, come one of them one. How are you? I am tram well, for sure. So let’s kick it off. You just got back from Jacksonville, right? Yes, sir, Ya, yeah, go ahead. No. So, yes, sir, just got back from Jackson currently live in Atlanta and bucket. We actually are in a process of Purdiss my mom and dad at home, so hopefully it gets accepted. That’s great. CONGRATS on that. That’s an exciting thing. To do and and how’s the market in Jacksonville like? I feel like I might guess is that it’s like every other market, like multiple offer situation, over asked, just a nightmare to try to find something. So what’s talk me through how Jacksonville real estate is right now? You’re on a person right. I think every over the country you have a market that is is high, and especially in Jacksonville. When I went home, I haven’t been home in a while, and I just saw new developments, new apartment buildings, new homes being built. I’m just like what do they start all this stuff? But it’s pretty cool to kind of see everything appreciating value and seeing your neighborhood look a lot better. Yeah, I can relate to that. I grew up just south of Myrtle beach, town called Merles inlet, and when I would go back during college this like two thousand and eleven through two thousand and fifteen, myrtle beach area super toursty it’s like tourists and golf. That the two big things down there and it like the whole ecosystem centered around tourisms. Like in the offseason it was completely different, like traffic was cut by seventy percent and a lot of restaurants closed up in the offseason. It’s like, but going back over the last eleven years since I’ve been away, like yeah, I have the same kind of feeling. I’m like a winded this like shopping center open I’ve and when did this massive multi family complex get built? It’s a crazy thing to watch, especially if you have some distance between you and a place pop in, you know a couple times a year and just see that crazy gross. So what is the big focus right now in Jacksonville? Like multi family construction, or is it multi family, single family? Everything going up? What’s going on? I would say pretty much the combination of everything. I know a lot of new construction on the residential side is really popular in Jacksonville, especially particular on the south side of Jacksonville towards the beaches. That seems to be the more prominent area and Jacksonville just naturally do to the beach saint as Townsend all that kind of good stuff. But there’s also other neighborhoods and other side of the town that are doing that are doing well. But I think terms of that area in Jacksonville, the south side probably the leader in terms of the most affluent neighborhoods. Got It. Got It and last time you and…
…now are chatting, you were in a property and I think the west side of the Atlanta House. Well, give me an update on that. Did you end up getting that property or what’s going on? So we actually did not move forward that property. We did in a praise on it and the outside look good, but there were some interior issue that that the cellar was not willing to work with this on. They kind of wanted us to buy as is in terms of taking on that risk of I think I had some type of gas issue. I can’t remember the correct term for but I learned that in a lot of older homes, but you have to check for a certain type of gas and after the inspection that that particular home did have it and it would be needed to do some internal pixing up and they were unable to work with this on that. So it was it was an older home as well. So we didn’t want to, you know, if we wanted to persison older home, we wanted to kind of at least get it as random condition as we could write. But in this market, I mean you got houses with two bedrooms and no roof set up a half a million and ALNA. It is wild, especially like Atlanta is crazy. And you have kind of a couple of close colleagues of mine, like you have a lot of folks moving in from high cost of living areas who, you know, sell their place for way more than you know, you’re selling a place in New York or Southern California and making a move to Atlanta, like you’re sitting pretty cash heavy comparatively, just because at Lanta real estate comparatively is less expensive. But in terms of just trajectory, like it’s up into the right and that’s definitely a factor. So do you have you have any other active projects going on in Atlanta or just on the hunt? So actually, we have kind of postponed the search here in Atlanta. Yeah, we just decided to continue to focus and Jacksonville. That’s been our bread and butter in terms of affordable house and we wanted to expand into the Atlanta market but with everything being over priced, especially here in Atlanta, there’s this more room for growth in Jacksonville for us. Yeah, and just this. That’s not to say that we won’t be in Atlanta area soon, but as of right now, we just decided that it was best for us to just continue to do what we do, provide to give a help in hand in the community in Jacksonville and continue to run out run operations with our seven homes as is, and we’ve actually scouted out two more properties in Jacksonville that could potentially work for us. They’re still being renovated, so we still have a few more few more months to make those decisions whether we want to move forward with those or not. Got It. Let make sense. One thing, if you know, I follow you on instagram and creeping around and scroll and I see you and a bunch of Tesla’s. Talk to me about that. What what do you have going on here? You building the Atlanta Tesla Empire. Thank you. Thank you. Yes, so I actually started, I last my second business, the sweet companies, and it’s a car service here for people who come into town. You need a car to rent, you can drive a tesla around, you can not pay for gas, you can put it on auto pilot and you can watch youtube or the Internet, serve the Internet. It’s just a platform that I discover a cult Turo and it’s essentially the air being beef…
…for cars and it’s as simple as if you flew to Atlanta today. You search on that for the type of car you want and me, and me being a host, I’ll provide the car to you clean, clean condition and I have a right across the street from the airport in the parking garage for you so soon as you land. You don’t have to stand any longlines. That hurts. You don’t have to deal with enterprise. You don’t have to, you know, wait hours and hours for a rental car. You Book it on your phone. Actually, I’ve had multiple people book my cars while they’re on the plane flying to Atlanta. I love it. Yeah, that experience definitely sounds like it beats the the normal boring rental car experience and getting to drive something that’s a little nicer than Maldu too. So it’s fun, it’s efficient and that that allow me to having excuse to get some more Tesla. Go what how big is the fleet and what do you have? You have? I’ve got? I’ve got a total of six cars. HMM. I’ve got a model is to model threes, a model x and a model why, and I’ve also got a two thousand and nineteen jeep. Cherokee caught it in what what is your favorite out of the Tesla lineup? Model ex yeah, the model legs is a six thousand pound total electric vehicle. Issue be butterfly doors and it’s a seventh eater and it’s as quick as anything that you’ve seen on the road. Yeah, I’m looking at it up the zero hundred sixty on like all because of the electricity, like at the electrical platform. It’s just like pure power from the GETGO. You should check it out next time you fly and let us know. We Love the hole shit absolutely. Will take you up on that. It’s is your sixty and three point eight. That’s that’s like an m three territories thousand pound. Yeah, that’s crazy. Sixzero pound vehicle. That is insane, insane. So how do you manage it through kind of Turo that platform? And what’s the I mean, is that something that’s booming pretty well for you and you anticipate you’re going to keep growing the fleet? Absolutely, I last August we originally had one carm in two thousand and twenty one and as that one particular testla start up performing will, I grabbed the second Testla in December. That performed will added a model. is in January that they will added a model x, the white one. That they will and as of recently this added another model three, and the Jeek was always towards the end of two thousand and twenty one. Right. Ouf there my first testament. Yeah, that’s another space that’s just absolutely wild, like the car space right now. I like trying to buy a car like use this a shorter yeah, it’s wild. And we’re wife and I are going on a trip for ten days next Saturday, starting next Saturday and trying to find a rental car. We’re going to Hawaii and trying to find a four wheel drive right, because you’re if you’re going to go, there’s a lot of places. We’re going to an observatory at one point two, do some star gazing and fun stuff like that, but you have to have a four wheel drive car. And I looked back in November and it was like, Oh, yes, seven hundred bucks for ten days. It seems like there’s plenty of availability. I didn’t think about it again, didn’t book it, didn’t think about it again until over the weekend and I was sweating and scrambling. I had to. I ended up going like three we we use enterprise company as like nothing. We got little, tiny…
…toy cars and that is not going to get me anywhere. To finally ended up through like costcos carbonal program find in one, but I was sweat and Bullis. I didn’t know custos had a program for yeah, they do, and it’s like pulls in from a vis budget, enterprise everything, but stuff that wasn’t showing up through some providers directly was showing up on their side. So fingers crossed. I’ll let you know. I may need you to airlift a Tesla overwise so we can make it up. Amount make yeah, you are the will make you ass so what I love the fact that you like there are people who are just like I’m a real estate investor, I’d like real estate, real estate, real estate, and then there are people like you here, like I’m just gonna go whatever pathway makes sense and not kind of not that solely focused on real estate is bad thing, certainly not. But you can diversify the businesses. So is there anything that you have top of mind, like are you focusing on can real estate and the Tesla Hustle or anything kind of out there? Well, I think for me I like the diverse the part. I like to turn any liabilities that I may have in the asset. So I love I have a passion for cause specifically testable and I decided to create a business out of it. I mean because I know there’s other people that want to experience an electric car. Tons of people have fell in love with the Teslas. So much to be they said, thank you so much for allowance the rent. We actually want to buy one. Yeah, and just educating people on a more cost efficient way of traveling. You got to think about a gas is at all time. I mean it coust maybe maybe two books every thirty minutes of charge, Oh yeah, versus some cars called fifty per per fill my head. Yeah, and the speed you can get. Two hundred miles and ten or fifteen minutes. Yeah, I my wife has a pre EST right, so she’s not full electric, but sixty miles per gallon and I’m close to the office, so my commute I get like fourteen miles per gallon. Just absolutely atrocious. And some it just happened some weeks I feel like I’m living at the gas station and I didn’t realize. It’s a lot, that is and it’s painting the tail. It’s like I don’t want to sh I need to change my plans, go to the gas station, fill out the gas. Things like yet out, yeah, like cold out or hot out. It’s like it’s an interruption, is the big thing. And and yeah, and the good thing is that a lot of buildings, a lot of apartment complexes, they actually have electric chargers inside the building. So let’s say you have zero, you you got five miles left. You know, we come home by a time you wake up. You want a hundred percent. Yeah, it’s it’s becoming like just the last few years, such a difference. Like you’re in Atlanta, I’m in Greenville, South Carolina. Like I, when I would travel for work and pleasure, like you, you would see Tessela’s in major markets, even in Atlanta, Charlotte, you didn’t have to go too far. But Greenville smaller, MSA, so it took a little longer. But now Tessa’s are everywhere and charging stations popping up all over the place. Like you see cities putting more electrical chargers in parking garages. So like we’ve expanded the number of like city provided charging stations in Greenville. And I know so here’s where I am on the on the electric guy, on the EV train. I know I’m twenty nine years old. I know most of my life is probably going to be spent in an electrical vehicle. Okay, but I’m not there…
…yet. I’m not there yet. I got to get there. The sound of the old combustion engine fire and up it gets me, William, it gets me. I think I have no I’ll totally, I’ll totally understand that. I think that at some point, like you said, you get to that point of being more friendly towards Ev’s, especially when they make it illegal to to make or manufacture of gas cars, and at twenty thirty. So I think everyone will have some type of transition at some point. Maybe not just yet, but you got to look at the automobile leaders. Course, has produced an electric vehicle. Mercedes has launched their all electric vehicle, with Lamborghini and Rose Royce soon to follow, releasing their models of fully electric cars at some point, because that’s just kind of where we’re heading and towards the future. I mean cars driving themselves, cars talking to you. Yeah, I mean it’s it’s kind of crazy you think about it. I mean, like the carking literally drive itself. Yeah, it’s wild and it’s it’s all of it’s better. Right, it’s more efficient, it’s less maintenance. Like you don’t like oil changes. That’s another thing, right, yes, oil change. You gotta and that’s such a pain in the tail. I gotta take my car somewhere, drop it off and then it’s you have the schedule around. It’s like, wait, this is very convenient, you know. And like you say that not everyone’s not there yet, but I think as people become more and more familiar with it, they’ll open up a little bit more. Yeah, and just the take off on those, on any one of those, the three, the ass, the acts, the why, like just absolute monster. That’s that’s the sexy fleet. We’ve got them, we got the that’s the three d eggs and a while. Love it, love it. So how is it your on Touro? How does somebody get in touch with you if you’re like hey, it’s true, the best spot if they’re looking to kind of be in Atlanta Rena TASSLA. Yeah, so actually I’m an Allstar host on the platform. So when you search just for any cars in general here in Atlanta, my cars would be one of the first to pop up just because I have five star ratings and you know I take it, take it very seriously to make sure to my clients have a good time. I go above and beyond providing a concierge their new to the city, providing the restaurants and hotels, just different places to enjoy themselves and, you know, trick my clients like family because you know, when they when they come back, we have a rewards program that they can take advantage of to return and return to members for discounts and stuff like that. So this is fun and just from looking at where we were in August to where we are now is a complete blessing and I thank God for that for sure. That’s yeah, when you were listening off, when you bought each car like crazy, that it’s such a short time frame and just up into the right growth. So congrats to you for that. That’s thank you. Thank you, thank you. Thank you. Do you have when the cyber truck comes out in eight years, or you going to add that to the late? Yeah, I know it’s taken forever, but but yes, that’s that’s the plan. I actually was trying to hold off and wait weight around, but I say, you know what, you know, we’ll just get the whole fleet and when it comes will grab I like. I think I still have a like my two hundred dollar spot reservation there from a few thanksgivings ago when I was with my my wife’s family and I was sitting next to our GRANDPA and we were talking about the cyber truck. We like, because it…
…had just been announced and you could just put down it’s like one or two hundred bucks to reserve. Yeah, boys, plays in line and really why? I like why? I like, let’s do this. I think thing looks like a beast. Like four years ago. Yeah, it was. It was I think it was read at four years ago is Thanksgiving two thousand and eighteen. Maybe that’s crazy, and I think at that time they were anticipating late two thousand and nineteen for production and they knew will take forever. They knew it, but that’s a great way to raise money, though. They got everybody. I even gave him that the posit to. Yeah, yeah, so I got I don’t know, no, I’m I’m car number probably eight million, five hundred thousand. So well, that’s it. I got one more combustion engine car to go and then by the time I’m ready to get rid of that, my cyber truck will be ready. So there we go. Hopefully, hopefully, that’s my that’s my move into the EV world. I think my wife’s going to beat me. She’s she was a big fan of the high bred Scott Her’s two thousand and sixteen and she’s a hundred percent ev. We can, we can still keep the priest around. Yeah, we just still keep the priest feeling. I love the Preto. Yeah, but best of both worlds, little bit of High Brid Action. So back to what you were talking about with the diversive vacation. I think that for me it’s about, as an investor, partner with the right teams that are leaders in that space and, from an investing standpoint, just trying to find an advantage of, you know, who’s the top technology performer? WHO’s the top leading company in the technology world? WHO’s the top company in the medical world? Even when a lot of the medicines were produced during the pandemic, I actually took advantage of by ownership and those companies. To me, just think about it. The whole worlds in the pandemic and they’ve got a creative vaccine, right, that means that one of those companies is going to be successful at making this vaccine. Yeah, yeah, right. So in my mind I’m like, well, maybe I should own the company that’s making the medicine. I’m with you. That’s making sense, right, so we don’t have to get all that. Yeah, I’m just saying that, just thinking from a lot of coup perspective. You know, everyone’s going to lockdown, we can’t go anywhere, we have to get vaccinated to do things. Okay, what companies are making them? Okay, well, I want all those coup yeah, those are ones. That’s that’s producing it. Right. Yeah, that’s that’s so that’s the the opportunity and like times in life whenever you have to kind of look at the whole chessboard a little bit and not just yeah, not just go the old broad index route, but hey, like there’s this eight hundred pound guerrilla in the room and we knew what’s going to happen here. Like are we’re going to figure this out, like you said, like somebody’s going to make a vaccine that works and it’s going to be a winner. Like they’re going to get there, gonna get hate reworded via share price appreciation. Absolutely, absolutely, and I think that just always made an observe it in terms of you know, who’s who’s the top dog in this space, and you know, if you can’t beat them, join them. I don’t know how to create any medicine, so let me just buy ownership in the company that has been doing in the past fifty years. Sweet Vaccines, LLC lock that down. It down like that. Next next pandemic. It’s probably not going to be another. That’s my makes been. That’s it. I’ll be I don’t know. I’ll be the chief medical…
…officer. I don’t know anything, but I’ll figure it out. All right, I got to hear it out. I got you. We’ll hopefully we get sponsor about prey as the test. There we go, get a couple Tesla’s the dishes. That’s our distribution mechanism, all right. You just load up, load up model acts, pop in the seat, press go distribute. We look, Gosh, is gold mine. We can’t release this episode now. Oh No, right, they’re on to the Oh man, Hey William, I can’t thank you enough and I always enjoy chatting with you. I have not been to Atlanta since you and I recorded our first couple episodes together, but I got to get to Atlanta see you, hang out with you, love buckhead. It’s a fun spot. So absolutely we would love to have you and we would love to pick you up and any of our Tesla’s, the ask the three legs for the wife, come shot with us, as we’ve mentioned. Beautiful, beautiful. If you’re on a flight to Atlanta listening to this, book your Tesla. If you’re going there for the weekend, Book Your Tesla. Have Fun in that city. William Sweet, founder sweet benches LLC. Thank you good sir. Thank you. Thank you so much. Thanks everybody for listening. Take care. Are you a real estate investor looking for the right lender that can finance all your deals and help you scale? Lema one capital has the best suite of loan products in the industry. Barn, whether that’s fix and flips, fix and holds, building new construction or buying rental properties. They have incredible financing solutions for it all. A reliable common since LNDER is one of the most important parts of your investment team, and that’s exactly what you get with Lema one. Let Lima one capital show you how they’ve helped thousands of real estate investor scale and increase their wealth. Check out Lima onecom or call eight hundred two five nine zero five ninety five to speak with the consultant and preparation for your next project. Thank you for joining us today on the real estate of things podcast. Subscribe and tune in weekly for new content from the industry’s best while we continue to unhack the nuances of this dynamic market. Follow US across social media for additional insights and analysis on the topics covered in each episode, and remember to rate, review and share the show.
The Real Estate of Things 