Can you imagine buying your own property at the age of 18? Well, this multimillionaire real estate investor did it. Marco Santarelli is the founder of Norada Real Estate Investments and he bought his first rental property at the age of 18!
But just like other real rags to riches stories, this wasn’t his first job. His first job as a young teen was delivering newspapers in the early morning, which isn’t an easy job given Canada’s climate is very harsh. Santarelli says convincing his brother to deliver papers with him using his power of persuasion was an early sign of his desire to build a business. And since then he hasn’t looked back and went from delivering papers to owning and operating a turnkey real estate investment firm.
But why did he start real estate investing? Marco says he had heard success stories of rental property owners who were set up well financially, and he too wanted to achieve that financial independence. “Even though I was young, I just wanted to make money. Back then I felt a desire to be an entrepreneur rather than a full-time investor, and real estate seemed like the right place to start” Santarelli said.
But he knew that the first step is not buying properties but acquiring knowledge. He quotes “The most precious and important place to invest is in your mind and in yourself. And at Norada, we are constantly sharing information and knowledge as we guide investors toward their financial freedom.” And since then, Santarelli’s personal motto “Educate yourself” has never varied, in fact, he calls it the first of his “10 Rules for Success in Real Estate Investing”.
Santarelli believes financial education is evolving along with other things. Nowadays it’s not enough to save money but to be investing in income-producing assets. In 2004, Norada Real Estate Investments was born with the sole purpose of helping one million people achieve financial freedom with real estate.
Santarelli follows a fully market-agnostic approach which essentially means not being married to any market, or any property manager, lender, inspector, or title company and being completely unbiased. This approach has given enormous benefits to not only Norada but its clients as well because as soon as the numbers fail to make sense in his proprietary deal grader system for markets and deals, the company already has the next profitable market in its sights and is moving on solid investment purchases in that area. Never restrict yourself to a specific market just because you are familiar with it or you live there. It’s best to pick the markets that offer the best opportunities and put your investment capital to work there.
Today they help investors all over the United States and as far away as Australia, the United Kingdom, and Canada. Santarelli has seen both sides of the real estate market, the boom, and the crash. And with this, he has learned many things along the way and has continued to refine those and build a roadmap out of those learnings. And there are 4 core principles that Santarelli believes in:
- Knowledge is currency
- Never speculate
- Invest for cash-flow
- Work with professionals, be professional.
Here’s a great piece of advice from this multimillionaire himself to end with “No one is born an investor. Invest the time to learn, and gain experience by actually doing it. If you fail, dust yourself off and keep on trying.”
