How A College Dropout Built A $2.9 Billion Real Estate Empire | Forbes

I was always intrigued about real estate and investing real estate and I'd read articles. Well, I was 13 years old. I bought most of the script and Wall Street Journal and so it did interest me in a possible career in real estate. But, you know, I really didn't know which direction I wanted to go until real-alvested in high school and first year of college.

当我十三岁的时候，我就对房地产和房地产投资产生了浓厚的兴趣，并阅读了很多相关的文章。我买了大部分的机率和华尔街日报，这让我对房地产行业的职业道路产生了兴趣。但是，直到我上高中和大学的第一年投资了真正的房地产之后，我才真正确定了自己的职业方向。

My name is Roy Carroll and I'm the CEO president of the Carroll Counties. I brought up as a very lower middle-class upbringing. I broke my parents' work. My father's a meat cutter, a grocery store man. It had a little bit of remodeling on the side, so I'd go help them, you know, after school and all weekends with the remodel jobs. So, that's how I got my hands in construction a little bit. We actually lived in rental homes. We didn't even own our own homes.

我叫罗伊·卡罗尔（Roy Carroll），是卡罗尔县（Carroll Counties）的CEO总裁。我成长于一个非常中低阶层的家庭。我的父母都在工作，我帮助过他们的工作。我的父亲是一名肉贩，也从事杂货店的工作。他有一些兼职装修工作，所以我会在课余时间和周末去帮他们一些装修工作。那就是我开始接触建筑工作的方式。我们实际上住在出租房里，我们甚至没有自己的住房。

I was in high school. After my father bought his first house, he decided to buy some more rental homes and getting up to you to buy two homes up in Dambal, Virginia. And I'd saved up money more than loans doing our jobs and such and so I'd saved a thousand dollars and so this is a very modest home. And so he asked me if I wanted to buy the one home and so I put a thousand dollars down in owner finance. I think it's four thousand dollars or so. So this is a five thousand dollar home and I rented it for a year and sold it for a profit to buy a car which is a bad investment because cars depreciate value right? I should have kept that house.

我当时还在上高中。父亲买了第一套房子后，决定购买一些出租房产。他让我去买弗吉尼亚州丹巴尔市的两个房屋。当时我通过打工攒了不少钱，超过了贷款金额，有一千美元。这是一幢非常平凡的房子，父亲问我是否想买下它，于是我交了一千美元的首付，通过业主融资来购买了它，大概是四千美元左右的价格。我租了它一年后卖掉并获利，用于购买一辆车。这是一个糟糕的投资，因为车的价值会随着时间降低。我应该留下那套房子。

So I was in college and my father got laid off from his grocery store business after 20 some years. This early 80s terrible time of going to real estate. Interstates are very high. We had some friends at one to house built and so they knew my father had done some renovations on the side. So they asked my father if he wanted to build their house. I was going to school here locally, and so I would help after school and on weekends, and he and I did a lot of the work hands-on.

我当时正在上大学，我的父亲在经营了二十多年的杂货店生意失败后失业了。那是80年代的经济大衰退时期，房地产价格持续走高。我们有一些朋友正在建房子，知道我父亲旁工搞过一些翻新工程，便问他是否想建他们的房子。我当时正在本地上学，所以放学后和周末我会帮忙，我和他一起亲手做了很多工作。

When I say did the work we nailed the nails and swept the floors and did things like that built the first house. And by the time we finished that home actually had another set of friends that said, hey you did a good job with that home. Why don't you be interested in building us a home? After it built in the second house he and I kind of sit down and said you know we we may be able to make a career out of this and so we formed our little company and started doing custom homes on scattered lots around the Gransville area. We kind of divvied up the worlds he would run the crews on the job site more so and I would do more of the estimating and selections with the customers.

当我说我们做的工作是钉钉子，扫地和做像建造第一座房子那样的事情。当我们完成那个家的时候，我们其实还有另一组朋友说，“嘿，你们做得很好啊，为什么不考虑为我们建一所房子呢？”建完第二个房子后，他和我坐下来说，“你知道吗，我们也许可以把这个变成一份职业。”于是我们成立了我们的小公司，开始在格兰斯维尔地区的散布的土地上建造定制房屋。我们把世界分成了两个部分：他更多负责工地上的人员，而我则更多地负责估算和与客户的选择。

You know we still both got out there and drove nails at the end of the day so it was very rewarding and everything that those early years started the business of my father. The real estate business has a lot of risk associated and from the first year that we started the business we decided that we would my father had a little bit of retirement savings that he lived on. I was a college student I didn't take much from me to live on. So we decided we'd pay ourselves once a year at the end of the year so we basically put a third of the profits back into the business to grow it and we'll each take a third. And so as long as he was in the business up until the early 90s that's the way we paid ourselves and so I think that was one of the things that kind of was a catalyst for us to be as successful as we were.

你知道，在一天结束时我们仍然会一起工作，打钉子，这是非常有回报的，所有这些早年的努力都开创了我父亲的公司。房地产业存在很多风险，我们开始经营的第一年，我们决定除了我父亲拥有的一点退休储蓄之外，不取得太多的利润。我当时是一个大学生，不需要过多的生活费。因此，我们决定每年在年底支付我们的薪水，基本上将三分之一的利润用于公司发展，而我们每人会分得三分之一。直到90年代初期他离开公司，我们一直按照这种方式付薪水。我认为这是我们取得成功的催化剂之一。

It's just that very conservative approach which I carry on today. We've got a high-up place hotel right downtown we've have 300 apartments associated with it we're getting ready to start an AC hotel across the street from it. A rooftop restaurant another 300 apartment associated we've got I don't know how many b-saves we have in town here and whenever we start a new venture, a new project, a new idea we always like to try it out in our backyard or we can kind of tweak it a little bit get the formula just right before we take it on the road. We're always looking for markets that are emerging in areas where there's new growth and opportunity and we're also looking for value.

就是我现在坚持的非常保守的方法。我们在市中心有一家高档酒店，有300个与之相关联的公寓，我们正准备在对面开设一家AC酒店。顶楼餐厅和另外300个相关公寓，我们在这个城镇里有很多旅馆并且每当我们开始一个新的企业、一个新的项目、一个新的想法，我们总是喜欢在我们的后院尝试一下，或者我们可以稍微调整一下，使配方更加完美，然后再上路。我们总是在寻找新兴市场、新兴机会和价值增长的领域。

We're not going to go out there and be the guys that bid and pay top dollar for a real estate asset. We really beat the bushes hard so to speak and try to find value and then try to add to that value by executing in the vertical construction or if it's an existing building we will go in and renovate and invest dollars and reposition it to a nice place. Remodeling a building has a lot more brain damage associated because you don't know what you're going to get into.

我们不会去成为那些出价高价钱购买房地产资产的人。我们会尽可能地搜寻价值，然后通过纵向建筑的执行方式来提升它，并且如果是一栋现有建筑，我们会进行翻新，投资资金并重新定位它。重新装修一座建筑与之伴随着更多脑力损伤，因为你不知道你会遇到什么。

The building we're sitting in here is 17 story building, old Wacovia bank building. It was built between 63 and 64 and then it was basically abandoned in the early 80s and so it had gone through bankruptcy a couple times and insurance company next door Lincoln financial have purchased the building and they really purchased it protect their assets because they own several buildings down to town and several other properties and this is kind of sitting in the middle of them.

我们现在坐在的这栋建筑是一座17层楼高的建筑，是老的Wacovia银行大楼。它建于63年至64年间，然后在80年代初期基本上被废弃了，因此它经历了几次破产，旁边的保险公司林肯金融公司收购了这座建筑，他们真正购买了它来保护他们的资产，因为他们拥有市中心的几幢建筑和其他几个物业，而这个建筑物就坐落在它们中间。

And so I met with the CEO of the company and convinced him that we could execute this project and turn into something that Grantsboro will be proud of. And so we lined up that we want to do condos. This is mid to 2005 2006 where we're doing the planning people lined up the buy condos from us. And so we started construction we had about half the condos pre-sold and then 2008 here. In 2009 you were hearing just about every day about a developer did a condo project and they got sideways and they were turning it back over to the bank.

因此，我与该公司的首席执行官会面并说服他，我们可以执行这个项目并将其变成令Grantsboro感到自豪的事情。因此，我们计划要建造公寓。这是2005年到2006年期间，我们在进行规划，有人已预定了我们的公寓。因此，我们开始建造，约有一半的公寓已被预售，但到了2008年，恰好在2009年，你隔一天就会听到有开发商做公寓项目，经营状况不佳，不得不将其返还银行。

And I told people I said I will not give this building back to the bank. I was speaking to the CFO one morning and I said you know I think it would help us sell more condos and just take that cloud from over the Carroll companies if we just paid off this building. And hindsight is one of the smartest things we could have done because word got on the street that you know that's how we conduct business. We're not going to walk away from one of our obligations and you know we never reduced the price of one condo in this building and you know we're we're close to sold out and everything.

我告诉别人，我说我不会把这栋大楼还给银行。有一天早上，我跟首席财务官说，我认为如果我们只是还清了这栋大楼的贷款，这会帮助我们卖更多的公寓，也会消除一些负面影响。事后看来，这是我们最明智的决定之一，因为外界传言我们做生意的方式就是这样的：我们不会食言，我们不会放弃我们的义务。我们从未降低过这栋大楼内某一套公寓的价格。现在，我们已经接近售罄了。

And I live here so all my neighbors are happy with me because I didn't reduce the price or give it back to the bank so it turned out well for everyone here.

我住在这里，所以我的邻居们都很高兴，因为我没有降低价格或将其归还到银行，所以对于这里的每个人来说都很好。

Well sell storage kind of like a close cousin to multi family anyways way I said and a lot of our communities we already had garages we had storage units all sides so I studied the business and I said let's come up with something that's a little bit unique. There's a lot of good self storage operators out there today and so we came up with the B safe brand and where we tried to position B safe is that it is top end of the market.

这段话的意思是：我们销售储存设备，就像是多户居住的亲戚一样。在我们的许多社区中，我们已经拥有车库和储物间。因此，我研究了这个业务，想出了一些独特的创意。现在市面上已经有很多优秀的自助储存运营商，我们推出了“B safe”品牌，试图定位为高端市场。

Our lighting is a little brighter we temper the temperatures inside a little bit more than most self storage operators. And we put a lot of money in the exterior facade all of our exteriors and the B safe or or stone and brick and they really like an office building so they fit in well and upscale communities that we're trying to be and so that's been a good business model for us and you know we're spread out pretty much everywhere where we're already with the multi family we're also looking to put the B safe self storage facilities.

我们的照明比大多数自助存储运营商要亮一些，我们也比他们更加控制内部的温度。我们在所有外观上投入了大量的资金，所有外墙上都使用了安全的石材和砖块，这让它们看起来就像是一栋豪华的办公楼，因此它们很容易地融入我们正在尝试进军的高档社区。这对我们来说是一个好的商业模式，我们已经遍布各个地方，除了多户家庭之外，我们还计划在这些地方建立 B Safe 自助存储设施。

Car storage is something that we've studied there's a number of different variations of car storage cross country where we're a little bit different we're doing it instead of doing like a condo or one big open space where we're placing cars and and a big open room these are individual two story units that we lease we give you an up that allows where you can personalize it.

汽车储存是我们研究过的东西，有许多不同的跨国汽车储存方式，而我们有点不同，我们不是像公寓或一个大的开放空间那样储存汽车，而是提供租赁的独立两层单位。我们提供了一个升级选项，让你可以个性化定制它。

Whatever theme you want to come up with I'm in the cars a little bit collecting and thought it was a would go well with some of the other car events that I tend and and be able to promote it with some of our B safe racing. I guess about five years ago I bought a Ferrari challenge car it would take it up there's a there's a racetrack about an hour north of here in Virginia and was running around one day and the race team was looking to form down in Charlotte and asked me if I'd be interested in joining them on a Ferrari challenge series and so I said sure and so I went they led to another and joined the team and met a lot of great people being involved in the race.

无论你想要的主题是什么，我都会参与。我有点收集汽车，想着这可能会与我参加的其他汽车活动相吻合，并且可以与我们的“安全赛车”一起推广它。我猜大约五年前我买了一辆法拉利挑战赛车，把它带到了这里北面大约一小时的弗吉尼亚赛道跑了一天。有一天赛车队想要在夏洛特组建一支车队，问我是否有兴趣参加法拉利挑战系列，并加入了车队，认识了很多优秀的人。

It's a lot of work to do with that. It's great to be involved with Ferrari. It's helping us brand it's also helped with employee engagement and Carol companies. Several employees like the follow the racing program and it's great that it's kind of pulled a lot of our Carol companies employees together and everything around the racing program. We had a car in La Maha this year partnered with Ferrari for a racing program built a Ferrari 488 GTE for us to run in La Maha and we had a good experience with that. It came in fifth in our class. We'll be back at some point in the future and be on the podium one day.

这事情需要花费很多精力。能够参与到法拉利当中感到非常棒。这有助于我们塑造品牌形象，也帮助员工更好地参与公司。很多员工喜欢关注赛车项目，这让我们的多个公司员工团结在一起，围绕赛车项目展开各种活动。我们今年在La Maha比赛中有一辆法拉利488 GTE赛车，并建立了与法拉利的合作关系，这为我们的比赛过程提供了有力的支持。它在我们的类别中排名第五，我们会在未来的某个时间再次出战，并获得更好的成绩。

Well this community Greensboro has been very good to me and my family over the years obviously and so you know we're very blessed to be able to get back to the community and it is rewarding to look out the window of our home here and see various projects we have ongoing. Sometimes I look out the window and see something though that hey that needs to be changed. Greensboro is a beautiful place it's a great place to live great place to grow up and real blessed to be here.

这个社区的格林斯伯勒多年来一直非常亲切地对待我和我的家人，我们非常幸运能够回报社区。看着我们正在进行的各种项目，感到非常有成就感。有时候我望出窗外，发现有些东西需要改变。格林斯伯勒是一个美丽的地方，是生活和成长的好地方，我们非常幸运能够在这里。