Issue 12 2020

Jun20324 Revitalising Communities Through Real Estate Expertise Founded in 2004, The PIP Group has built a reputation on the back of achieving results in the notoriously challenging real estate space. Following the firm’s success in the 2020 Corporate Excellence programme as the ‘Most Influential Business Leader in Real Estate in the US’, we spoke with Founder and Managing Director Charles Sells to find out more about its history and achievements. Thriving on the real estate landscape can be a difficult thing indeed, as reactive and temperamental as it is. The industry has often been described as an economic barometer, fluctuating with the various variables that impact the greater national – and global – economy. Of course, that’s not to say that flourishing in the space is impossible. No, quite the opposite. You just need an experienced hand to guide you through whatever storms may arise. As a full-service real estate investment group, The PIP Group has swiftly made a mark on an industry bursting with intense competition. More than that, The PIP Group has – since its establishment – focused on turning distressed properties into double digit returns. By finding value in properties that would often be ignored by others, and in helping to revitalise those that would seem lost to the system, The PIP Group acts as a force of real, tangible positive change. Here, Charles explains this central ethos in more detail. “We work primarily in Fix and Flips, Tax Liens, Buy and Holds, Pre-deeds, and Secondary Markets. The PIP Group is described as a full-service real estate group, and what we mean by full service in this context is that the client places their funds and we take over the rest. Doing everything from due diligence, acquisitions, renovation planning, hiring, and management of contractors, as well as listing the property back on the market, all the way through to liquidation.” Now operating, in one form or another, for over twenty years, The PIP Group has managed to navigate around recessions and economic difficulty while maintaining this mission, acting as a powerful north star for the company as a whole. It’s not often that you see an investment firm with a potent ethical centre, but The PIP Group has seen success through a careful equilibrium considering both profit and positive change. Ultimately, its important to frame the company’s success through this lens, with The PIP Group acting as a pacesetter towards more prevalent corporate social responsibility. It would be no surprise to say that The PIP Group’s culture very much reflects the ethos of the business, as Charles moves on to describe. “As a company, we are educated and fun-loving, and hard-working. But, as they say, we love what we do so we feel that we’re never truly working. We are, overall, a more relaxed business casual, show up to the office in flip flops sort of company (we are located on Hilton Head Island, so that’s kind of normal around here). Yet, we are also very focused on our future goals and the success of our clients.” Like all business though, regardless of sector of operation, The PIP Group has experienced challenges over the decades. The most demanding of these challenges is, by all regards, a good one to have – how to manage growth without sacrificing quality. “As you can imagine, it’s a problem we will enjoy solving. We have grown at a rapid rate, and with such increases we need larger office spaces, more field personnel, more contractors for renovations etc etc. That’s really where our focus lies outside of delivering results.” And that defines The PIP Group’s future. A sort of continuation, and a continuation of balancing results with community revitalisation. In his closing comments, Charles takes a moment to talk about his vision for the company’s future. “Of course, our goals are always to remain a growing business that creates consistent double-digit returns for each of our clients. We have recently teamed up with one of the largest private money lenders to create access to leverage private money for individual investors who may not normally qualify. We do this by allowing new clients to use our experience (in place of their own) so they can get a much greater deal on borrowing. Where they might have paid back 5-8% of the loan with us it could be as low as 2-3%, depending on each case. This is going to be huge in the upcoming years and we are very excited about this!” It is The PIP Group’s intense focus on delivering results for its client base that stands apart from many operating in the industry. Equally, it is easy to lose sight of the end result of real estate investment on the community in which the property is located. The PIP Group manages to do both, and for that it seemed the obvious choice for recognition in the Corporate Excellence programme, in the hope that it shows the way for better business practices in the years to come. The PIP Group LLC Contact: Charles Sells, Founder and Managing Director Address: 17 Executive Park Rd STE 1, Hilton Head Island, SC 29928 Website: www.PipGroup.com Telephone: 877.335.2529 “Our mission is pretty simplistic; we don’t just perform real estate investments, we revitalize communities. When we purchase dilapidated, distressed, or condemned homes and put a little TLC into them (sometimes a lot of TLC!) this produces a surrounding by-product that helps everyone!” - Charles Sells, Founder and Managing Director “We understand the ins and outs of all facets of our business. We do everything for our clients. Our motto is - “You invest...we do the rest”. We have been doing this for 20+ years, so we have it down to a science.”