Podcast: Speaking of Quality: Wealth Management Insights with Hank Smith
Season 4 Episode 5 Title: From the Football Field to the Backyard: Real Estate Investment with Brent Celek

Episode Transcript:

Maxine Cuffe 00:06 

You are listening to Speaking of Quality: Wealth Management Insights with Hank Smith, a podcast by the Haverford Trust Company. On Speaking of Quality, Hank chats with authors, influencers, and wealth management experts to bring a sense of clarity and calm to the complexity and stress of personal finance. And now here’s your host, Hank Smith.

Hank Smith 00:27

Hello, and welcome to our next episode of Speaking of Quality: Wealth Management Insights. I’m your host, Hank Smith, Director and Head of Investment Strategy at The Haverford Trust Company. On this podcast, we explore topics ranging from quality investing, retirement resilience, stock market trends, estate planning, small business ownership, behavioral psychology, and more.  

This season, we’re focusing on unpacking the economic drivers of today and tomorrow. Today, I’m joined by a very special guest. He owns his own real estate company and happens to be a Super Bowl champion. Join me in welcoming Brent Celek to the show. 

As a former Philadelphia Eagle and owner, operator of Brent Celek real estate, he and I are going to talk about the role of home ownership, real estate investments, and our economy today. Thanks for being here, Brent. 

Brent Celek 01:21 

Thanks for having me, Hank. 

Hank Smith 01:22 

Before we dive into your current career, when you retired from the Eagles after bringing home our first Super Bowl – thank you very much by the way – you did some consulting work for the Eagles and continued, and you had a special project in preparation for our Super Bowl win a few weeks ago. Can you tell our audience a little bit about that? 

Brent Celek 01:46 

When I retired, I mean, I love the game of football. I think I’m always going to love the game of football for what it can teach you and that camaraderie and just being around the guys. The Eagles have been awesome to me in helping me kind of create a role where I can mentor some of the guys during the season and then in the offseason, I can do some scouting for them. I love it. Keeps me around the game. I think eventually one day I’ll get into coaching. What level that’s at and when I’m not sure. But over my years, I’ve talked to a bunch of different coaches. The defensive coaches for the Eagles are great. The DB coaches have kind of taken me in, taught me a little bit more about defense, and just preparing for the Super Bowl. I was like, man, is there anything I can do to help you guys? They’re like, well, you can watch some film on Kelce, and when we warm up before practice, you could run some of his routes. I don’t know if I did a very good job. I’m a forty-year-old man with a bum knee, so I’m not moving very fast. Any way that I can help the team, I’m there to help. I love it. Anytime they want to use me, I’m there. 

Hank Smith 02:56 

Well, I think we Eagles fans would say you did a great job because we did a pretty effective job of shutting him down in the Super Bowl. I’m going to give you credit whether you think you deserve it or not.  

By the way, as a consultant, do you get a Super Bowl ring? 

Brent Celek 03:13 

I’m not sure about that. I don’t know if I really even deserve one. I’m not there enough. I’m not making that big of a change, but we’ll see. 

Hank Smith 03:21 

Clearly, you have humility as well. Just briefly – the Eagles have had a 50-year history of some really outstanding tight ends going back to the 1970s with Charlie Young, then in the early 80s, John Spagnola and then Chad Lewis. Keith Jackson, a very athletic tight end. Of course, yourself. Then Zach Ertz and Dallas Goedert all fit into the mold of really top-level tight ends. 

How has this position evolved over that period of time? 

Brent Celek 03:55 

We’ve had some great tight ends over the years. Initially, I think tight ends were more considered blockers and over time they’ve become really good pass catchers. The way I see a tight end is you got to be able to do a little bit of both. Otherwise, if you can only block, well, they could just use an offensive tackle. If you can only run routes, then you’re just a receiver, and they could use a receiver in your place. I think tight end is really a position where you need to be able to do a little bit of both. I think you got some good tight ends out there that can do both. You got the Kittles of the world, the Goederts. I think Kelce can block if he wants to. But, I think over time you’ve just seen the athleticism from these guys just continue to get better and better. It’s pretty impressive. I think it’s opening people’s eyes to what tight ends can do for an offense if you have one really good tight end or if you have two tight ends, you can create a lot of mismatches on the field. I love the position. Playing the position you’re able to see the run game and the pass game and kind of understand both. From a high level, helped me understand the game a little bit better. 

Hank Smith 05:08 

That observation about athleticism probably applies to every position in the NFL. When you think of what some of these offensive lineman at the combine this past week are doing in terms of vertical jump, broad jump, speed – it’s remarkable. And these guys are 6’6” and 340 pounds. It’s really fascinating and just the speed of the game. These athletes are just so much faster than 40 years ago. 

Brent Celek 05:41 

I agree. I look at the high schools and the facilities these guys have, the colleges and those facilities, and then the understanding of the human body better. Recovery, taking care of themselves in a different manner than they did 20 years ago. Even when I started in the NFL. Practices – we had full on two-a-days. They don’t do two-a-days anymore. They take care of themselves. I think it allows them to be fresher on game day. I would say over time all professional sports are continuing to get better and better and better because people are understanding things more and more and more. 

Hank Smith 06:18 

That’s why records are being broken almost on a daily basis. How did discipline in football prepare you for the career you’re in now? 

Brent Celek 06:29 

I think it showed me that in order to be great at something, you really got to kind of start at the ground and work your way up. Takes a lot of hard work. You can’t skip the hard work, and I think what’s a little bit tough for me is I’m done playing football. I made it to the highest level and to start over and then work your way up. I do have aspirations to do some things, but I don’t have aspirations to be working 100 hours a week. That’s what I love about real estate. You have the ability to pick projects – when I want to do them. I can be very selective. If I need to take any time off, I can take some time off. I love the lifestyle aspect of it, and what’s great about it and different from football is you can win every day. In football, you know you lose on Sunday. That’s a bad feeling, and over time, the wins aren’t as good as the losses are bad. If that makes any sense. It can wear you out over time. What I love about real estate is it doesn’t have to be that way. You can continue to win. You’re going to have ups and downs, and you’re going to have some losses here and there, but generally speaking, you can continue to win, and it’s a good mindset. 

Hank Smith 07:45 

What brought you into the field of real estate from retirement? Were you dabbling in it a little before retirement?  

Brent Celek 07:52 

My grandfather was a custom home builder. I was always kind of around it, and my uncle, he worked with him. My uncle is a great carpenter. I’ve been around it. Anytime I helped those guys, I would just be doing the grunt work. I was like, this is terrible. I’m carrying lumber, doing all the dirty work. So, I wasn’t a huge fan of it growing up. I never thought that I would get into this, but then once I was in the NFL, I invested in a couple business ideas. There was one – a restaurant – where I signed a bad lease and I really said I don’t ever want to be sitting on this side of the table. I want to be sitting on the other side of the table and be able to do the right thing for people and own the real estate and really have control. When you sign leases, you’re really not in control. So that led me into investing in real estate and I started investing in single family for sale town homes in Philadelphia. And that was good, but I learned the pros and cons of that too. Building single family homes for people is not the easiest thing because when anything goes wrong, they’re calling you and you’re kind of tied to those people. That’s their biggest asset in their life. So I’ve been able to evolve and see the pros and cons of the areas of real estate that you can make money and be successful in. And really, I think I found that I truly love design. I love great architecture. I love going into a space and looking at it and saying, I can add a ton of value here. This is what I would plan to do. And I would say, generally speaking, I have decent ideas and I love seeing those ideas come to life. 

I like creating. So that aspect of real estate is really what I truly love. You’ve got to find something in life that you love or you’re not going to go all in on projects. And so me finding this has been great for me because to be able to find something outside of football that I do truly love is great. And so over time I taught myself through many different projects, kind of how to develop from the ground up. And so I feel very confident that any piece of property that I have an opportunity to get no matter where it’s at in the country, I feel like I could develop and I know the process of developing from the ground up. 

Hank Smith 10:05 

You’ve given our listeners two wonderful lessons, one hard work. There’s no substitute for it, and two, if you love what you do, it’s not really work. You’ve been now in two careers. You clearly love the game of football, and as you’ve just expressed, you love real estate. So tell reviewers a little bit about Brent Selleck real estate and all of the different parts of it that you’re involved in because it isn’t just building or sales. You also have a mortgage company. 

Brent Celek 10:38 

I no longer have a mortgage company I sold out of that company, but part owners and a title company. I do have a brokerage company. After I kind of got out of investing in single family for sale homes, I decided I think the best way to understand this game is to be on the sales side and see things transact and not really have a lot of risk in the deal other than representing both parties. I started a real estate brokerage company, more focused on residential real estate. We now have 13 agents that are on board. Most of them are doing residential deals. I personally over time have realized I love more the commercial market, and so I’m leaning heavier into the commercial market. If there is a good residential deal where I feel like I can add a bunch of value and there’s opportunity there, I will do it. But that’ll be a one-off deal that I would do. So I still do have the brokerage, a lot of agents working with me doing the residential stuff, but I’m leaning more into the commercial side. 

Hank Smith 11:43 

You’ve been at it now for seven years. How have you seen the industry change over that time period? 

Brent Celek 11:51 

Well, throughout office space got crushed and so able to see that, able to see interest rates go from 2% to eight, so able to see a little bit of what happens to the market when interest rates rise, what it does to the value of properties, kind of the housing market in general over seven years, being able to see the fact that we don’t have enough homes in this country, I don’t see values coming down anytime soon because as interest rates go up, it becomes more expensive to build. So people just build less. And I think we go a million home units short every year, and I think that number is like 7 million, and next year it’ll grow to 8 million. And so if you have a good house, it’s continuing to gain in value because there’s just not much supply out there. 

Hank Smith 12:43 

Right? In post great financial crisis, there’s such a under building of real estate. So many contractor subcontractors got out, retired, and at some point it has to be made up. So at some point the housing market is going to be a secular tailwind. Right now it’s a headwind for some of the reasons you just described and the fact that you have such low levels of existing home sales because people are locked into these low cost mortgages and there’s just no way they’re going to give that up. 

Brent Celek 13:18 

It doesn’t make sense. 

Hank Smith 13:19 

Yeah, it’s going to take some time. Philadelphia has recently named the fifth hottest real estate market in 25 by Zillow. A lot of that is the impact of Covid. And I know in my neighborhood in Haverford in 2020 1, 22, 23, even to a certain extent last year, you’d see a house come up for sale and there would be 50 cars parked and 40 of them were New York license plates. They’re coming down. This is a wonderful area to be in, particularly the suburbs because you have such easy access to the city and a quick train ride south to DC or North to New York City. Do you see this trend continuing? 

Brent Celek 14:05 

I think so. I mean, with the cost to live in New York or D.C., Philadelphia is a great city to live in, and the transportation to those cities is pretty easy, quite honestly. So, I think Philadelphia is a great city to live. I think it’s going to continue to grow. That makes a lot of sense to me. 

Hank Smith 14:25 

Real estate’s an illiquid asset, and for most people it is their single biggest asset. Actually, it’s probably the mortgage, but the home is a single biggest asset. How do you advise clients between home ownership versus tenancy renting? 

Brent Celek 14:43 

I’m a big believer in home ownership just for what it does for society. I think people are more invested in general as they own homes. I think it makes so much sense at the right price, at the right interest rate, that you buy your own home so that you’re not paying a note for somebody else because there’s no equity for you in the end if you’re renting from somebody. I love the idea of home ownership. I think it’s great for society. I think, again, like I said before, it makes people more invested. I’d advise people if they find the right property. It all has to work for you. It all has to be perfect for you. But if it is, then go for it because I just don’t see in the future if it’s a good piece of real estate, I just don’t see it really coming down in value because there’s just no supply out there. There’s no really good homes out there now. And when you think about the rebuild cost of your house, in a lot of situations like these subcontractors, they’re not taking less money. The building materials aren’t coming down. So it’s like to rebuild what’s there is going to cost in some cases, maybe twice as much. So it just makes a lot of sense if it’s a good house and it’s a good situation for you to go ahead and buy.  

Hank Smith 16:01 

So you started your real estate career in single family homes in Philadelphia, but you’re a big proponent of the suburbs as opposed to the cities. Can you get into that a little bit, please? 

Brent Celek 16:14 

Through COVID, we saw cities were a little bit different throughout covid. I just think that people being packed in on each other all the time, at least for me, where I’m at in my life right now, it just does not work. I have four young kids, me and four young kids in the city would not work very well. But I do understand from affordability standpoint and amenities, living in a city can be a lot of fun. It’s just not something for me right now. Maybe that’ll change over time, but I’m not a big fan of the big cities. I like going down and getting something beat and then heading out there, but I need to see green space. I think that I’m a happier person when I see grass and trees all over. 

Hank Smith 16:58 

And we’re so fortunate in our suburbs in any direction, east, northwest south, we have such wonderful suburbs that are also right next to farmland and with relatively easy access into the city. And that can’t be said to other major cities. I mean, New York, if you live in the suburbs outside of New York City, it’s a monster commute to get in. And I’m in the city two times a week early in the morning for strength training. I come out in rush hour, but I go back roads and it’s very, very easy and not all that time consuming. 

Brent Celek 17:38 

That’s what makes Philly kind of great. I would say 76 could be better, and if they double decked that thing, it would be really awesome. But other than that, it’s pretty easy to get around. And that’s why I like the city. I grew up in Cincinnati, and when I was there, nothing was going on in the city. So it was easy and easy out. Now Cincinnati has completely changed. There’s a ton of stuff going on in the city, so it’s a great city. But yeah, I love that about Philadelphia. No one wants to sit in traffic for three hours a day. 

Hank Smith 18:11 

Well, the same could be said for Philadelphia. When I started my career in 1984, there was nothing going on in Philadelphia. The restaurant scene hadn’t taken off. And it’s become hot now because so many college and university graduates don’t leave. They actually stay in the city. There’s an incredible vibe, an incredible vitality, and you just see it almost every night, even in the middle of the winter on a Tuesday night, people are moving from bar to bar, restaurants to bars, and I think it’s been a very healthy for the city. And a lot of that had to do with the beginning of the restaurant Renaissance in Philadelphia, started by George Perrier. 

Brent Celek 18:54 

Yeah, it’s great. The food scene of Philadelphia is unbelievable. It’s always fun to go down in there and get a meal. 

Hank Smith 19:02 

Oh, no question. So obviously winning a Super Bowl has to be one of the all time highlights. What have been some of the most rewarding moments of being an entrepreneur and starting your own business? 

Brent Celek 19:15 

Yeah, I mean, I would say finding a deal, executing on the deal and making some good money off of it is very rewarding because there’s a lot of people out there that are trying to do these deals and they’re not easy to find. And so when you’re able to do something and be successful with it, I think that’s very rewarding. Especially I think it’s tough when you play football into your thirties and everybody else out in the real world has started a job in their early twenties, and so they have a 10-year head start on you, and you’re used to being at the top of your game, and now you’re kind of at the bottom and working your way through. And there’s a lot of people that are competitive. People aren’t just going to give me deals. Brent Selleck and I played for the Eagles. They could care less. They’re going to compete against me. They’re going to try to do the same deal, and they’re going to try to do it better. Nothing’s going to be handed to you. And when you do have success on your own, I think it’s very rewarding. It shows you that, OK, I can do something else in life, but I’m just not typecasted into football my entire life. I do have other things that I can do. I think from that standpoint, it’s been great. 

Hank Smith 20:30 

It must be challenging for certain professional athletes that have this great talent, but everything’s taken care of for them during their career, and now all of a sudden they’re post career and nothing’s taken care of. And that must be a tough challenge for many. 

Brent Celek 20:48 

You’re around these guys in the locker room every single day, and it’s a great atmosphere. And then to have that completely stripped from you and then have to go figure it out in the real world, I mean, I don’t care who you are. I think at some point you’re going to be a little bit depressed because you lost your identity and you got to go find a new one. And so that’s the hardest part. But I would say the longer that I’m out, the easier that it gets. The more real estate deals that I do, the easier it gets. But going from an NFL locker room to being in the house and listening to four kids scream all the time is not easy. It’s not easy.  

Hank Smith 21:32 

I have to ask this question that my 15-year-old son a number of years ago asked of one of your teammates who at the time was a U.S. representative, Jon Runyan. I said to my son, ‘Do you have a question for Representative Runyan?’ And he said, ‘Yes. How important is leadership in the locker room in the NFL? And were you a leader in the locker room?’ So I posed that question to you. 

Brent Celek 21:58 

I think it’s very important. I think the team goes, as the players go. There are no coaches out there that are making plays on the field. It’s the coach’s job to put the players in position to make plays, but then it’s the player’s job to make plays and for a locker room to come together. I think you need to have great leaders on the team. I don’t think it can just be one guy. I think it needs to be multiple guys. And I think there’s multiple different ways that you can lead. You can lead by just your actions and how you go about every single day on the practice field throughout the locker room, how you treat people. You don’t have to be the vocal guy that’s up there doing the rah rah speeches, although most teams do have a guy like that that can do that, and that’s great, and I think that that’s needed. But I think leadership comes in all different styles. And I think to have good football teams, you need to have leadership throughout the entire team. 

Hank Smith 22:53 

And I’ll give you your teammate Jon Runyan’s answer to that question first. He said, ‘Well, that was an advanced placement question for a 15-year-old.’ And then he said to my son, ‘Henry, I hated the locker room. I got dressed as quickly as possible and got out of there and on the back end undressed and got out of there. My leadership was on the field. And I think all Eagles fans would agree with that.’ 

Brent Celek 23:19 

Jon was a great leader. I mean, again, he was a guy that led through his actions. And I mean, I’ll never forget when he slipped in the cold tub one time and broke his tailbone, and he couldn’t even sit in meetings. He had to stand up in meetings or he had to lay down, but he never missed a game. And I was like, wow, this is unbelievable. For a guy that was in his thirties, break his tailbone, continuing to go out there play, that was leadership. The guy didn’t have to say a word. That was leadership right there. 

Hank Smith 23:50 

He actually told me he had to sleep standing up on an inverted table. I can’t imagine doing that for an entire season. 

Brent Celek 23:58 

Yeah. It was pretty nuts.  

Hank Smith 24:00 

Well, Brent, congratulations on two really successful careers, and also congratulations on having four children. That is a wonderful gift to society. We have a demographic problem in this country, and we’re not having enough kids. So, well done there. 

Brent Celek 24:18 

Thank you. I’m trying to do my part, but it’s not easy.  

Hank Smith 24:21 

No, and I’m sure you’re going to have many, many more successes in the future, and we look forward to staying in touch. Brent, thank you for joining us on Speaking of Quality, it’s been an insightful conversation. I loved hearing about your path from the NFL to the world of real estate. Thank you for listening to this episode of Speaking of Quality Wealth Management Insights. 

Our next episode will be released shortly. In the meantime, please send suggestions or questions for me or the Haverford Trust team too, marketing@haverfordquality.com. And don’t forget to subscribe, rate, review, and share this podcast.  

Until next time, I’m Hank Smith. Stay bullish. 

Maxine Cuffe 25:10

Thanks for listening to this episode of Speaking of Quality: Wealth Management Insights with Hank Smith. To hear future episodes of Speaking of Quality, please subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen to podcasts. To learn more about the Haverford Trust Company, please visit www.haverfordquality.com.

This podcast is provided as general commentary and market overview, and should not be relied upon as research, a forecast or investment advice, and is not a recommendation offer or solicitation to buy or sell any securities or to adopt an investment strategy. Any opinions expressed are as of the date this podcast was recorded and may change at any time, and are the opinions of that commentator not Haverford’s. Any opinion or information provided are believed by Haverford to be reliable at the time of this podcast recording but are not necessarily all inclusive or guaranteed for accuracy. Before making any financial decisions, please consult with an investment professional.