Torres doing deals and getting to ‘The Deed’
A successful real estate developer, Sidney Torres is comfortable negotiating multimillion dollar deals for hotels and condo developments. But when he went in front of a TV camera last year to make his CNBC real estate flipping series “The Deed,” the neophyte broadcaster admits he felt like a fish out of water.
“Season 1 I wasn’t really comfortable in the chair,” the 42-year-old New Orleans native says. “I was very like, ‘And tonight on ...’ Whereas now I’m more conversational, I feel like I’m telling a story better than I used to tell the story.
“I have more of a feel that I’m being invited into people’s living rooms ... so I worked really hard this season with a voice coach to ... basically tell my story with the passion of how I normally tell stories but being a little bit more conversational. That is a huge improvement from last season.”
The current second season of the Wednesday series continues the premise of the first, in which the self-made real estate mogel helps out inexperienced developers and flippers in need in return for a percentage of the profits, using his deal-making skills, design savvy and decades in the business.
But where last season Torres frequently found himself pulling folks back from the brink, he says this season’s stories are more inspirational, such as the couple looking to turn their flipping dream into a reality after a 10-year wait, former real estate partners reuniting to finish up one last project, and the 21-year-old law student looking to get started as a developer.
“He’s very excited, he’s very eager and ambitious but a little too ambitious sometimes, wanting to take on things,” Torres says. “You know, like he put a house under contract but he didn’t have the money to buy it. It was a (bold) move but I liked it because I thought, ‘Wow, he’s really got the type of energy you need to have and the ability to have the tough skin when you’re dealing in this business.’ ”
The flipping market, says Torres, is still very hot but anyone considering getting into it will find heavy competition, which makes research all the more critical.