{"id":2675,"date":"2022-05-19T17:33:59","date_gmt":"2022-05-19T17:33:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/imsfund.com\/?p=2675"},"modified":"2022-05-19T17:33:59","modified_gmt":"2022-05-19T17:33:59","slug":"using-a-miserable-job-to-fuel-a-fast-growing-flipping-portfolio","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/imsfund.com\/index.php\/2022\/05\/19\/using-a-miserable-job-to-fuel-a-fast-growing-flipping-portfolio\/","title":{"rendered":"Using a “Miserable” Job to Fuel a Fast-Growing Flipping Portfolio"},"content":{"rendered":"


\n<\/p>\n

House flipping<\/strong><\/a> is a very potent form of investing. After just one fix and flip, many investors find themselves hooked, leaving their stable jobs for the profit (and rush) or finishing another flip. This happened quickly to Jason Pritchard<\/strong>, flipper and rental property investor<\/strong> in central California. Jason was working at a sales job he hated<\/strong> and after watching one of the many famous HGTV flipping shows, thought, \u201cHey, I could do that!\u201d<\/p>\n

He gave it a try, using his life savings and retirement funds<\/strong> available to him. It was a success, so he decided to scale up. One flip grew to a few, and now, Jason\u2019s team does over seventy-five flips and wholesale deals per year<\/strong>! This incredible volume didn\u2019t happen overnight\u2014it took Jason seven years to go from W2 worker to one of the best flippers in the state! And it\u2019s not just flipping Jason is after. He\u2019s been able to grow a massive <\/strong>rental property portfolio<\/strong><\/a>, some eighty-three units<\/strong>, at the same time!<\/p>\n

You\u2019re probably wondering how Jason did this so fast. Worry not, as he details every step from how he finds leads<\/strong>, builds a team<\/strong><\/a>, pays the taxman, and even compensates employees<\/strong>. If you\u2019re trying to get your foot into the flipping door, Jason\u2019s story should inspire you to do almost exactly what he did.<\/p>\n

\n

David:
This is the BiggerPockets podcast show 611.<\/p>\n

Jason:
If you would have told me that seven years ago, when I started that I\u2019d be doing what I\u2019m doing right now, I wouldn\u2019t have believed that it was even possible. What was sad would be, I wouldn\u2019t even believe that I was the kind of person that was capable of doing it, which was even more sad for me, right? I had to get into this space where we proved to ourselves, and we had proof of concept like, \u201cWow. This works. Wow, I am capable of doing it.\u201d That confidence, that self-confidence is like a muscle that you build over time.<\/p>\n

Jason:
Now, when I say that I\u2019m going to do something, I know that it\u2019s going to happen because for the last seven years, I\u2019ve been doing everything that I\u2019ve been saying that I\u2019m going to do, right? It doesn\u2019t start out that way but you can get there and it doesn\u2019t need to take a lifetime.<\/p>\n

David:
What\u2019s going on everyone? My name is David Greene and I\u2019m your host of the BiggerPockets Real Estate podcast, the best real estate investing podcast in the entire world. Here at BiggerPockets, we believe in helping you find financial freedom through real estate so that you can live life on your terms and do what you were meant to do, instead of what you have to do. We do that by bringing on different guests who tell their stories of how they found financial freedom, as well as industry experts that share advice, opinions and information that can help you become more successful.<\/p>\n

David:
If you\u2019re looking to get plugged in with over two million other people on the same journey, I highly encourage you to check out biggerpockets.com. Our website where there is a forum that you can ask any question you could think of when it comes to real estate investing, a blog where you can read articles written by other successful investors, as well as this podcast and others all designed to help you find financial freedom through real estate. I am joined today by my amazing, mysterious, captivating, and now athletic co-host, Rob Abasolo. Rob, how\u2019re you feeling today?<\/p>\n

Rob:
Lactic acid is building everywhere I mentioned right before this I went on my first run in three years. I thought I could do it. I did it. I ran five miles.<\/p>\n

David:
You ran five miles your first time?<\/p>\n

Rob:
Yeah, yeah, but you know.<\/p>\n

David:
What the heck?<\/p>\n

Rob:
Yeah, but they are 12 minute miles. I mean, it\u2019s offensive to even call it running. I\u2019ve been known actually. I\u2019ve actually run three half marathons without training every single time. I was like, \u201cYeah, I could do five miles.\u201d I\u2019m paying for it today, my friend.<\/p>\n

David:
You got a little bit of delayed onset muscle soreness?<\/p>\n

Rob:
Yeah. Isn\u2019t it supposed to be worse on the second day, though? I think tomorrow is going to be the bad one for me.<\/p>\n

David:
I always feel it right around 22 to 24 hours after I worked out. That\u2019s where it starts to hit me.<\/p>\n

Rob:
I\u2019m going to be healing up pretty good, though. I\u2019m really simultaneously nervous and excited because a friend of mine sent me two A5 Wagyu steaks, and two oxtails and I\u2019m going to be eating that right after this. I got to get a load up on the protein to heal up [inaudible 00:02:48].<\/p>\n

David:
You need that protein to rebuild those muscles. That\u2019s right.<\/p>\n

Rob:
Yeah.<\/p>\n

David:
Today\u2019s podcast is brought to you by Rob DOM\u2019s, Delayed Onset Muscle Soreness. It\u2019s real.<\/p>\n

Rob:
It\u2019s real. I\u2019m really excited about today\u2019s episode with Jason Pritchard. We talked about a lot of good stuff, man. He basically scaled from, he started out doing a couple of deals and now he does about 75 deals a year, which is a really, really, really, really crazy feat. He gives us a really honest look at the growing pains of that business model and scaling up a team and the financing involved with flipping that many houses and just really, really easy to talk to and made it feel very digestible, I feel like.<\/p>\n

David:
Yeah, and he did a great job of explaining sort of the entire process, how we\u2019re getting leads, how we\u2019re talking to those leads, how we\u2019re wrapping them up, who we pass it to, to work on the rehab, how we decide if we\u2019re going to wholesale it or we\u2019re going to flip it. It\u2019s a really good overview of what a successful business could work like.<\/p>\n

David:
In addition to flipping all these houses, he\u2019s got 83 rental properties. Jason is, I mean, this is the archetype of what you want to scale your business look like if you\u2019re a flipper. He\u2019s got income from flipping. He\u2019s got passive income from rentals. He has six short term rentals that he\u2019s working on. I mean, he\u2019s kind of doing it all.<\/p>\n

Rob:
Oh, yeah. Man. There were a lot of selfish questions are like, \u201cYeah, but how exactly do you do this because that seems very hard?\u201d He was very, very gracious with his answers, I feel like.<\/p>\n

David:
All right, moving on to today\u2019s quick tip, Jason makes a comment in today\u2019s show. You want to make sure you stick around for it, where he talks about his W2 job was in sales, and he took his skill from his W2 job and applied it into his real estate investing business. Because he was so good at sales, he did very well with convincing sellers to sell him their off market deals. The point to pull out of this is that if you\u2019re not happy at the job that you currently have, if you\u2019re just phoning it in and going through the motions and waiting for some new inspiring opportunity to crash your path, and then you\u2019ll give it your best, it\u2019s not going to happen.<\/p>\n

David:
You have to do your best with where you\u2019re at before your next opportunity is going to present itself. If you do a good job developing skills where you are, you will have those when the next opportunity comes. BiggerPockets wants to help you with that. We want you listening to more content that will help prepare you for the opportunity that will be coming your way. If you feel like you don\u2019t know enough about business or finance or living within your means, you can check out the money podcast, which is all based on building financial independence.<\/p>\n

David:
We\u2019ve got the rookie podcast if you\u2019re a brand new investor, and you\u2019re afraid about asking silly questions, or you don\u2019t even know where to get started, that caters to your demographic but the point is, there are resources out there that will help get you ready for the next step where you can take charge of your life and you don\u2019t leave it up to fate. That was today\u2019s not so quick tip. Rob, any thoughts before we get into the show?<\/p>\n

Rob:
Mm-mmm. Man, I\u2019m excited to jump in.<\/p>\n

David:
All right. Well, let\u2019s bring in Jason. Welcome to the BiggerPockets podcast. First question for you, if you were so independently wealthy that you could hire someone to announce you every time you arrived at a party, at an event, even maybe to work, what would you have them announce you as?<\/p>\n

Jason:
Thy Jason Pritchard. I love the ring of thy before. It\u2019s strong. It\u2019s elegant. It\u2019s classic.<\/p>\n

David:
Very strong, very.<\/p>\n

Jason:
Classic never gets old.<\/p>\n

David:
Yeah, it rings of old school masculinity and value.<\/p>\n

Jason:
That\u2019s right.<\/p>\n

David:
I can see that sort of emanating from your person as we speak here. Well, thank you for being here. I think we\u2019re going to have a fantastic show today. Before we get into the nitty gritty of what you got going on, can you tell me a little bit about what your portfolio looks like or your business looks like right now?<\/p>\n

Jason:
Yeah, yeah. We\u2019ve been fixing and flipping in central California for the last seven plus years. We\u2019ll do about 75 deals this year, on average. That\u2019s about what we\u2019ve been doing the last two or three years. We\u2019ve got 83 rentals as of right now. Most of those are single family, small multifamily, small apartments in California. Then, we\u2019ve got a handful of out of state rentals in Cleveland, and also in Northern Indiana.<\/p>\n

David:
That is fantastic.<\/p>\n

Jason:
Yeah, yeah. It\u2019s a mix of fixing, flipping right now because with the market what it\u2019s doing, we\u2019re more flipping and less wholesale but we do a little bit of both. Then, we cherry pick the best ones to keep for ourselves. We also have six Airbnb, three that are live right now, kind of wading into the short term rental market as well, which has been a very pleasant surprise for us with how they\u2019ve performed.<\/p>\n

David:
Who is the we?<\/p>\n

Jason:
Myself and my wife.<\/p>\n

David:
Okay.<\/p>\n

Jason:
Yeah, yeah. When I [inaudible 00:07:14].<\/p>\n

David:
No business partners?<\/p>\n

Jason:
I have a formal business partner through our nonprofit but that\u2019s kind of a separate arm. I had mentioned that in some of the notes that I have but I have my own private real estate business. That\u2019s mine and my wife\u2019s, and then through our nonprofit, we do some affordable housing stuff and I do have a business partner with that.<\/p>\n

David:
This is amazing. The reason I ask because I often hear people say, \u201cWe,\u201d and then they go on to you drop these huge numbers like 83 rentals, and tons of fix and flips and 75,000 units and then you find out that their part of the we was like 1\/10 of one half of that whole enterprise.<\/p>\n

Jason:
Yes. Yeah.<\/p>\n

David:
This tells me that you\u2019re the real deal. It also tells me that no doubt, you are very good at finding off market opportunities\u2026<\/p>\n

Jason:
Yes.<\/p>\n

David:
\u2026 if you have all these different exit strategies. Maybe we should start there. Tell me a little bit about how you built your business and how you\u2019re finding all these opportunities.<\/p>\n

Jason:
I built my business originally by just going off market. I got started in the end of 2014, completely self-educated, never had a coach mainly because I didn\u2019t have the money to hire a coach or mentor go through that type of program. I started by listening to BiggerPockets podcast, Sean Terry how to podcast out. That\u2019s how I learned the business. I found out very quickly in 2014 that there were just not a lot of opportunities that were listed on the market at that time. I spent a few months at the beginning, just beating my head going on like realtor and Zillow, and just trying to pencil out deals with the cheapest properties that were listed. We just could not make the numbers work.<\/p>\n

Jason:
I found out very quickly that we had to shift and adapt. I dove headfirst into direct to seller marketing. We started with direct mail. I mean, I\u2019ve done everything: direct mail, cold calling, bandit signs, door knocking. We just kind of cut our teeth doing that. I\u2019d say 99% of the deals that we\u2019ve done have been off market. I\u2019ve actually only ever bought one property that was listed with an agent and that\u2019s because I had a working relationship with that agent.<\/p>\n

David:
All right. I\u2019m assuming you started off with fixing and flipping for the most part, maybe you had a couple rentals and then sort of just started to pour more marketing dollars and resources into looking for off market opportunities and hit some kind of a rhythm where now you\u2019ve got the same sources that are providing a decent number of leads.<\/p>\n

Jason:
That\u2019s correct. Yeah, it was all fix and flip for the first two years. I was mainly just looking to replace my income from my old corporate job. I mean, I\u2019d worked in corporate America 15 years prior to getting into the real estate market and real estate field. If you would have told me back in 2014, \u201915 that I could just replace my W2 income with income from my real estate business, I would have been happy camper just because I was so miserable and unhappy with what I was doing at that time.<\/p>\n

Jason:
I just wanted to fix and flip. It sounds cliche but we used to watch all the flipping shows on TV, my wife and I, and we were always entertained by it. I always thought to myself, if these guys can do it, I know I can too and let\u2019s just start there and figure out everything else after that. I didn\u2019t really understand what wholesaling was at the beginning. I just knew that I needed to buy deals below market value in order to make all the numbers work out.<\/p>\n

Rob:
Just for clarity, I\u2019m kind of curious, to what did you do? What was your corporate job before you got into the real estate stuff?<\/p>\n

Jason:
My corporate job, I\u2019ve always been in sales and sales management. I worked for two large companies in my early 20s and all through college, and after I graduated. The first company, was a technology retailer. We did all outside sales. It was all business to business. That\u2019s where I really learned the value of marketing lead generation and understanding how a sales process works. I excelled at that, honestly. I did really well. I was paid very well at an early age. I thought that that\u2019s what was going to be, my life was going to be working as like a mid-level executive, climb the corporate ladder, make a couple 100 grand a year, and just kind of do that life.<\/p>\n

Jason:
I found out after being at my first company for about seven or eight years that my heart just was not in what I was doing. I felt like I was just getting burned out. I thought it was the company. I moved to another organization where I worked in sales and sales management there. I went through the same basically seven-year cycle there where I thought I was going to climb the ladder.<\/p>\n

Jason:
I was doing well, and I found myself at this transitionary period in my early 30s where I was just miserable and I was looking around and I was like 32, and I could see my future with some of the older employees that I worked with. I said, \u201cThis can\u2019t be the rest of my life, man. I am not going to do this for another 30 plus years.\u201d I\u2019d always been drawn to real estate. I\u2019d always just kind of talk myself out of it for different reasons. I finally just said, \u201cYou know what? We\u2019re going to go all in and try this and if it doesn\u2019t work out, I could always come back and get another job.\u201d<\/p>\n

Rob:
Would you say it\u2019s been pretty applicable to use your sales acumen and knowledge kind of in the wholesaling in real estate business?<\/p>\n

Jason:
It has been invaluable. I talked to so many people that are interested in getting into the type of business that I\u2019m in, fixing and flipping houses or buying rental properties. They don\u2019t understand how much of a sales job I think it is at the beginning. They don\u2019t understand that the purpose of sending out direct mail is to get the phone to ring. When the phone rings, you got to answer it. You got to be on top of your game. You\u2019ve got to be willing and able to build rapport and go out and negotiate.<\/p>\n

Jason:
It\u2019s very much a numbers game. There\u2019s a lot of rejection, especially at the beginning. I had basically been doing that for 15 years. All the rejection, realizing that it\u2019s just a numbers game, you\u2019re not going to close every deal that you go out there on. I was just focusing on understanding the language of real estate. Once I understood that, all my old sales instincts kicked in.<\/p>\n

Jason:
For me, I think it was my big competitive advantage getting into the industry. It just took me a little bit of time to understand how a real estate transaction worked. Then, once I understood that, I just hit the ground running.<\/p>\n

Rob:
Is there a skill within that, that you feel like you mastered just to the nth degree that you\u2019re able to actually execute every single deal or in your business?<\/p>\n

Jason:
I think for me, the way I equated and this is the example or the analogy that I would use, I think we\u2019ve all been in experiences where we\u2019ve purchased something, a car or a house or a vehicle or a product and we\u2019ve walked away from that interaction feeling very good about the person that we worked with, right?<\/p>\n

Jason:
Just like, \u201cMan, that guy, Jason, he was nice. He was really good. I really liked him. I liked doing business with him.\u201d I learned very early on that people make decisions, and they do business with people that they like and trust. I think I was just really good with my interpersonal communication skills. I\u2019ve always been good at that. That\u2019s been something that is a strong suit for me. I honed that in my time in corporate America, and it was directly applicable towards the real estate business.<\/p>\n

Rob:
Can you give us a little bit of an idea when you were first starting out, I think, you might have mentioned this, but were you wholesaling first and then that went into flipping? Were you doing them both at the same time? What was that progression like?<\/p>\n

Jason:
It was only fixing and flipping because in my head, the deals were a lot further, fewer and further between when I first started, right? I didn\u2019t have 5 deals, 10 deals consistently in my pipeline, right? Every deal that we bought, my thought process was we just need to maximize the amount of money that we can make from this and I thought fixing and flipping was the way to do that.<\/p>\n

Jason:
We started out, our first deal was in 2015. We maybe did four or five houses that first year. Second year we doubled up and then after that second year where I really kind of got my feet underneath me and I understood that, okay, I\u2019ve got a little bit of momentum. I understand how this works. I had no construction background, no real estate background. I barely understood what an agent did. I didn\u2019t know how everything worked. I needed a couple years of just managing projects and penciling deals out and understanding what things cost.<\/p>\n

Jason:
Once I got that under my belt, I eventually got connected with some other investors in my area that were more buy and hold investors. They were the ones that really encouraged me to start keeping some of these properties. They basically told me, \u201cListen, you just have another high paying job. That\u2019s all that you\u2019ve got right now with this business and until you can start investing in stuff that you can keep long term, you\u2019re always going to be on that hamster wheel.\u201d<\/p>\n

Rob:
For sure. Well, I guess I got questions here because for me, I think the idea of going out and doing a flip, that\u2019s pretty achievable for most people. I think most people, if they save up a little bit of money, they can do a hard money loan, they can get into a flip, but how many deals are you doing right now, consistently at a time?<\/p>\n

Jason:
We always have about 18 to 20 projects on our books at any given time. Here\u2019s what I mean, when I say that, I mean, we\u2019ve got three to five projects that we purchased that we\u2019re getting ready to start construction on. We\u2019ve got another five to seven projects that we\u2019re actively rehabbing. Then, we\u2019ve got another three to five projects that we\u2019ve got completely rehabbed, and were in escrow or on the market listed to sell.<\/p>\n

Jason:
We typically stay right about that range. That\u2019s about the capacity that my team has with the relationships with the contractors, and just, that\u2019s about the max that I want to do as far as properties that we\u2019re rehabbing. Then, anything else that comes in above and beyond that scope, then we\u2019ll look to just assign it or do some type of quick exit strategy, maybe wholesale it or something like that, to just to monetize it and just move on.<\/p>\n

Rob:
I got to imagine, probably in this then, if you\u2019re doing the level that you\u2019re doing 75 flips or so or deals every single year, can you tell me a little bit about, because I think the big question that comes through here is, obviously, you\u2019re going to be making a lot of profit here, do you have to kind of stash away a significant portion of your funds for taxes or is your buying and holding and your rental strategy sort of helping to offset that side of things?<\/p>\n

Jason:
It\u2019s a mix of both, man. I feel like it\u2019s tough because if you don\u2019t show any money, and you\u2019d really aggressively depreciate your rentals, then you\u2019re not as bankable when you want to go get a big bank loan, right? Your borrowing profile maybe doesn\u2019t look as sharp as if you show a bunch of money. We\u2019re constantly finding the balance between those two things.<\/p>\n

Jason:
I\u2019m very fortunate that my wife is still a high school counselor. She\u2019s W2. We leveraged a lot of her credit profile at the beginning when we initially started buying rentals until we were in a space where we could borrow just kind of on our own and we\u2019re making lending relationships where we could get the loans that we needed without necessarily showing that income.<\/p>\n

Jason:
It\u2019s a balance. I don\u2019t love writing a big check to the IRS. We just did that a couple of times already this year. That always is painful when you do it, but there\u2019s a purpose behind it because you know you\u2019re setting yourself up to maybe leverage some financing on some future deals.<\/p>\n

Rob:
Well, it\u2019s really hard to think of it this way. Someone that I talked to one time, put it very simply and they said if you\u2019re paying taxes, it means you\u2019re making money. I\u2019m always like, \u201cOkay, you\u2019re technically right about it.\u201d I would still rather not pay the taxes but that doesn\u2019t make sense.<\/p>\n

Rob:
Honestly, I don\u2019t really hear a lot of people that come in and say that kind of what you\u2019re saying, you want to do a good balance of both because I think the kind of the popular thing, that\u2019s going around a lot right now is cost segregation. Obviously, it\u2019s not new, but more and more people are learning about it. A lot of people are trying to effectively just nix out the entire tax bill but that\u2019s not something that you necessarily are looking to do.<\/p>\n

Jason:
It depends on the person\u2019s situation. I mean, it really does. My wife and I just purchased, I don\u2019t want to say it\u2019s our forever house, but we purchased a house that we\u2019re going to be very happy in for, I would say, the next 8 to 10 years. We\u2019re in a really good place with our rental portfolio. I could probably get more aggressive with the depreciation on our rentals now and have less tax liability if I wanted to, because we\u2019re in a really good spot, I think, for the midterm future, right?<\/p>\n

Jason:
But if you\u2019re in a position where you want to be really bankable, then you\u2019ve got to show some money. I mean, I feel like I\u2019ve had my mentors that I look up to when I\u2019m very vocal and open on my social media about just the different things that I\u2019m doing with my businesses and some of those guys will reach out to me and they\u2019ll say, \u201cHey, I just wrote a $1.5 million check to the IRS for this year. I agree with your thought process. If you\u2019re writing a check that big, then you\u2019re making the income obviously to offset it. There\u2019s a give and take there for sure.<\/p>\n

David:
You know something? Jason, you just have such an impressive business so far. I want to commend you for that.<\/p>\n

Jason:
Thank you.<\/p>\n

David:
This is probably more than we\u2019re going to be able to get into in one podcast because I\u2019m thinking how did you build a team to get these leads? What does that structure look like? How did you build a team to manage the rehabs? Then, how are you managing all of your rentals? This is not something any one person can do by themselves.<\/p>\n

Jason:
No.<\/p>\n

David:
There\u2019s that and then there\u2019s the actual sales techniques that you\u2019re using, which I think could be really good. We might have to have you on again to dive into that because I just can tell there\u2019s a lot people can learn from what you\u2019re doing. Before we get into any of that, I sort of wanted to highlight an issue that I can see that happens with someone like you that has so much success so quickly, is it\u2019s sort of, this is probably not the best analogy, but it\u2019s like you\u2019re a bodybuilder and you\u2019re becoming tremendously fit, but you have certain areas that you like working out more than others. When you\u2019re good at working out, they become much more unproportionally big than the areas that you don\u2019t like, right?<\/p>\n

David:
You\u2019re probably making a ton of money. You\u2019re investing it very well. You\u2019re probably cash flowing very strong. There\u2019s even more money coming in. You\u2019re very strong in that area but like you mentioned, you haven\u2019t taken advantage of enough depreciation with some of what you\u2019re buying and that\u2019s why your tax bill is so high.<\/p>\n

David:
At a certain point, you\u2019re going to have to shift your thinking from okay, I\u2019ve got this thing on autopilot. Now, I have to buy bigger property so I can take advantage of accelerated depreciation. You\u2019d have to get some apartment complexes or luxury real estate, something like that. It\u2019s very common to see this happen. It\u2019s okay. I don\u2019t think if you\u2019re paying taxes, there\u2019s no one that should be critical and say, \u201cOh, he\u2019s paying all those taxes.\u201d Well, yeah, that\u2019s because he\u2019s making all this money. He doesn\u2019t have time to figure out how to save all the taxes.<\/p>\n

David:
Ultimately, as we\u2019re growing, we\u2019re trying to build this balanced, well balanced approach to where we\u2019re making good money, we\u2019re investing good money, and then we\u2019re saving in taxes. I see this all the time. There\u2019s some people that do really well saving in taxes, but they don\u2019t make that much money, right?<\/p>\n

Jason:
Yup.<\/p>\n

David:
They brag about, \u201cMy tax bill is so low.\u201d Yeah, well, you make less than somebody does with their W2 job.<\/p>\n

Jason:
That\u2019s right.<\/p>\n

David:
It\u2019s not as impressive when it comes to your approach where you know, \u201cHey, I could be doing some stuff to save money,\u201d but that would take away from what I\u2019m doing over here. What\u2019s your perspective on how you sort of handle that problem?<\/p>\n

Jason:
I\u2019ll be honest with you, I\u2019m an analytical person, but I don\u2019t make every decision based on does it fit this exact formula or whatever. I think I have learned to trust my gut and my instinct. I also have a lot of people that I surround myself with that I trust to take advice from, right? That\u2019s one of the things that I\u2019ve learned that has really moved the needle in my businesses that I didn\u2019t know about finances, financial literacy, and education.<\/p>\n

Jason:
My upbringing and my parents, and everything, that was great but this was stuff that we did not openly talk about. I was just unfamiliar and I had a lot of bad financial habits, even into my mid-30s when I started in the business. I had to relearn and retrain the way that I thought about money. Then, I\u2019ve learned that I just need to be around other people that are have done or are doing the things that I want to do and get their advice, kind of pool that information together, sit down with the people that are closest to me, my wife, and we have to make the best decision for ourselves. That\u2019s it.<\/p>\n

Jason:
There\u2019s no right or wrong answer. I don\u2019t know that there\u2019s just shades of gray when it comes to, especially to something like this because everybody\u2019s situation is going to be different. Our tax strategy has changed. I think when we were at the beginning, I did want to depreciate more, because I was just not used to writing that check, but as we\u2019ve made more money, and I\u2019ve become more mature investor, and I\u2019ve gotten around, I think older, wiser people that I like and trust and have taken their advice, they\u2019ve kind of guided me and schooled me on to more long term thinking when it comes to this but I\u2019m still learning, man. I\u2019m still very, very brand new to this, you know what I mean? I feel like we\u2019ve got a lot of runway left to go.<\/p>\n

David:
I just figured it out last year. Last year was the first year where I\u2019m like, \u201cOkay, I\u2019m taking all this information. I\u2019m putting it together. I\u2019m making it somewhat of a priority. I bought a property I normally wouldn\u2019t buy, but it worked out great. The tax benefits were insane. I\u2019m like, \u201cOkay, I get it now.\u201d<\/p>\n

Jason:
Get it. Yeah.<\/p>\n

David:
Actually, it covered me for two years, so I won\u2019t have to pay taxes for those two years. I make my money in the way that won\u2019t be taxed, which is different than, like how you make your money matters also. Now, moving forward. I\u2019ve got it. I\u2019m probably not going to pay taxes anymore. If you want me to connect with my CPA, I\u2019m happy.<\/p>\n

Jason:
I love what you said, you got it. I think we all have these light bulb moments that happen throughout our journey, where something happens and it just clicks, everything clicks, and you\u2019re like, \u201cOkay, now I get it, right?\u201d I know and trust and have faith that those things will just come. As long as I keep my head down and do the work, eventually, we\u2019ll get to a point where that light bulb moment comes for me and it may be this, right? Hey, just having this talk, having getting on the show and then talking to your people and then that\u2019s it. That\u2019s really cool. I think people just [inaudible 00:24:22].<\/p>\n

David:
That\u2019s what I wanted to highlight, right? Because there is an approach that would say, I don\u2019t want to put my pedal to the metal until I\u2019ve built the road in front of me perfectly. I know exactly what all the plans are. It\u2019s just not practical. I don\u2019t know any successful person that made it happen that way. It\u2019s more like riding a motorcycle, you hammer the throttle and you hang on. You adjust your balance as it\u2019s going and you start to get yourself under control and then a sharp turn comes up and you got to figure out what to do there.<\/p>\n

David:
Rob\u2019s business has exploded. Then, last year, maybe two years, there\u2019s no way he\u2019s going to have all these details perfectly outlined, but would you trade that to go back to where you were when you weren\u2019t making money? No. You clearly made the right call, right? It\u2019s not going to be a perfect blueprint with a foundation that\u2019s laid beautifully. Then, the framing goes up.<\/p>\n

David:
That\u2019s what something looks like when you\u2019ve done it thousands of times, but in the beginning, it\u2019s not that. You\u2019re sort of going, figuring out as you go. That\u2019s perfectly fine because you\u2019re obviously very successful. Once now you\u2019ve got all these pieces in place, when you do figure out the tax component, it\u2019s just going to be icing on the cake, but I mean, 83 rentals, six short term rentals, all the houses that you\u2019re flipping, you\u2019ve clearly done a lot of things well.<\/p>\n

David:
If we\u2019re going to sort of carry on from there, tell me in the building of the teams that you had to do, which I, just from hearing your story, I\u2019m pretty sure this has been the most challenging part is getting the people that you want to work with you. What challenges did you face? How did you overcome those team building challenges?<\/p>\n

Jason:
I think there\u2019s so many limiting beliefs that we have. I think the first challenge that I faced was just changing some of those belief systems and developing a mindset and a self-image that actually, I believe that I was capable of doing some of these things because I literally had no money. I had nothing when we were getting started. I was bootstrapping everything, which is good because it makes you become very resourceful at the beginning, but then, you\u2019re also coming from a place of scarcity when it comes time to start growing and reinvesting in the business, right?<\/p>\n

Jason:
I was very worried about, can I afford? I mean, it\u2019s funny to say now, but $15 an hour or $12 an hour or whatever minimum wage was at the time when I hired my first in person assistant and I was doing everything myself. I mean, I went from flipping one house at a time to flipping three to four properties at a time. I think we\u2019re up to about a dozen rental properties.<\/p>\n

Jason:
I was doing all the direct mail myself. I was answering all the calls myself. I was going out and meeting the contractors in the Home Depot parking lot and cutting checks myself. I was doing all the bookkeeping. I was negotiating all the deals. I was managing all the properties. I just reached this point a couple years in, where I just did not have the capacity to do any more. I was a one man army and that\u2019s all that I knew that if I don\u2019t do something soon, then this was going to change.<\/p>\n

Jason:
I originally started hiring out virtual assistants. That was a big game changer for me. I looked for virtual employees first because I knew I could just save money and I had so many repeatable tasks that could be done from a phone or a computer that I figured, \u201cHey, you know what? I see other people utilizing Vas. Let me try this.\u201d I started with that.<\/p>\n

Jason:
Then, I hired my first in person, it started as a personal assistant, and then became my property managers, then my project manager, and then that role has kind of splintered out and grilled into individual roles. Now, we\u2019ve got six people on the team, not including my wife, who also is kind of right there with me on the top. I guess seven people that helped kind of run and manage day to day operations.<\/p>\n

David:
How did you find the people that you ended up wanting to hire?<\/p>\n

Jason:
Social media, believe it or not. It\u2019s funny how, not funny, it\u2019s been amazing to me how powerful of a tool social media has been for me. I was not a social media person before I got into real estate. I had MySpace and then I was dark on social media for eight years. Then, when I started flipping houses, I didn\u2019t know anybody. It forced me to build a network online because I literally did not have anybody that I could tap into locally in the real estate field.<\/p>\n

Jason:
I said, \u201cYou know what? I might as well just post what I\u2019m doing and maybe it can motivate and inspire some people, and maybe it will lead to something.\u201d I was always very consistent with my social media and just being authentic and open about the things that I was doing. It resonated with people, especially locally. That was what turned into, now, eventually I just started saying, \u201cHey, I need an assistant for my business.\u201d I had a few people reach out. The first person that I hired came from that. For the most part, the best hires that I\u2019ve had, believe it or not, have been from social media or either referrals from people that I know and trust.<\/p>\n

Rob:
Yeah, let me ask you this a little bit because if I\u2019m being totally honest here, I think one of the more daunting things, like you hear a lot of people talk about scaling up, building a team, all that type of stuff, but it\u2019s really hard to put some tactical steps here because when it comes to hiring a team, that means you got to pay people.<\/p>\n

Jason:
Correct.<\/p>\n

Rob:
In the very beginning of your business, you\u2019re in the throes, it\u2019s really tough to know, well, for a lot of people starting out, they may not be tracking their expenses or cash flow, having profit loss statements for everything. I\u2019m kind of curious, as you started embarking on this and hiring people, what was your thought process for paying them? Were you paying them per project? Were you paying them a salaried role? Has that changed from sort of where you stand now?<\/p>\n

Jason:
Yeah, at the beginning, I was just paying a base hourly. No bonus. No anything. I just didn\u2019t understand. I come from a background in corporate America where I knew about payroll and these other different things, but it\u2019s just a different animal when it\u2019s your own business, right? Again, I was coming from a place of scarcity. I was trying to extract the most value that I could and pay the least frankly, right?<\/p>\n

Jason:
I was just doing base. Then, I started to realize, as my company was growing, and as these responsibilities started piling up, there was no way that I could afford the level of talent that I needed just paying a base hourly wage, and then that\u2019s it. Then, we started incorporating bonuses for our projects based on profitability. Then, we started incorporating bonuses to people that were helping us with property managers for getting our rentals turned in a certain amount of time. We do the same thing now for our Airbnb\u2019s.<\/p>\n

Jason:
I tried to do, I try to supplement my payroll in a way where instead of having one big salary and paying everybody 75 to 100 grand, we keep a reasonable base, and with the different bonuses, it allows them to make significant amount of money. My top person in my company should be making well over six figures, but we do a base salary, project management bonus, and she\u2019s also a licensed agent. She gets a portion of the commissions of a lot of the flips that we sell.<\/p>\n

Jason:
I like doing it that way. My explanation to my team is we are not a company that has consistent predictable top line revenue every single month where I can just say, \u201cHey, listen, we\u2019re going to make X amount of dollars every month. It\u2019s very easy for me to reverse engineer and project where we\u2019re going to be at as far as expenses.\u201d Some months we\u2019re closing multiple deals, and we have a ton of money coming in, and then another couple of months, we don\u2019t have anything and we\u2019re just spending money, right?<\/p>\n

Jason:
I want to reward you and pay you financially in a way that\u2019s aligned with my company. As profits and revenue are coming into the business, I\u2019ll tie your bulk of your compensation to that. That\u2019s worked very well for me.<\/p>\n

Rob:
That\u2019s really smart. Yeah. Was this the process? Was it something that you kind of figured out along the way?<\/p>\n

Jason:
Yeah. It sounds great now. You know what I mean? At the beginning, I was literally just flying by the seat of my pants, literally, I am a big believer in, I like to stay outside of my comfort zone and just not pushed so hard that we get to a point where we\u2019re being reckless. I\u2019m constantly pushing the envelope. Sometimes that can be scary and sometimes it can feel like you have no idea what\u2019s going on. Some days it feels like the wheels are just going to completely come off.<\/p>\n

Jason:
Then, sometimes things just click and it feels like, \u201cWow, this is working well.\u201d It\u2019s just been a constant process of progression and leveling up year after year that\u2019s gotten us to this point now.<\/p>\n

David:
How closely tied together are your, like the rehab crew and the people that focus on selling the property, getting it ready, versus the acquisition side where you\u2019re sort of filtering through leads, and then setting someone up to go close on it? Are they the same people? Are these two different departments?<\/p>\n

Jason:
No. They\u2019re separate departments but we\u2019re all integrated. The right hand does know what the left hand is doing. My operations manager, her name is Morgan, she also oversees a lot of the construction that we do on our rehab projects, and she\u2019s reselling them. She\u2019s helping me underwrite deals. She\u2019s helping me understand what the resale value is going to be. I have final say so on what we\u2019re going to buy and what we\u2019re not going to buy, but she knows and understands. We\u2019re on the same page and aligned with what those values are. Then, those numbers are then passed down to our acquisitions team.<\/p>\n

Jason:
The way that it works is our leads come in. We do lead intake. We qualify them for motivation, all these other things. We send the property over to Morgan or myself to help with underwriting the deal. Then, we give them back an offer range that we think we could work, and we let them close that deal.<\/p>\n

Jason:
Then, it just goes on the assembly line. Depending on what the exit strategy is, if it\u2019s going to be a rehab or a burr property, then we\u2019ll just get it scheduled with our contractors. We\u2019ll get our bids in and we just hit the ground and start running and gunning.<\/p>\n

David:
Do you have one person who\u2019s sort of overseeing all the projects and they\u2019re delegating things out or is that your role right now?<\/p>\n

Jason:
No. I do not. That\u2019s one of the things that I delegated out very early on, because I did not have a construction background. It was cool at the beginning. I still do like to see a really rundown house turned into a nice pretty house and hand that to somebody that\u2019s going to live in there for a while. That makes me feel good but I don\u2019t get any real joy or excitement in the process of doing it anymore. I delegated that out years ago.<\/p>\n

Jason:
We do have a pretty good system in place now where we can buy, fix and sell a house and a lot of them, if I didn\u2019t want to, I would never have to go out to them, which is good. We\u2019ve systematized our design aspect. It makes it easier on us and it makes it easier on our contractors. We have two or three color schemes that we go with. We make a final decision on which one it goes. We send that list of material to our contractors. It\u2019s got all the vendors where they go to buy it. Our prices are skews. We do phone sales for everything.<\/p>\n

Jason:
We try to put out the best quality product that has kind of a custom look and feel without totally breaking the bank and it\u2019s that balance between those two things that I have found has gotten us the really, really profitable deals, the things that sell for top dollar where it\u2019s not just a carpet and paint, quick and easy rehab but also not over improving the property because we\u2019ve over improved a lot of properties and left a lot of money on the table. You just kind of learn those things the hard way as you\u2019re starting out.<\/p>\n

David:
I found that in most businesses, like someone starts it and then you start hiring people to do parts of the job, the owner tends to move towards the front of the funnel and delegate the stuff that comes later on in the process.<\/p>\n

Jason:
That\u2019s true.<\/p>\n

David:
I\u2019m not surprised to hear that you\u2019re still in acquisitions and you sort of delegate out the things that happen after the thing is acquired. At a certain point, you may even have one of your employees or hire someone out to be the one that negotiates and puts it in contract and you will move higher into how do I get more leads coming in for us to qualify? It always just seems to be-<\/p>\n

Jason:
We have that now. It\u2019s very interesting. Acquisitions and sales has been the thing that\u2019s been the hardest for me to let go because deep down in my heart, I do feel like I\u2019m still kind of a deal junkie. I always enjoy the hunt of doing a deal. I still get a little bit of a charge right now, even closing deals out. I\u2019m good at it. At the beginning, I always had limiting beliefs because I said, \u201cWell, if I\u2019m the best person on my team to do it, and we could make 40 or 50,000 on this deal, I\u2019m handing over this opportunity to somebody that may not be ready to close it and we\u2019re leaving 50 grand on the table if the deal doesn\u2019t get done, right.<\/p>\n

Jason:
I had to overcome those beliefs and realize that in order for me to go to the next level, I needed to be a good enough coach and leader to be able to take the skill sets that were in me, download them into somebody else and make them stick. Now, we\u2019ve got an acquisitions rep. We\u2019ve got a followup specialist. We\u2019ve got cold callers. I oversee that piece still, and I\u2019m almost kind of fully extracted out of there. I like to interject myself. My coach says that I like to steal the ball from my team, and then dunk it and tell everybody how good I am by dunking. You know what I mean? I\u2019ve got to stop doing that. I\u2019m getting better at it but I\u2019m not there yet right now.<\/p>\n

David:
When it comes to these, finding these off market deals you\u2019re talking about, I know you\u2019ve talked about investing being a linear process. Can you describe what you mean by that?<\/p>\n

Jason:
Yeah. When I say a linear process, what I mean is that you have a very clear and laid out process that you have to follow. There are steps and you can\u2019t skip step one to go to step two or step three. One of the questions that I get all the time, especially for new investors is, if I had to start all over with no money, no resources, just the experience that I have, what would I do? I always tell them focus all of your time, effort and energy on step one. Step one to me is marketing and lead generation. That\u2019s it. In this business, at least the niche that I\u2019m in, if you don\u2019t have your marketing setup and you don\u2019t have leads coming in, you don\u2019t have a business.<\/p>\n

Jason:
That was one of the big things that was ingrained into me in corporate America was just the value of those leads. We knew exactly how much the company was spending every single month on our marketing budget. We were grilled. If leads came in, and we didn\u2019t live answer or we didn\u2019t call them back within a certain amount of time, our sales manager or my manager was all over us, right? Then, I was all over my guys. I just took that mindset and my thought process to this.<\/p>\n

Jason:
I think most people, they skip the sales, marketing and lead generation because there is a lot of dirty work that\u2019s involved with that process. Nobody likes to get on the phone and make 500 calls a day and get beat up on the phone by all these random sellers. Nobody likes to go out on appointments and get told no hundreds of times before they get a yes.<\/p>\n

Jason:
Instead of just leaning into that and getting great at that, they want to skip that process and jump to how do I find the money to do a deal? Then, they want to jump to how do I find a contractor? Where do I interview contractors? What title companies are the best title companies in town? I tell them, \u201cListen, it doesn\u2019t matter. If you had a $10 million and a construction company, if you don\u2019t have deals coming in, it doesn\u2019t matter, you have no projects to work on. You\u2019ve got to focus on step one. I was just fortunate that a lot of my experience and background prior to breaking into real estate really taught me that and that was directly applicable towards the business I got into.<\/p>\n

Rob:
I have a question in regards to sort of the financing of this operation because, this kind of gets back to what I was talking about earlier, one or two deals very digestible for people starting out. I sort of want to talk about, if you\u2019re doing three to four deals at a time, I think you said you had 18 projects or 18 to 20 projects on the books.<\/p>\n

Jason:
Eighteen to 20 approximately on the books all the time. Yeah.<\/p>\n

Rob:
How does one really approach the financing aspect of that because if you\u2019re doing one and you go in hard money, a lot of the hard money lenders out there will require 20% down, there are some that will do 10% down, I think it\u2019s possible to find some that\u2019ll just do the whole thing, but it\u2019s very expensive, and it\u2019s very manageable for one, but if you want to go from 1 flip to 10 flips, what is that financing approach and then is there a difference between going from 1 to 10 and then 10 to 75?<\/p>\n

Jason:
Yes. For me, I started using all my own money because I was afraid to ask anybody else for money because I didn\u2019t really know what I was doing. I mean, the conversation that my wife and I had at the beginning was, at least if this gets totally screwed up, it\u2019s our money and we\u2019re not borrowing money. I cashed in my life savings. I borrowed against my 401k. We took a second mortgage out on our house, and we use that along with maxing out all our credit cards and everything else. That, along with hard money, is what we did to initially start doing our first, maybe dozen deals, right?<\/p>\n

Jason:
We would just borrow as much money as we could, get a hard money loan to cover the difference. Then, we would just fund the deal, sell it off, pay everything down, take that profit and reinvest it in the next deal. We did that over and over again until we start to get to two then to three. Then, it reached a point where cash management became a big deal. When you\u2019re flipping at volume, that\u2019s something that I don\u2019t see a lot of people talking about is how to properly manage your cash within your company in order to be able to cover your overhead every single month and your payroll and the mortgages that you take in.<\/p>\n

Jason:
What I eventually started doing, through just networking and building a community out, is making relationships with private lenders. That\u2019s how we fund everything now. Depending on the deal, we may use hard money from time to time, but 95% of the deals are funded from different private lenders. I like that, because it\u2019s easy. The terms are negotiable. I can get all the money that I need. I typically borrow 100% of the purchase price, the rehab costs and my holding costs. I\u2019m borrowing all the money that I need.<\/p>\n

Jason:
You have some people that want to get paid every month, but my preference would be to pay them at the end of the project. Then, that way, we don\u2019t have cash crunches during on but cash management is a very important component of that business.<\/p>\n

Rob:
Yeah, it seems like it could get pretty, pretty, I don\u2019t know, like tough to keep track if you\u2019re talking about three, four flips, you\u2019ve got a few credit cards, if you\u2019re using your home equity line of credit, and running the books on those different properties and breaking it all up. I mean is that-<\/p>\n

Jason:
Accounting was a nightmare for us. It was a nightmare and especially once we got into like year three and four, where it was like, \u201cOkay, now we\u2019re flipping 30, 40 houses a year. We\u2019ve got a dozen rentals. We\u2019ve got a lot of things happening at once. We can\u2019t just keep a separate Excel spreadsheet for every project. It doesn\u2019t work like that anymore, right?<\/p>\n

Jason:
We had to mature. We worked with our CPA, and eventually found an accounting team that basically handles all of our books. Now, they\u2019ve got a custom built out of QuickBooks for us where there\u2019s job costing, we have individual P&Ls on every single project. They pay all of our bills every single month. It\u2019s one team where the finances kind of funnel in and funnel out. I just oversee, along with the people on my team, our key KPIs and those reports that get fed into us so we can make sure that we\u2019re in a good space financially to make sure we\u2019re managing everything.<\/p>\n

David:
It\u2019s a nice business model, man. That\u2019s actually probably the most impressive thing.<\/p>\n

Jason:
It sounds good me saying it but it was a lot of hard work. It\u2019s, even now, it\u2019s not perfect, man. The analogy I use with my team is we\u2019re building the airplane while we\u2019re flying the airplane in midair. That can be fun. It can also be really scary at the same time. [inaudible 00:43:13].<\/p>\n

David:
I think that\u2019s everyone\u2019s business, though. You go to a workshop or you go to some seminar, and they get up there and they sound just like you. Here\u2019s my flowchart. Here\u2019s what this person does. It gives us impression that everything\u2019s clean and nice. Then, you get in there and it\u2019s actually complete chaos, and you are more or less trying to just keep this thing from crashing. What you\u2019re describing is what you\u2019re striving for, but it\u2019s okay to be messy.<\/p>\n

David:
That\u2019s what I want to say is like, I think, we get compliments on my real estate sales team that we are the most organized, structured, best systems in place. It is constantly just, who\u2019s doing this, why do I have to do it, how come they\u2019re not doing it? This person messed up. It\u2019s affected\u2026 There\u2019s no way to have this happen without it being messy because there\u2019s people involved. There\u2019s emotions involved. You\u2019ve got sellers that have, maybe want to sell, maybe don\u2019t want to sell, right?<\/p>\n

David:
You\u2019ve got, I thought we were going to do it this way. Well, someone else does give me another way. I guess what I\u2019m saying is it is okay to be messy as long as it\u2019s successful, right? With time, it does get smoother and then someone quits or leaves or has a baby and doesn\u2019t want to work and you got to throw a new person in there and it\u2019s right back to messy. Has that been your experience?<\/p>\n

Jason:
A 100% and I think that piece of advice that I would give to the people that are going through some of those growing pains is don\u2019t be too hard on yourself. I had to take that lesson very early on. I was my own worst critic. I was so hard on myself.<\/p>\n

Jason:
Even though we were doing great, I would always just beat myself up because we did not fit this image of what you see about that guy on stage with the flowcharts and everything\u2019s dialed in. It took me a while to realize that nobody\u2019s business is completely dialed in. It\u2019s all just a progress, our process and we\u2019re just progressing each and every day.<\/p>\n

Jason:
I\u2019ve learned to balance being grateful for where we\u2019re at, and also just not being satisfied and knowing that we\u2019ve got so much more left to do. That\u2019s been a good space for me, because if you would have told me that seven years ago, when I started that I\u2019d be doing what I\u2019m doing right now, I wouldn\u2019t have believed that it was even possible. What was sad would be, I wouldn\u2019t even believe that I was the kind of person that was capable of doing it, which was even more sad for me, right?<\/p>\n

Jason:
I had to get into this space where we proved to ourselves, and we had proof of concept like, \u201cWow, this works. Wow, I am capable of doing it.\u201d That confidence, that self-confidence is like a muscle that you build over time. Now, when I say that I\u2019m going to do something, I know that it\u2019s going to happen because for the last seven years, I\u2019ve been doing everything that I\u2019ve been saying that I\u2019m going to do, right? It doesn\u2019t start out that way but you can get there and it doesn\u2019t need to take a lifetime either.<\/p>\n

David:
It\u2019s such a good point. I think about that all the time. If you look at like, use a weightlifting analogy, or something, that just works so easily because you have to do it in increments, but you see someone bench pressing 400 pounds, and you look at where you are now and you\u2019re like, \u201cI could never do that. That\u2019s impossible.\u201d<\/p>\n

Jason:
No. Yeah.<\/p>\n

David:
It\u2019s impossible yet at this stage, but the person that\u2019s going to be doing it is not you right now. It\u2019s going to be years of you adding five pounds onto that bar incrementally. And when you have that frame, that\u2019s not going to be impossible. We all have a mental frame or a business frame or an emotional frame, something that will allow us to be capable of leading other people, managing other people, handling complex problems.<\/p>\n

David:
As you\u2019re listening to the podcast, and you\u2019re like, \u201cI\u2019m just trying to get my first house or my second house,\u201d yes, what Jason is doing would be impossible. That weight would crush you if we tried to load up the bar, but you\u2019re not going to start off where Jason\u2019s at. You\u2019re going to start off where you\u2019re at and just keep working out. You end up at where Jason is. It sounds like what I hear you saying is you\u2019ve embraced, that\u2019s just the reality of how life works. Quit worrying about if I could do it right now. Just have faith. You\u2019re going to get there if you keep pushing.<\/p>\n

Jason:
Yes, worry, doubt, and fear, those are emotions that don\u2019t serve us. I learned a long time ago that I\u2019ve got to be self-aware enough that when I feel myself going through some of those emotions, acknowledging them, but also reverting back to my prior experiences and realizing like, \u201cListen, every time you\u2019ve been worried about something, you\u2019ve overcome it.\u201d 99% of the time, the problem doesn\u2019t even manifest itself and the 1% of the time that it does, you figure out what you need to do. You overcome it and you move on so at least you learned something from it.<\/p>\n

Jason:
I think most people are so caught up in those three emotions: worry, doubt, and fear that they just stop themselves from doing everything. You\u2019ve got to work on your mindset along with the tactical real estate stuff that you\u2019re going to learn in your day to day business. Those two things for me just go hand in hand.<\/p>\n

David:
Good deal. We are going to move on to the next segment of the show. It is the famous deal deep dive. In this segment of the show, we are going to dive deep into a deal that you\u2019ve done. Do you have one in mind we can dive into?<\/p>\n

Jason:
I do. We just sold our most profitable deal ever in February. That would be a great one to unpack.<\/p>\n

David:
Let\u2019s talk about it. Rob and I will fire questions at you. If you could just answer that question, we\u2019ll fire the next one. First question is very simple, what kind of property is this?<\/p>\n

Jason:
It\u2019s a single family house.<\/p>\n

Rob:
Okay, how did you find it?<\/p>\n

Jason:
We found it via trustee sale. We bought it at auction.<\/p>\n

David:
Nice. How much did you buy it for?<\/p>\n

Jason:
1.72 million.<\/p>\n

Rob:
Okay, how did you negotiate it?<\/p>\n

Jason:
We just ended up having to come up with a bid that we thought was good for the property. With these trustee sales, there isn\u2019t direct negotiation with the seller. It\u2019s basically house has been foreclosed on. We had to put in a bid that we felt we could make money on that.<\/p>\n

David:
You\u2019re flying blind. That\u2019s tricky.<\/p>\n

Jason:
Flying blind. Flying blind.<\/p>\n

David:
There\u2019s no baseline to go off.<\/p>\n

Jason:
That\u2019s right.<\/p>\n

David:
All right. How did you fund this deal?<\/p>\n

Jason:
We funded it with money from one of our private lenders and because of the amount of money that was required to buy, fix, and sell it, we ended up giving them an equity portion in the deal because there was no other way to structure it.<\/p>\n

Rob:
What did you do with the deal? Did you flip it, rent it, burn it?<\/p>\n

Jason:
The plan was to flip it. We were going to work with a construction partner, do a full blown rehab. This property was in 17 mile drive on Pebble Beach. It\u2019s one of the most desirable neighborhoods in California. We thought we were going to buy it for 1.72, put about 5 or 600,000 into it and then sell it for 4 but about 45 days after we bought it, a broker from that area cold called us and said, \u201cI have somebody that will buy it as is right now. They\u2019re just going to tear the house down and build a mansion.\u201d We ended up selling it to his buyer and we made about $825,000 in 60 days.<\/p>\n

David:
All right. We know what you did with it there and we know what the outcome was. Last question is what lessons did you learn from this deal?<\/p>\n

Jason:
This is what I would tell anybody that is following along, everybody sees the money on that and they get caught up in the money, but you need to understand what was involved in even getting us to a space where we could buy a $1.7 million deal that we thought we were going to get to 4 million. There\u2019s so many different obstacles and hurdles that came up. I\u2019ve got a whole big post on my social media account. You can go to my Instagram and you can read all the different things.<\/p>\n

Jason:
To condense it, we basically talked ourselves out of buying this deal. We waited until five days before the bid was due to even ask about raising the money. We got the money basically the day that the bid was due. I missed all the commercial flights to San Diego where I needed to go drop the check. I had to pay $8,000 to book a private plane\u2026<\/p>\n

David:
Wow.<\/p>\n

Jason:
\u2026 to get me to San Diego, to drop the check off at the trustee without even knowing whether or not we were going to win that bid. There were so many different mental obstacles and objections that we had to overcome before we even got there. We found out couple days later that we won, 60 days later, we sold it and made 825 grand. I mean, it was one of the most wild and amazing experiences that I have. I would focus less on the money and more on just what it took to get there mentally. It was seven years of work and building a foundation that got us there.<\/p>\n

David:
Well, congratulations on that.<\/p>\n

Jason:
Thank you.<\/p>\n

David:
That\u2019s wild. I mean, I can only imagine how fast your mind was would racing. We don\u2019t want it. We don\u2019t want it. We don\u2019t want it. I want it. Then, boom, everything is just chaos. Can we get there? I mean, that have been a cool thing to video and turn into a YouTube video or even, it sounds like a TV show.<\/p>\n

Jason:
I was gone. I was on my Instagram story the whole time. Maybe, I\u2019ll go download my stories and send it to somebody and they can edit it and they can see everything. It was the wild\u2026 I was literally scared to swipe the $8,000 to charter the plane. Had I not done that, we wouldn\u2019t have done the deal, right? I was negotiating. There\u2019s all these steps where I was negotiating in my mind where I was like, \u201cNah, this is too risky. You\u2019ve never done a deal this big. You\u2019ve never done this.\u201d<\/p>\n

Jason:
Going back to that conversation that we had about building the muscle of self-confidence, I was able to tap into that experience and just say, \u201cYou know what, you got this dude. All the indicators are there. This feels right. Let\u2019s go and see what happens.\u201d It worked out.<\/p>\n

David:
Congrats on that. That\u2019s a very cool story.<\/p>\n

Rob:
That\u2019s crazy, man. That\u2019s so good.<\/p>\n

Jason:
Thank you.<\/p>\n

David:
We\u2019re going to move on to the last segment of the show. It is the Famous For. This segment of the show, we ask every guest the same four questions every episode, and we\u2019re going to fire them off to you, Jason. Question number one, what is your favorite real estate book?<\/p>\n

Jason:
My favorite real estate book, I would say as the Go Giver. It doesn\u2019t apply directly towards real estate, but it helps people understand that if you come from a place of abundance, and if you help other people, you\u2019re not taking away opportunities from yourself. The momentum that you get by helping somebody else actually gets the two of you where you want to go faster. That is my favorite book I applied towards real estate. It\u2019s also the most gifted book that I\u2019ve ever given out as a gift.<\/p>\n

Rob:
What is your favorite business book?<\/p>\n

Jason:
I would say Think and Grow Rich, even though it\u2019s kind of a mindset book, I think the lessons in there can be applied directly towards a business. It taught me the value of networking. It taught me the value of visualization, masterminding with other high level people. There\u2019s some universal laws in there that directly apply towards any business.<\/p>\n

Rob:
When you\u2019re not out there growing your empire and flipping 75 houses a year, what are some of your hobbies?<\/p>\n

Jason:
Travel. My wife and I love to travel. One of the fringe benefits of flipping all these houses is we rack up a ton of credit card points. We were in Italy two weeks ago. Basically, we\u2019re able to stay in every hotel for free, fly for cheap.<\/p>\n

Rob:
Nice.<\/p>\n

Jason:
We travel once a quarter. That\u2019s basically our goal is to take one big trip once a quarter. Yeah, travel is definitely our thing.<\/p>\n

David:
In your opinion, what sets apart successful investors from those who give up, fail, or never get started?<\/p>\n

Jason:
Mindset for sure. I think if anybody\u2019s going to take anything away from this podcast is that you can be great at negotiations, you can have great people skills, but I think if you have a losing mindset or a losing mentality, you\u2019re going to self-sabotage. For me, everything is built off the foundation of self-improvement and mindset. If you can get your head screwed on straight every day and show up and be consistent, it\u2019ll be much easier to find the success that you\u2019re looking for over the long term in the real estate field.<\/p>\n

Rob:
That\u2019s awesome, man. Well, lastly, can you tell us more about where people can find out about you on the interwebs?<\/p>\n

Jason:
Sure. I think the easiest place to find out about me would be just on social media. Instagram and Facebook is where I\u2019m most active. It\u2019s just my first and last name, Jason Pritchard. If you type those things in, that\u2019s the easiest place to connect with me. If you\u2019re in the Central California market, we do monthly meetups. We get 200 plus people that come to those. I love giving back to the community. That\u2019s been a great way for me to build my network out here. In person, in this area, you can do that but if not just hop on social media. Shoot me a message.<\/p>\n

David:
That is awesome. Jason, I love your story. I hope that we can get you back on here again to dive into it a little bit deeper. I don\u2019t know how we haven\u2019t crossed paths already. We\u2019re both in California and you\u2019re doing something pretty awesome down there. It\u2019s probably because you live in no man\u2019s land. Fresno is like the Bermuda Triangle of California. Fly over it. You hope your plane doesn\u2019t crash and then you end up in Southern California and all of a sudden you\u2019re in California again, but it\u2019s like the wild, wild, west out there. Is that where you\u2019ve lived your whole life?<\/p>\n

Jason:
Basically, we bounced around for a little bit until I was five and then my dad got a teaching job at Fresno State. He\u2019s a professor at Fresno State and Fresno has been home base since first grade for me, man. I really love it out here. Roots run deep. I\u2019m bullish on the Fresno market. I actually think that we\u2019re going to see a lot of growth in the valley and I\u2019m very happy where we\u2019re at. Everybody talks about the prices in California, but there\u2019s still some affordability and some good deals where we\u2019re at.<\/p>\n

David:
I agree with you, especially in that Bakersfield Fresno area. That\u2019s where people are going to be moving into because prices are just getting crazy in other parts.<\/p>\n

Jason:
That is correct.<\/p>\n

David:
I think you got a lot of room to run there also.<\/p>\n

Jason:
I think so.<\/p>\n

David:
Rob, where can people find out about you?<\/p>\n

Rob:
You can find me on YouTube at Robuilt, Instagram @Robuilt, TikTok @robuilto, and I\u2019ll have to resurrect my MySpace. I\u2019m sure that\u2019s still out there somewhere, [inaudible 00:55:40]. What about you?<\/p>\n

Jason:
I don\u2019t know if I want to resurrect my MySpace. Hopefully, my MySpace stays [inaudible 00:55:45].<\/p>\n

David:
Someone will. I\u2019m telling you [inaudible 00:55:47] play.<\/p>\n

Jason:
Oh Jesus. I need to go looking out. Oh, no.<\/p>\n

David:
Someone\u2019s going to make MySpace cool again but bell bottom jeans keep coming back all the time, right?<\/p>\n

Jason:
Oh yeah.<\/p>\n

David:
Remember those slap bracelet things.<\/p>\n

Jason:
Mm-hmm.<\/p>\n

David:
Maybe you guys don\u2019t remember those.<\/p>\n

Jason:
No. I remember. Yeah.<\/p>\n

David:
They\u2019re very popular. They made a comeback, right? How many iterations of Transformers and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles have we\u2019ve seen? Someone\u2019s doing that to MySpace. Mark my word. If I could buy stock in MySpace, I would right now because it\u2019s going to come back. It\u2019s also ridiculous.<\/p>\n

David:
Thank you, Jason. This has been great. You can find me online on all social media @DavidGreene24. Please look very careful at the screen name that the newest iteration of this garbage is David with two eyes. They\u2019re faking my account and messaging people. If you get a follow request from me, look very carefully before you accept it. Makes sure it\u2019s the right one. This is going around on social media quite a bit. I don\u2019t have the blue checkmark yet. You don\u2019t know that it\u2019s me.<\/p>\n

David:
You can also find me on YouTube at David Greene Real Estate, not as exciting of a name as Robuilt but pretty easy to remember, if that\u2019s what you\u2019re thinking. All right. I\u2019ll get us out of here, Jason. This has been great. This is David Greene for Rob, the most interesting man in the world, Rob Abasolo, signing off.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Help us reach new listeners on iTunes by leaving us a rating and review! It takes just 30 seconds and instructions can be found here<\/a>. Thanks! We really appreciate it!<\/p>\n


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