Raising the Flipping Bar with Derek Marlin

Tips from Elevation Academy Alumni Jordan Cunningham and Chris Gould

• Derek Marlin • Season 3 • Episode 43

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Today, I’m joined by two powerhouse guests—Chris and Jordan—who are not just Elevation Academy alumni but also standout real estate investors.

In this episode, we explore:

  • How Chris and Jordan leveraged their unique backgrounds to become top performers.
  • Lessons learned from their first flip, which netted $60,000 in profits.
  • The art of balancing great design with budget-conscious renovations.
  • Why partnerships and networking are key to scaling in real estate.
  • Innovative financing tips, including using HELOCs and private lending.

Whether you’re starting your first flip or looking to scale, this episode is packed with actionable insights to elevate your investing game.

Don’t miss our discussion on the future of flipping, the power of creative design, and the lessons these two have learned along the way. Let’s dive in!

Connect with Chris Gould:
Email: chris@indyhomeoffer.com

Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/cgould/

Connect with Jordan Cunningham:
Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jordan-cunningham-5627a1334/


Connect with Derek Marlin and ELEVATION!


Derek on LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/derekmarlin

ELEVATION’s website: https://elevationinvest.com/

ELEVATION on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/elevationinvestmentproperties

ELEVATION on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/elevationinvest/

ELEVATION on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/elevationinvestmentproperties


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 #FlippingHouses #RealEstateInvesting #ElevationAcademy #HouseFlippingTips #RealEstateDevelopment #CreativeFinancing #PartnershipSuccess #DesignThatSells #InvestmentStrategy 

Speaker 1:

Welcome to Raising the Flipping Bar, the go-to podcast for aspiring and seasoned real estate investors. I'm your host, derek Marlin, and I'm the CEO of Elevation. We're a real estate investment company based right here in Denver, colorado. We'll dive into smart investment strategies, market insights and essential tips for scaling your real estate ventures. Whether you're making your first investment or your hundredth investment, this podcast is your blueprint for success in the ever-evolving world of real estate investing. Get ready to elevate your real estate game and begin your journey with me. Hey everybody, welcome back to another episode of Raising the Flipping Bar. I'm your host, derek Marlin, and I am very excited We've got two fantastic human beings here as our guests. The cool thing is they're super smart investors, they're smart real estate agents, they're smart general contractors and construction backgrounds. They're also Elevation Academy alumni, so welcome, jordan and Chris, the show.

Speaker 2:

Derek, how's it going? Good Thanks for having us.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, absolutely. I'm excited to have you guys here. The cool thing is is we were talking about this off camera, but you guys are, as of right now, I'm going to make this competitive and you didn't know this, but you're the number one team of level of success of people within the Academy right now, because we're going to dive into all the things you guys are doing, but you guys are crushing it. So how does it feel, just in general, to be just kind of so much further along than when we first started here, you know, even two years ago?

Speaker 3:

Yeah, I mean for me I feel like it's a work in progress. Still I'm just getting my feet wet in it, but I'm excited to see kind of the potential of it. You know there's a big path forward and, yeah, just excited to see where it goes and doesn't feel like I'm super successful in it yet, but also making the strides towards it feels successful. So I'm excited for that.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, well said, what do you think, chris? I had a little bit of real estate experience before Jordan kind of got into the flipping with me at the same time. Doing wholesaling is what I was doing, but yeah, it feels really good to. I always have this analogy I like to think of as like fear, as a compass of where.

Speaker 3:

I need to go. I like that.

Speaker 2:

And so I was afraid to do flipping Cause I thought, oh, I don't know how to do, I don't know how to do, I don't know how to do all the stuff, I don't know, plumbing and the blah, blah, blah, blah. And so we would, you know, wholesale out all these deals. And then I'd see these flippers and I'm like, is it that hard? Yeah, it doesn't have to be, it doesn't have to be. And, um, and I can figure it out. And so to have went towards the, the fear of what's going to happen and we're going to lose money, is it all going to go? You know all the things to walk into that and realize it's okay and actually I'm pretty good at this and it's, this is exactly as good as you thought, it would be good, you know, and so it feels really good.

Speaker 1:

No, and that's great context, and what I really want to give to our audience is we'll talk about the great synergies that you guys had together as a team, but I would love to maybe backtrack a little bit and let's talk backgrounds. So maybe, jordan, let's start with you, give us an idea of your background before the academy and then we'll jump into future stuff. But kind of, you guys have unique backgrounds and you have perfect skillsets, so maybe just share a little bit about your background.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, I mean the long version. Born and raised Golden High School, I went to Golden High School, went up to CSU for construction management.

Speaker 1:

Nice.

Speaker 3:

So I kind of had the big picture construction background, did a couple internships with a couple big commercial companies, stuff like that, and then out of college went and worked for DT Construct. We're a local Golden contractor Anything from handyman to home build on the residential side and then commercial TI on the commercial side. The main reason I took that job is I did have an interest in real estate and I wanted to have the kind of the construction background going into real estate when I was ready for it, and so that's been really, really huge. I've been on the estimating and sales side for the last six years. I'm leaving my position at the end of this year to kind of pursue real estate full time.

Speaker 3:

But having that construction knowledge and understanding the language, understanding how a house is built from step to step, I think is going to be super, super valuable, especially in the flipping world. I'm curious to see how it applies to other forms of real estate investing, but flipping specifically, I think that's a. It's a big passion for me, like having the construction background and enjoying that side of it but then applying it for myself instead of for a company super excited for. But yeah, I think having that construction background and like really diving into that first will give me a really good foundation for flipping living core. Just kind of having that the project management side, the general construction side, yeah it's kind of the background well and that's cool.

Speaker 1:

And I think the fun thing about hearing that you are leaving dt construct and a little bit of background for the rest of our audience too is we got to know each other because we hired your company to build out the broadway collective. So we worked intimately with the whole DT team, which was fantastic, built our co-work space and obviously, this beautiful studio that we're sitting in. So it's cool to kind of see you come full circle. But the other fun thing is is that it's another elevation pelt on the wall of people that were able to quit their full-time job. And I think yours is a unique position because it's a family business.

Speaker 1:

I think some people are like dying to get out of it. I think you have this amazing natural progression of working towards your goals, which is really cool. But I think we're now at eight people who have quit their jobs like good, lucrative jobs, not like I was doing Uber Eats and now I can do real estate like people that were in really good. You know aspects of construction and real estate, which is super cool to hear about. So I love that background and kind of seeing where you've been going. It's been sweet to watch in person.

Speaker 3:

Totally, and it's interesting because I definitely thought of DT as kind of a career for me. Like you said, it's a family company. My father-in-law started it and owns it and so like a part of me was thinking like maybe I'll stick with that long-term and own this company one day and, fortunately for me, like I feel like God's pushing me in this real estate direction. I feel like that's kind of where my passion lies and like the ability to do stuff for myself and that kind of thing I think will be really good for me.

Speaker 3:

So it's been really interesting, kind of feeling that push, pull of like do I stay with kind of the easy route, where I have a leg in this thing and I could be really successful at it, or do I jump off and try this other thing and like follow my passion a little bit more, and so that's what I'm doing.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, it feels really good. Yeah, no, that's great and props. I think some people call that the golden handcuffs, where you're right. You have this trajectory. You could fast forward 10 years in the future and have really good things going, so I commend you. I kind of had the same thing when I left the media business. People thought I was insane. They're like you're leaving this good job and you're making good money, and that first year was scary. I made 30% of what I made and then I made about 80% the next year and then I felt like I made about 250% year three. So it takes that time, but it's cool to see that transition.

Speaker 3:

It's a big leap, especially with the young family. I got a three-year-old and a six-month-old, and so there's an element to do. You leave the security to take the risk, but at the same time life is so short, like if I can adjust my lifestyle to be around my kids more and figure out how to make it work in the interim like that's something worth doing. And so I really feel like that's an opportunity with real estate that I can have where.

Speaker 3:

I can be my own boss, adjust my own schedule, be around my kids more while at the same time having the opportunity to make more money doing it.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, no, that's great. Well, and I want to kind of pivot to you, Chris, and share with our audience about your background, because you have an equally as unique but also complimentary background, so kind of give us. You spent time in corporate world, you're doing fun things in real estate and now you're in a flipping, so give our audience your background.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, absolutely. And just kind of to go back. I, you know, in school growing up, just like really had a hard time because I was always like what is the point of all this? Yeah Well, how am I going to use this? And it was. I remember like as a very little kid. My mom shared this with me recently that I might've been in like second grade. She said like he's really smart but he goes too fast and he makes mistakes.

Speaker 2:

Cause I was trying to like like I just wanted to go, go, go. And so sitting there and listening, and so I think that translated to my, to corporate America, like, like, some people are just great at school, some people are great at working at a corporation and they love it and they love the stability and the structure of it, and I'm just the opposite of that. And so for many years I was trying to fit a square peg in a round hole. Okay, and so, working corporate America, and I saw this Sean Terry ad pop up. He's a wholesaling guru guy and it was like somebody saying how they were wholesaling from the beach in Thailand. And I was like what is this? What is this?

Speaker 2:

And so I was maybe a year into working in corporate, I bought this course and I was so obsessed with the idea of acquiring freedom to live my life the way I want to, and you know, probably romanticizing of like the beach in Thailand it's not quite like that necessarily, but that was enough to drive me forward. And I mean I was waking up at like 4am cause I couldn't sleep, cause I wanted to learn all this and, like, obsessively trying to learn wholesaling, did that for a few years, thought about giving up. This doesn't work. I remember Googling like is wholesaling illegal? Is wholesaling?

Speaker 2:

a scam Is Sean Terry a scammer?

Speaker 1:

Yeah, exactly Because you're like this can't be.

Speaker 2:

It's too good to be true.

Speaker 1:

True.

Speaker 2:

And so started wholesaling I think my first deal. It took like six months. I had to extend the contract all these times and got it done. I think I made $3,500 at the end and like it just was like a horrible situation overall.

Speaker 1:

And what year was that Like? When did you start wholesaling for context?

Speaker 2:

Maybe 2017 time. And then it was like I'm giving this up, had another deal in the pipeline and ended up closing and then all of a sudden I had like $5,000 more in my bank account. And it's just when you're used to getting like 1800 every two weeks, right, and then you see five grand and you're like wait a second.

Speaker 1:

What is this? I think it's good.

Speaker 2:

So ultimately was on the the path to like, maybe leave my job, maybe stay. I got as high as I could go in the corporate America, so similar with that golden handcuffs. And uh, a friend of mine who had been, who had never worked for anyone a day in his life, I was talking to him and I was like I'm just worried if I quit my job and like I, I fail at this real estate thing. Like you know, what am I going to do? And he's like could you go get a similar job paying similar amount? And I was like, yeah, probably, it could probably get an even better job. And he's like, so you have, you actually have nothing to risk.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, and I was like yeah, you're right, I don't.

Speaker 2:

And so the next day I went in and I said, hey, I'm doing this real estate thing, and then stumbled through it, and now we've built a company where you know we do, we do quite a bit of wholesale deals per year, probably you know, depending on the year somewhere between 60 and 80 deals.

Speaker 1:

Okay.

Speaker 2:

Pretty, pretty large volume. We do some virtual wholesaling. I started with virtual wholesaling, which is when you, for the listeners, yeah, define that for us.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, so that's when you live in one city but you do wholesaling in another city. A lot of people that live in these big metropolitan areas you know your New York's, your LA's, your Denver's they will invest in, you know, in Ohio and Indiana, stuff like that. So we started there. We had to get our process really dialed up, you know sales process, processing leads and all that stuff. And so we built it up to where it is now but never really did any flips.

Speaker 2:

Maybe I had one where, like I would, you know, contribute some money but I was not involved in any of the construction side. I would never really went to the houses and they were in the Midwest and I was not living there. And then, you know, it was like I gotta, I gotta look into this flipping thing and then ultimately went to your Academy, and that was, you know, just pre, you know, the Elevation Academy happened. And then shortly after that, me and Jordan, we met at the Academy, hit it off, played golf together and started a men's group together, and I was it were we already doing the?

Speaker 1:

flip. No, no, we were doing the men's group for probably six months before prior. Yeah, Okay.

Speaker 3:

Okay, we kind of built up enough trust and like the partnership side of flipping like you have to have a lot of trust there. So the men's group is really important for us, having that really solid foundation of like how to communicate with each other, what are each other's strengths and weaknesses, that kind of deal, and I think that's ultimately worked out really really well for us. But, yeah, we were doing the men's group for a handful of months before.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, oh, okay, that makes sense, because I was wondering how I mean literally for our audience. You guys sat next to each other and so first I thought, okay, that's like insane serendipity, but there's a little bit of context behind that where you, you knew of one another.

Speaker 2:

Oh, no, no, so sorry. We met at the Elevation Academy. Then I started the men's group and I'm not. I'm a little confused about when we did what, but but our first time meeting was at Elevation.

Speaker 3:

You didn't know each other and I just you're both front row guys, so I remember that.

Speaker 1:

Yes, well done.

Speaker 3:

And, like in my head, I was the contractor, he was the wholesaler. Let's make a team here, and so then I invited him to go golfing with Travis and, I think, one of your guys' agents at the time.

Speaker 1:

Yeah.

Speaker 3:

And just to kind of get to know each other better. And then Chris was like, hey, I'm thinking about starting up this men's group, Like, would you be interested? And at first I was like it's a great networking opportunity. And sure Get to know this guy better. Maybe we can do a couple of deals or whatever. And then it turned into both kind of growing in it.

Speaker 1:

So yeah, yeah, I think that was the fun thing for us to see is that, yeah, you're right.

Speaker 1:

Literally you were sitting next to one another and we're in the classroom and I'm telling people like hey, there's business that gets done here, like this could potentially change your life, either just getting better systems or giving you the courage to actually do it.

Speaker 1:

Especially both you guys. You had so much more experience than a lot of our other alumni but you weren't doing flipping, so it's cool to kind of see it come together. And then now let's let's talk a little bit about your first deal. And then the cool thing is is we we actually had an interview a while ago and I'm excited to have you guys on the podcast because you've done so much more but maybe give us a little bit of a rundown of the deal. Maybe if Chris you want to kind of talk numbers side of things, and Jordan you want to talk about project management and the fixtures and finishes and how maybe you use some of the Academy stuff to help formulate your plan. But let's talk numbers, cause I think that's important for audience to kind of get on your first deal and dates to like time of year and stuff.

Speaker 2:

I think that's where the wholesaling helped, because analyzing deals was something that I had been doing for years. At that point we bought a house in Applewood, which is a neighborhood in Golden, really really good neighborhood, and that's one of the things that I always look for is that I want to see a lot of pluses versus not a lot of red flags. Right, I don't want to be near our main road, I don't want to back up to something weird, I don't want to have like a lot that has like a sloping hill down the back. That's a reference to a recent deal that I helped Jordan did. But anyways, 575 was the purchase price. What was our rehab on it? 130. And we listed for 825. We listed for 850, sold for 830.

Speaker 3:

Sold for 830. We listed the week before Thanksgiving.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, I remember that.

Speaker 3:

I made it a little tough to get the ARV that we wanted to.

Speaker 1:

About 24 showings but one offer, offer okay, and when did you start the project, so we can kind of put timelines around this too, like what month?

Speaker 3:

roughly got it end of august, I believe. Okay, it was an 11 week project yeah, that's good like we flew for what I know about construction.

Speaker 1:

Like it was a big rehab.

Speaker 3:

we kind of gutted the whole inside, remodeled it from beginning to end, redid some stuff in the backyard, painted the house, that kind of stuff. Yeah, 130 over 11 weeks. We were under contract in like three or four days and ultimately we decided, you know, we were kind of tossing back and forth the 20,000 under asking offer, do we take that, do we hold it? And I think at that point we're like let's just take this school lesson smart, make a little bit of money, try not to push our luck and I just take the 830 and walk away and also the just going back to the deal side of things.

Speaker 2:

there was no um comps for appraisal we were worried about and we had a conventional buyer. So just knowing, like the highest comp was like 775 and we were 75K above that, and so we were like, well, it might not even appraise. So we're like, do we take this or do we wait? And also, like you said, we just wanted to get a win under our belt too and a little bit of money. I think we made just under 60 that we split. So you know, for your first one, to not lose money and to put 25, you know 27K in your pocket was pretty nice.

Speaker 1:

Well, and the cool thing that I want our audience to really key in on is you're right when you said Applewood and then you said 575, like that's a cheap price for Applewood. So part of me gets really excited because you're like, oh my gosh, we're in a super good area at a low price point which should create crazy demand, but the time of year, you know, kind of clips your feet out from you a little bit and and, but then you're also resetting the market. So I think that was really really smart and strategic and our audience really needs to listen into that that. Yeah, sometimes best case scenario is you have our ARV or after repair value, you're fixed up flip number and you can kind of set your price based on that. You really push the envelope and so you would have gone backwards anyways, potentially because appraisers are not going to stick their neck out there and you know have some record setting number for that square footage. So that was really smart.

Speaker 2:

I think that that's a big. When I'm looking at deals I was just talking to Jordan in the car about this is like sometimes when the comps are weird, it can be good for you, but you got to know what you're looking at. Obviously, like if I, you know, if I've got a house, and it's like we are the net, the comps are like a thousand square feet smaller and a thousand square feet bigger and we're right in the middle and they're not really updated. But then the one is like super updated. It's like there's something here for me to maybe be a hundred thousand higher, you know, than maybe that last comp, that even if I sold it at that comp, we'd still make money Right.

Speaker 2:

Like I, I want to have upside and I and so when the comps are a little weird, if you can see through it, as you know, sometimes you find an opportunity and then comes list day and you're like, well, let's list it for 1.1 instead of 1 million.

Speaker 2:

And then you know you've got people calling after it and you're like, wow, it paid off. And then there's other times where you know you think it makes sense and maybe you miss something and you know you end up not winning as big or you know you get a break even or something like that. But to me it's worth swinging at those ones where you're going to make, you know, over $100,000, $200,000 on a flip, where it was funky to where it scared people from wanting to buy those deals. You know, like the 575 Applewood, because the 775 was the max, there's not enough spread there to really do a full flip and people were like, well, will people buy these ranches If they're nice? There hasn't been any fixed up and now, as as soon as we, 875 was sold shortly after that. So so for context, I know we're throwing out a lot of numbers 45 K above ours. They literally copied our exact design.

Speaker 3:

Oh, really, same house. It's good flattery.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, so, um, sometimes being the first one in the door, like you said can be, can be really good and you can set a new standard for the neighborhood, but comes with risks. Like anything else, you got to really know what you're looking at.

Speaker 3:

There's a big element to location, location, location, well said, yeah, like Applewood, like great yard backed up to a park, everyone wants to be in Applewood. There's a more cost effective side of Applewood and then there's the really, really costly side of Applewood with, like, all the custom houses and the multi-million dollar homes and stuff like that. And so our thought was, like you know the we were on the lower end side of apple.

Speaker 3:

With the lower end side of apple, sure, there's a big market for people who can't quite get in the expensive side, but still want to be in applewood, and so we were able to kind of play on that too like just the desirability of applewood, and then there's kind of a a unique price point that you can hit for the more cost effective version of apple.

Speaker 1:

No, I think that's a really smart, strategic way to do it and and it's definitely paid dividends and I really want to compliment you guys and I want our audience to listen to. Yeah, your first flip making $60,000, you know I'm a sports guy, so to me that's like a solid double rounding. Second, you're right, most people that we hear the like I'd rather just learn and not lose money and I'd be okay and we try not to, you know, have people go down that road to start. That's kind of like your worst oh shit scenario. But you guys did phenomenal out of the gate, which is really exciting. You did it in under four months, which is really good for your first flip.

Speaker 1:

I'd love to maybe hear a little bit more about the design side of things, because what I love seeing that the product and actually in the show notes will actually post like the befores and and the afters, because I loved what you guys did from a design perspective. So talk a little bit about, maybe the rehab process, how you were able to use the elevation, fixture and finish package as your starting point. But then you guys put a lot of your unique touches and now you have your own like brand and your own stamp and then you don't have to reinvent the wheel. I love how you guys did that, because some people get so focused. They're like what if I don't like this faucet? Like that's, that's fine. Like, put your own damn faucet in there. Just don't put a $700 faucet when you need a $250 faucet. So maybe just talk about the design element I know you I think your spouses had some input in there, if I remember right and a little bit about the design side.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, my wife Alex does all the designing of the flips. Um, that was her first. She just I trusted her that she could do it. I had, uh, we redid like our bathroom as like a test run of like okay, like here's like $5,000, and like let's see what happens. And Jordan did give us the the list of all the different, the elevation selections list, and she went through and just basically, you know, kind of made it up as she went, you know Pinterest, and then adding everything to a board and then kind of looking at like what, like, what do we want to do here from an aesthetic perspective? We definitely had more guardrails on the. We're like all the trim, all the walls, is going to be white. We're not doing anything funky. We tried to minimize the complexity as much as possible but also let her do her thing in certain areas.

Speaker 2:

And I'm a firm believer that, like you're, saving grace is good design. Every time you have good design. You know, the thing is that there's a lot of stuff that looks the same out there right now and you know we go in and I'm like, well, it looks good in the pictures. And then you get in there and you're like, well, this is just all stuff from home Depot, which isn't necessarily bad, but it looks like the one right here and right here and right here. Depot, which isn't necessarily bad, but it looks like the one right here and right here and right here.

Speaker 2:

So, if I want, if our buyer is someone that is looking for something a little special, and we can create a moment in each bathroom, in the kitchen, that when they walk and they say, huh, I haven't seen anything like this, when they're looking through stuff and their showings, it feels different when they're in there. To me, me, that is something that could compel someone to want to buy, could compel a competition in terms of offers and stuff. So, um, yeah, the design element has been huge at this stage. You, like you, said you don't want to buy a 700 faucet, so where is that? Where is that sweet spot between we don't want it to just be a Home Depot special, but we also want it to be to look really nice and we don't want to go a hundred K over our fricking budget?

Speaker 3:

Right.

Speaker 2:

Well. So you know it's, it's, that's, whereas the leaders you got to strike that balance and it's not always easy because you know competing. She wants everything to be top of the toss and I'm like, okay, honey, but like let's, what can we dial back Right?

Speaker 3:

And I'm like, okay, honey, but like, let's, what can we dial back? Right, smart, yeah, you got to pick and choose what you want to spend that money on, and designers in general have a very high end taste. They have their vision, they have their goal. And then, on the flip side, we're looking at the numbers and trying to like figure out what's realistic, looking at the return on investment, right Like smart, buy, buy $700 faucet, and the odds are no. So that's kind of a conversation you have to have in your head throughout the project. But then also understand, like Chris said, the design sells the house.

Speaker 3:

And so being too far down the budget train will kind of enable you a little bit on the sales side of it, just because it's not going to turn out as nice, and so it's a fine balance, yeah Well said, dealing with hard money lenders is the biggest headache real estate investors have.

Speaker 1:

I thought that's just how hard money had to be until I met Backflip. Backflip is changing the lending game by actually making loans stress-free, and I know this firsthand because I personally use them for my own deals. Let me tell you, their free app makes real estate investing effortless. With just a few taps, I can apply for loans tailored exactly to my needs, whether it's low interest rates, high leverage or even deferred payments. The best part, I can secure financing less than two weeks, making it easier to scale my business and close more profitable deals. But it doesn't stop there. Backlip instantly provides all the data I need to estimate profits, including a curated list of high-quality comps, saving me hours of work, unlike other lenders who disappear after funding.

Speaker 1:

So, jordan, you just said something that was super impactful and both of you guys agree, which is and it's something that we try to teach that you're right. You want the nicest design possible. You want some unique features to your home, because I think we will slowly tip back to it being a seller's market. People will have multiple offers, they'll see multiple houses, and if you go in and you see five Home Depot specials, there's nothing that sticks out. And so, with your design, I think people use some really cool dark accent colors on your walls and some things that weren't super cost efficient.

Speaker 1:

But I think you're going to make people you know really remember your house, but not going over the edge, because, you're right, you're not going to get that return on investment and so you can still have great design and great taste, but not just flush your profit down the toilet. So you guys really did, especially for your first one, out of the gate, like that's really really good. We have some clients that, you're right, people have very expensive taste but they're selling a five to $700,000 home but they're doing their own stuff but they live in a $1.5 million house. Like it just doesn't translate.

Speaker 2:

I'll give a little secret tip to the listeners. Etsy has custom light fixture creators that make stuff that you will never see at Home Depot. That is really cool and it's the same price or cheaper than Home Depot a lot of the time and it might be coming from Poland, so you got to order it a month ahead of time, but that's one way that we source. So Etsy has things that are handmade that you just simply will not see at a major retailer. So it's sort of your guarantee of like okay, I know no one else is going to have this nice and it doesn't cost that much more.

Speaker 2:

You just have to plan a little bit farther ahead, um, but that's one way to set yourself apart, not spend a lot of money yeah, like you can also add unique touches too.

Speaker 3:

So, like you know, the applewood project for us was a five bedroom, three bathroom, and then there was kind of an unfinished space that we wound up finishing to kind of create a bonus room and we're trying to decide what to do with it. Do you make it an office? You call it a six unconforming bedroom. What we decided to do is make it a theater room. So we just took some cedar trim.

Speaker 3:

We tacked it to the wall of paint the inside white and the rest of the room black. Yep, super, super cheap. But then, like, from a showing perspective, people, people walk in and be like, wow, there's a five bedroom house and it has a theater room.

Speaker 3:

I don't know if it's going to be used as a theater room or if it's going to be used as storage, but for staging purposes it worked out awesome, because people kind of came around the corner like Holy crap, there's this extra awesome room here that none of these other houses have and cost us no extra money. But we were able to sell our house with a theater.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, and that's a cool point too that I think our listeners need to key in on, which is you're looking at your buyer demographic and typically you know families are slowly shrinking in size over time. People don't have three, four or five kids where you would need a six bedroom, especially in that size home. They'd buy a significantly larger home. So, yeah, that's the great play. Like I would almost argue, a six bedroom wouldn't have really given you much more value and that wouldn't have stuck out, but your theater stuck out.

Speaker 3:

You probably got great feedback and you're showing notes and stuff, so you don't need the extra office and so like, how can you make this random room in the corner stand out more than it would just being a random room in the corner? And so the theater was kind of a good option there. There's other stuff you can do, but that felt like a good one for that house.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, absolutely. That's great. Well, and and what I'd love to get into now, because you guys have really taken a great first step. I mean, most people again don't do well on their first one or they get discouraged or whatever. So maybe let's fast forward to what you guys are doing now and maybe let's talk about together what you guys are doing, because you've formed this great partnership but then you're also doing certain things separately, so you're kind of have the best of both worlds. So maybe whoever wants to kick it off of like what you guys are doing now, and then you can each take a turn of what your solo stuff is.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, so we did the one last year. August of this year I kind of made the decision I had a son in May so I had a couple of months off of work there, and so towards the end of my month off I kind of started looking at wholesale lists and that kind of thing and kind of made the decision I wanted to get a couple more flips under my belt here the rest of this year and kind of see where that goes. And so I wound up buying a property in Lakewood, a property in Aurora, a property in Nevada, and then we teamed up on one in Golden. Wow, three of those are very significant remodels, kind of like the Golden Flip, and then the one in Aurora is a little townhome. I wanted to try kind of the wholetail route and just kind of see what that world looked like.

Speaker 3:

Okay, I find it being super easy. It's sitting on the market longer than I'd like.

Speaker 2:

Okay.

Speaker 3:

But the learning lesson from that is like not every flip has to be this giant remodel right, a pretty quick turn and burn, and so I kind of wanted that experience. We'll see what I make on it, okay, but um, yeah. So overall this year I've had four going, three active still, one just closed two weeks ago. That's great. Um didn't make as much money on it as I wanted to, but at the same point, like that was my first solo deal, I'm going to school for it. Yeah, I got paid a little bit for it. I didn't have to pay a tuition, I got paid a little bit. It was good for me like me being on the construction side, knowing how a project should be project managed, it's really good for me to kind of feel out like how a project actually goes, versus when we're running it ourselves. I wound up hiring a project manager to kind of run them, because I still have my nine to five job and the kids at home.

Speaker 3:

So it's interesting to kind of take that high level role on it and kind of see how it played out and then be able to apply my learning lessons to future ones. And so I feel like I've been able to do that. On the last two. We're kind of working on just learning lessons from the first one, but yeah, so after the golden one last year, done for this year and then we'll see kind of where it goes next.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, and what I like about that before we jump to you, Chris is that, out of anybody, Jordan, you're the perfect avatar of a person who would have potentially done it himself. Like you have the skillset where you could have rolled up your sleeves and you could have been on your hands and knees laying tile. You could have then tapped into the next level up of your group of subs and still kind of manage it. But it's cool that you truly were able to oversee that and you were able to quickly scale. And so people are like well, wait, I'm going to make 10 grand less on a flip, yeah, but they can't do four in a year. So it's cool that you've, you know, like learned that and seen that and put it into practice Again. Most people don't do that. They're like oh, I want to do this myself, and it just that's what I say is like you can't scale by doing shit yourself from a construction standpoint.

Speaker 3:

It's like you make nine grand less on one deal, but then you miss out on the other four or five deals where you could have been making 50 grand Right, and so, yeah, there's a fine balance in that. And you know, my logic was like I want to maintain my nine to five job until I feel comfortable enough to jump and so, like with it being a side hustle, I had no other option than to hire somebody in. So it was either, you know, nine grand less or no deal at all, and so that's good perspective.

Speaker 3:

It definitely worked out good learning lessons in in that like hiring someone and managing them and like working within their skillsets versus my own skillsets, Like we'll kind of see what processes I set in place to kind of control that a little better. Um, but definitely like that's how it had to be, and I'll probably continue doing that, moving forward, cause you know I want to be doing 10 deals a year, not two.

Speaker 1:

Right, no, that's well said. Love it, chris, tell us a little bit about kind of what you've got going on currently and how you've evolved. Definitely wholesaling in addition to flipping too.

Speaker 2:

So after the one I did with Jordan, we bought a house in Morrison. It had like a finished detached garage, went super well. We made just under $200,000 on that. Nice, that's huge attached garage Went super well we made just under $200,000 on that, so it was a great deal. It was sitting on the market for a million years and just went in like $150,000 under asking, settled that $100,000 under asking and that was on market On market Nice.

Speaker 1:

I got a commission.

Speaker 2:

Oh no, I gave up my commission on that.

Speaker 1:

Okay, but I do want people to listen to that. People are always like, well, what if I do a low ball offer or whatever dude stuff sitting on the market for two, three, four months, so to go in at 150 and get it for a hundred, like that's what people need to do. So I want people to listen. So well done.

Speaker 2:

I mean on market deals are there, and that's where it's like what I was saying about if the comps are weird and you can see through it and you can see the upside of it, you know that there's something there. Plus, like I bought one in Applewood that is currently have, uh, ongoing as well, because I'm a realtor, I'm not, I don't want to go out and show buyers houses, I'm not, it's just for mine. But you know it was a $900,000 purchase. I got a 3% commission or whatever, it was 2.5. So you know, I'm putting 20 plus thousand in my bank account day one, which is just nice to just kind of okay. I got a little pad in my personal money. Did a condo we made 30,000 on that. We did a whole tail and arrowhead, golf course. You know, 25 K rehab budget on it. We bought it for 855, sold it for a million, 50. We made like 85 grand on it. That was great Nice.

Speaker 2:

Did one in Lakewood, full rehab, again like each of these houses that I just mentioned, except for the condo, cause condos are all the same. Yeah, they all had some special elements about them that I felt like set them apart from your just any old house that's in that neighborhood Cool lot, good view, interesting layout, something cool. Lakewood was another one I did, and these, these have all been relatively quick, like you know five months max in and out. Nice, the whole tails are like three months in and out. Lakewood flip I think that was about 65,000 or something. Jordan helped me with some private money on that, okay, and then the most recent, the really cool deal we just did is a $3 million house in golden.

Speaker 1:

Really, I didn't know about that one.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, so it's 8,500 square feet. Multiple masters on different levels pool all this stuff. So this was a lead that we paid $250 for that came through for a pay-per-lead. Now I've spent thousands of dollars that have led to nothing, as you know, but it came through. My sales guy sent it to me and said there's probably nothing here. It's like crazy amount of money. But I went over there and I was like this house is actually in pretty good shape and it's very unique craftsman style wood built-ins everywhere, cool Built in 2014.

Speaker 1:

Oh yeah, that's, newer.

Speaker 2:

And the woman I was talking to, you know, I was looking at comps and I was like it's just. Again, it's unclear where this one falls. It seems like it's maybe like 3 million, but geez, if it goes for 2.6, I'm in trouble, right, because when you're playing in that price range, when you drop the price, you got to drop it a hundred K, yeah, six figures or it does, and probably even more than a hundred, yeah, at a $3 million price point, right. She said somewhere between 1.8 and two, point, you know, 2.2. And I'm like that's a pretty big range on what you want. She tells me she has someone that offered her 2.4 and I'm like I told her I would match it and I literally did not sleep a wink that.

Speaker 1:

I was just awake and I was like oh my gosh this is a horrible decision.

Speaker 2:

Right, and thank sleep, a wink, that, yeah. I was just awake and I was like, oh my gosh, this is a horrible decision, right? Um? And thank god because that ultimately ended up being what the spread was, because I said I can't do it. 2.2 would be my max, max, max, max. Yep, she writes me and I use some sales technique on her, where I pulled away and just said sounds like you got it figured out, good luck to you. She came back and said well, I never even heard from him again, I'll do it figured out, good luck to you. She came back and said well, I never even heard from him again, I'll do it for 2.2. So now I got to come up with all this money. I increased the price by 45K and wrote that I would get a 45K commission. So 45K in the pocket. Okay, that feels good and I'm sorry if this is too much on the one deal, but it's just an exciting one.

Speaker 2:

So, to be a part of Jordan came out. I had everybody come out to it and I had to bring the hard money. Lenders, indicate Capital is who we use. I use several now, but I had to have the owner come out because he was like what the hell are you doing, bro?

Speaker 1:

Yeah, that's a big number for a hard money lender.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, and what is this house? And so he came out and I just talked to him about what the plan was and he was a little doubtful. But he's, you know, we'll give you 85 leverage on it. I'm like, okay, that'll save me, you know, another 150 grand because it's such a big purchase. Yep, put 100 into it, staged it with the den staging they're absolutely amazing.

Speaker 2:

Amanda over there, she's great and we spent like 20 grand just having guys literally going around touching up all the wood built-ins. I I mean for for two weeks, six guys just catching. You know they had dogs clawing on the doors, so it was just chewed up, but the bones were there and I didn't have to tear anything out. So it was just, you know, new carpet, new paint and all that. So, listed it for 3 million, went under contract. Buyer literally said I want you to replace every single mechanical in the whole house. And I'm like, what kind of an? Like what? Even the stuff that was working? Okay, I want you to replace everything. And I'm like, okay, obviously not. Yeah, dumped him. And then we got someone for 2.85, 50k off. We ended up selling it at 2.8 and we made 225,000 on that one.

Speaker 1:

Nice work.

Speaker 2:

So just that's huge. Such a blessing, yeah, and a learning lesson of like. Like that fear is a compass thing. It's just like you know what I can do. This, yeah, I'm. It's like you don't have to be Elon Musk to go and be successful in business. You gotta be, you gotta have grit, you gotta be savvy. And also the big thing that I'm really happy we got to and then I'll shut up because I haven't been talking for a while now is this concept of love, the one you're with, and that's me and Jordan's partnership of like I sat next to Jordan and I was like, all right, let's do something, you and me. You know like you seem like someone if I drive with you, then let's do this.

Speaker 2:

I toured a house when I was looking at comps for that mansion the listing agent she showed up. I was like, oh shit, listing agents here, not used to that and I just said I'm thinking about doing this house. You know, would you help me if I gave you like 1%? She was like, yeah, love the one you're with. She, knowing that neighborhood really well, helped give me the guidance so I could price correctly, do the correct amount of repairs, all that. So, like the team and the network you surround yourself with is that protective barrier to not losing a bunch of money. Well said, you know it's like and I just know I don't know everything. I know that on my own I will probably make crucial. So having checks and balances by having people around me and giving them a little piece of the pie, ultimately is what helps me to feel good about making big, scary decisions like buying a $2.2 million house. That's a big one and not knowing if it's going to work out yeah, that's a big one.

Speaker 1:

Two big lessons. So, chris, that was such a cool story and what I love to hear about it story and what I love to hear about it and Jordan kind of brought it up off camera which is that you had the guts to not only try something super different different price points but also ask for help, which was really, really cool. So I want to commend you about that. Something else that I love to hear from you guys, and whether it's separately or your joint deals how are you financing things? What are you doing for hard money, private money, family money, cash? Talk a little bit about that from a financing perspective.

Speaker 2:

So for the majority, hard money loan, getting somewhere between 80% and 90% we use Indicate Capital or Merchant's Mortgage. Merchant's Mortgage is a little bit cheaper but more paperwork. And then, in terms of the gap meaning whatever the down payment is I use different family members, helocs. I've had people take out home equity lines of credit and then I borrow their money and I give them a return on it so I don't come out of pocket. I mean, sometimes we will now cause we're a little bit more, we have enough cash to be doing that on a rise.

Speaker 2:

But yeah, using OPM other people's money you don't have to have the money yourself. Like it is truly not a barrier if you can just like make a couple of calls and get creative. Yeah, you know you've got an auntie that has 200 K in her house and you know who might be on a, a fixed income and you could help. You can really help family members. I mean, when I write at the end of a project, a 5k check to my auntie, that's huge for her, that's awesome. That money isn't doing anything other than it's a credit card waiting to be used. So that's how we've been doing it. I think you're similar, yeah.

Speaker 1:

Tell me about yourself, Jordan, yeah.

Speaker 3:

I'm very similar on the hard money side, same thing as Chris. I've only used Indicate to this point, mainly because I have my nine to five. I'm very busy and I like the idea of a little less paperwork, a little less formal, so they've been really easy to work with. We'll see kind of who I use moving forward. I like Indicip but I'd love to kind of mix and match a little bit there on the hard money side and anywhere from. I think all my deals are at 85% leverage on their end and then on my end between the four deals. Like a good amount of money has to come out of pocket for it. So I've been using my HELOC that I have in my house, as well as family members HELOCs. That's been going really good. I talked my grandma into opening up a HELOC on her house and she's been very gracious.

Speaker 3:

Use it however you need it. I don't want to make any money off of you. I'm still paying her 12%, but we're going to kind of work out a deal where maybe her profit goes into my kid's college fund, so kind of mutually beneficial there.

Speaker 3:

She feels good about it, she opens up some capital for me. Yeah, yeah, definitely on the HELOC route. I haven't had to pay any money out of my personal pocket outside of the equity in my house. Love it. The nice part about that is you can just turn and burn it. You know I don't want to use my HELOC for a long-term investment. Yeah, high up that money for a really long time. So if I can use that over and over and over again on flips and then take the profit I make from flips into the long-term investing strategies, I think that's kind of my goal with it. But yeah, lots of HELOC, lots of hard money, lender.

Speaker 1:

Well, the good news is we've got some new hard money lending contacts that I'll hook you guys up with that. We've been super happy because we've then tried to scale and because of where the price points have gone over the last four or five years, we have internal capital that we've used. But five years we have internal capital that we've used. But then I'm like we don't want to turn down good deals. So we've got good hard money options that we'll send you guys. And the other thing is I have not done it myself and it's been funny like I'm in the business. I used to work in finance before this and so I have old 401ks from my two corporate jobs and that's luckily been doing well because the market's been doing well.

Speaker 1:

But in general I know I can kind of supercharge my personal retirement, so we're in the process of converting to self-directed 401ks and, to your point, like you can tap people's HELOCs. You can then start to tap people's retirement accounts and then it becomes to your point, jordan, like super life-changing that if somebody either has a down year or they're used to just making their 7% and you can have them make 12% on their money and that supercharges their retirement. So it would be a really cool change where, again, we're fans of like doing it on ourselves first, but then I'll connect you guys with the partners that we're going to use to do that. And then it's just going out and it's like, yeah, heloc is, you know, tranche one for financing 401k. Self-directed is tranche two and it's, it's a win-win. So that's huge. That's really cool.

Speaker 1:

I love to hear, like, the financial side of things, because that's super important for our audience to to really wrap their arms around. It's been so fun having you guys. I want to be sensitive to your time, but I've got like one last thing and I would love to have each one of you touch on which is where this will drop, probably right between either end of 2024, early 2025. Where do you guys want to go with this? Like you, it sounds like you're checking your box from from a mission and a vision standpoint, which is really cool. You've got some partnership things going. You've got some independent things. Maybe each one of you take turns of like where you guys want to go here in 2025 and it's just been fun to to be around you guys and however, we can support you for me, having the construction background and like I enjoy construction, I'm gonna really enjoy doing it for myself and so like the flipping thing kind of feels like a passion project in some sense.

Speaker 3:

Some sense it's kind of a means to an end. I want to make money to kind of invest in more long-term assets, the passive income, get some stuff rolling that way, just for long-term financial wellbeing kind of deal. But I like the idea of kind of continuing on with flips. I think this next 2025, I'm going to focus really hard on flips just to kind of generate income and then see where that all goes. I want to leave my doors open as far as other opportunities go, but yeah, yeah, focus on flips. I want to start looking at getting my contractor's license, at my real estate license, just to kind of open as many doors as I possibly can.

Speaker 3:

I think those will both be huge, and then, yeah, just kind of see where it goes. I'd love to have maybe three kind of big remodels next year. Okay, a bunch of wholetail kind of in between. I have kind of a number in my head of what I want to make, just to kind of cover me and my family.

Speaker 3:

Okay, but then anything above and beyond that, like love to kind of see how I can use that money wisely. Not necessarily use the on the flips to create income to invest in other opportunities, and who knows what those opportunities are going to be. I'm going to kind of leave it open and just try to build my toolbox as much as I can.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, that's awesome, love it cool, yeah, for me I would say um, we want to acquire some mentorship to help us to dial in our processes so that we can, as good as we are at the wholesaling sales process side, where it's like a science, we need to get the science of flipping down, and so that's a big for my wholesaling company that we want to do. And then, in terms of flipping, what I realized is, whether you make 60 or a 200, like, they take three to five or six months, right, like, and they're all hard in terms of like complexity, and so it's like I've just decided if we're going to flip it, I need to be making at least a hundred grand, or else I'm not going to do it.

Speaker 3:

Okay, wholesale it out.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, I like that.

Speaker 2:

Or in the caveat is the whole tails, and for the listeners like whole tail means something that is in good shape, that you only need to put you know. Maybe 40,000 or less in like, and ideally you want to be at 20, 25, like paint it carpet, clean it up, stage it. We want to do as many as those as we possibly can. Yeah, even that mansion was like a whole tail.

Speaker 1:

Yeah.

Speaker 2:

The one that we did narrowhead that was a whole tail was $. It was $85,000. Like, there's great money there and I'm making this. I'm making more than the ones where I'm spending months and it's way complex and I'm tearing everything out. So I want to be able to design things that are fun. The Applewood flip we have right now we put in a cold plunge a built-in sauna.

Speaker 1:

Oh, cool Okay.

Speaker 2:

It's going to have some really, really cool elements to it and so and we want to see a big upside on those, so fewer projects, higher profitability and then a lot of small turn and burns where the complexity is really low. Okay, and that's our goal. That's going into next year and I'm not someone I'm not big on like setting like a number of flips I want to do Okay, cause I don't want to chase, yeah, I want to capitalize, I want to maximize every single good opportunity, and so that's my goal is, I want to make sure I am in a place, process-wise, to capitalize on every great opportunity that comes across.

Speaker 1:

And I like the way that you said that. It's something I really want you guys to listen to at home. And we're kind of doing the same thing where we are, instead of chasing a certain number of flips. I've worked with my CFO and we're reverse engineering, because to me that almost is like top-down goal setting and budgeting of X number of flips, y number of wholesales, z number of brokerage transactions or whatever. But you're right If it sucks up all your capital or all your time, but you have a bunch of these singles or wholetails, as you put it. We want to maintain the best possible profit margin, move our money as fast as possible, and his kind of cheesy example is okay. Let's say we want to do a million dollars in net. Is that one unbelievable project, to your point of maybe buying it for 2 million and selling it for 4 million and netting a million, or is it, you know, bad example? But $110,000 deals we don't want to do that.

Speaker 1:

But like somewhere in the middle. So you're right, I think that's a smart way to look at it and that's the way we're kind of recalibrating our stuff for this year too. So, guys, thank you so much for joining us. I really, really appreciate you guys being on the show. How can people get ahold of you guys? Give us a little bit of contact info. We'll definitely put it in the show notes, but how can people reach out to get?

Speaker 2:

ahold of. But yeah, send me an email if you want. But yeah, cool, yeah, there you go. You can find me at home taking care of my two babies.

Speaker 1:

There you go. Okay, just knock on the door. Okay, what about you? Jordan? How can people get ahold of you?

Speaker 3:

I was joking with Chris on the way over. I don't have Check me out on LinkedIn. I'll have that live.

Speaker 1:

We have your crazy arbitrary deadline that we just put on the podcast. No, that's perfect. Well, guys, it's been so fun having you guys. I really appreciate it. Can't wait to do more stuff with you guys in the future.

Speaker 1:

Thanks everybody for tuning in and we'll catch you guys on the flip side. Thanks for tuning into this week's episode of Raising the Flipping Bar. If you found value in our insights and stories, let's keep the conversation going. Connect with me on social media and be sure to share this episode with friends or colleagues who might benefit. Your feedback and reviews help us grow and reach more listeners like you, so please, if you enjoyed this episode, leave us a review. Thanks again to the Elevation Academy for sponsoring today's show. If you're interested in learning more, click the link in the show notes below and remember every property tells a story, every deal brings a lesson. Keep reaching for those goals and we'll catch you on the flip side. Hey everybody, thank you so much for listening and watching Raising a Flipping Bar.

Speaker 1:

Just a basic overall disclaimer is that A this is not legal advice. B this is not tax advice. C this is not legal advice. B this is not tax advice. C this is not financial advice. I hope you get the gist, but I'm obviously not a lawyer, not a CPA, hell, I'm not even a real estate agent actually. But in general, we hope you get a ton of value out of this. But there is a bit of a disclaimer Please consult a professional if you have any questions whatsoever. Thanks,