BiggerPockets Real Estate Podcast - 147: Turning “Weird” Properties Into Cash-Flowing Monsters with Johnny Youssef

Episode Date: November 5, 2015

Sometimes to find success, you have to think outside the box! That’s why today on the BiggerPockets Podcast we’re excited to bring you an interview with Johnny Youssef, a young investor who has found clever ways to turn properties that no one else wants into cash flowing monsters. You’ll be inspired and motivated after hearing Johnny’s story, as well as his philosophy of using “financial freedom” to help others. Don’t miss a second of this powerful show! In This Episode We Cover: Thoughts on this year’s epic battle: the Mets vs. the Royals Who Johnny is and how he started investing during college How he got his real estate license early to get the commissions How he managed 7 properties from a young age The importance of understanding and helping your market Thoughts on how to fund a property Insight into the question: To have a real estate license or not? How to start out in real estate with no money Why the first property he bought was a duplex How to use the same money to keep your business growing A look at Johnny’s current portfolio Big mistakes people make in hiring employees The level of finish you should aim for when flipping properties How to tenant-proof your properties What is he currently looking at right now The importance of thinking outside of box when investing Johnny’s thoughts on flips vs. rental properties  How to manage vacancies Tips for new investors And SO much more! Links from the Show BiggerPockets Youtube A Beginner’s Introduction to Real Estate Investing (Course) The Key to Business Success with Bestselling Author of The E-Myth Michael Gerber Books Mentioned in this Show Rich Dad Poor Dad by Robert Kiyosaki The E-Myth Revisited by Michael Gerber Tweetable Topics: “Look for something that has equity in it. Make money out of it and start investing in other things.” (Tweet This!) “When you’re buying, especially when you are still starting, you’re gonna be emotional about things.” (Tweet This!) Connect with Johnny Johnny’s BiggerPockets Profile Johnny’s Personal Blog Johnny’s Instagram Periscope: @johnnyyou Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Your home for real estate investing online. What's going on, everybody? This is Josh Dorkin host to the Bigger Pockets podcast here with my co-host, Mr. Met himself. Mr. Brandon Turner. What's going on, Brandon? Did you say, Mr. Met himself? I did. Is that a thing? There is a thing.

There's a guy with a big baseball head. It was in Mr. Met. Yeah. That's funny. I didn't know that. He's our guy. He's our mascot. Apparently there's a World Series going on right now, and I didn't even know about it until this morning when I find out last night. There's 14 Indians, and apparently everybody in the world watched it, but me. I don't know. It was a, it was, it was, it's hard. It's hard. It was a great game, and I lost. We lost. You lost it for them, Josh.

That nation lost. I know, like, if I had only not gotten from the couch to go get that drink, the game would have gone differently. Yep. Why do people think that? Like, people are so superstitious about their sports. Honey, do not talk to me. If you talk to me during this game, we're going to lose.

I mean, people do that. That's nuts. For a while, I believed that. Not really. But I used to say that if I watched a game, whoever I liked lost, because I never saw a game that my team won, no matter who it was. It was like, I'd watch a game and they'd lose. You're a big fat loser.

I'm just a loser. Yeah, that's just how I roll. So that's why last night I watched the Mets. Oh, damn it. Yeah, it's all me. All right, man, how you doing? I'm actually in a bit of pain. Want to hear a funny story? No. I don't tell you this. This is a good story. If you're in pain, it brings me joy. Yeah, it does. Okay. I'm going to tell you anyway. So I bought a treadmill back about a month and a half ago. Hey, we just bought one too about a month and a half ago. Did you serious? I didn't know this. Yeah, I didn't know you did about one too. Oh, nice. Yeah, I bought a treadmill. And I'm like, at least I got to walk on it or go job. on it. And I'm starting doing like interval training where like I put it on like when it's too

rainy to go outside, I'll run at like speed 12, right? The fastest speed. Oh yeah. And then I'll, I run for a minute and then I put it. I know my limits, Brandon. So I run for like a minute or like 45 seconds and then I walk for like a minute. And then I run and then I walk and I just hit number 12. The fastest it'll go. And I'm just booking it. Right. So yesterday I'm doing that. I'm on my second interval, my second set and I'm booking it at 12 speed. I mean as fast as I can go. and then out of nowhere the belt broke and it just i mean not the big wide one but the one inside the thing and it didn't just slow down like i imagined it would hard stop hard stop so i smashed into the front of it with all my might somehow did a flip upside down probably 360

landed on my knee then flip back the other way and landed on my butt like it was the most like awful it was the worst like crash i've ever had and i got like bruises all wet my legs now It was like, it was crazy. And like, I'm sitting there on the floor just going, ow! And my wife heard the crash. Yeah, from like across the garage, my office on the other side of the garage. So through the garage, through two doors, my soundproof studio office here,

she heard this loud crash and came running. I'm just like laying on the floor this mangled pile of flesh. Yeah, it was good, but I'm feeling okay today. Crazy. That's great. There's a weight limit on those things. Apparently, apparently I'm the back guy that can't run on a treadmill. You might want to return it.

Well, I bought it from a friend. And so now it's like, I'm like, ah, but it was only like $300. But still, it's a really good treadmill. Apparently, it just was at that breaking point. Nice. Whatever. Anyway, that's my story. I'm sticking to it.

That's a great story. Speaking of your story, I've got one quick last question before we start getting down to the show here. So I'm sitting, I'm talking to you, and you have this ugly brown sheet. I don't understand normally, you know, the whole point, we do videos, man. This is live on YouTube. People, not live, but it's on. YouTube. People can see it. Check this up. If you want to see something real fun. I've got a cardigan.

No, what is this? A, that's like a knit blanket. That's like a blanket. Yeah, and I can keep turning around. You can see there's more blankets. My great grandma used to make me knit shoes. Really? That's amazing. Yeah, I think. So what I have is I built myself a little audio recording studio here because I work out of sheets. Out of sheets. Grandma's knit blanket. Instead of the egg cartons that you're I've got hollow cord doors, like the ones that you put on your house, you know, I had a bunch extra in my garage. So I lined my desk with these hollow cord doors. So they're in a, I'm in a box.

And then I covered them with blankets, whatever I could find in the garage. And I'm now in a soundproof little like made up studio because I'm recording. I'm recording the audio for the new book on rental property investing. So every day, I'm trying to do an hour a day. And I'm recording the audio or audible, if you listen on an audible book that should be out pretty soon. Awesome. It's going to be awesome.

It's going to be awesome. It's actually going to be great. Yeah, it's going to be. I mean, I actually got the first printed copy and it's like two inches thick or something. It's pretty awesome. It's a very exciting. It's pretty.

It's exciting. Listeners, stay tuned. This is coming out soon. It's coming out soon. Get ready. Get your copy. The book is the books. We have two books.

Yeah, they're going to be amazing. Outstanding. Can we get to the show? Let's get to the show. Today's an awesome show. It is an awesome show. And I never say that. And so I really mean it this time.

Wow. Yeah. It's good. So today's a great show. And, you know, again, ahead of time. Big Thanks to everybody for listening. This is show 147 of the Bigger Pockets podcast featuring Johnny Yusuf. We have a quick tip. Today's quick tip. Today's quick tip. Super quick tip. It's to watch this on YouTube because you'll see my ugly sheet hanging behind me. There you go. Watch it on YouTube and on YouTube. We've got all the other shows. We'll have not all of them, but most of them. We're catching up. And we've got lots of other videos too. So check us out. YouTube.com slash bigger pockets. There you go. All right. Let's get, you know what? I just say maybe, well, we don't even make it a quick tip, but we have a new course that just got launched on BP.

So bigger pockets.com slash courses. You can go take the beginner's guide to real estate investing. It's a course, video course we put together. It's a video course of our ultimate beginners guy. Totally free. Check it out. Yeah. Let me know what you think.

We're just kind of developing new courses that are going to be all free for you guys. So check it out, see what you think. And let me know. Yeah. Awesome. All right, guys. Let's get to the show. Today's show is featuring Johnny Yusef.

Johnny is a real estate investor, 29 years of age, who's been investing for the last seven years and has built this pretty cool little empire out of nothing and really clever guy who's just very, very smart. If you're a new investor, I haven't started yet, this guy's got some stuff you want to hear. If you've been doing it for a while, he gets into stuff all about thinking outside the box. And so I definitely recommend taking a listen and hearing what Johnny has to say. So let's get to this. Let's bring him on. All right, Johnny, welcome to the show, man. So before we go anywhere, I've got to say, we're recording the show right now. It's Wednesday, October 28th. Last night was probably one of the best baseball games I've seen in a long time. Yes. Sadly,

your Kansas City Royals just by just by a hair beat my Mets in, what was it, 14 innings. Oh, yeah. And we just started. Just wait for tonight, man. It's on. Yeah, it's on. We're good. Everyone here is freaking out about it. Yeah, was it crazy in the streets of KC? You know, I wasn't out, but just social media. I mean, literally everyone today is just, I didn't sleep last night, taking a nap at work. I mean, everyone just stayed up, went crazy, and we're all waiting for the final win because we're going to go crazy. There's no final win. No final win, and, you know, us New Yorkers at heart, you know, I mean, we don't need nap. We're, you know, none of that early stuff that you guys are going to say.

But, you know. All right. Well, it's good to have you on the show, despite the fact that you guys took game one. We will be victorious at the end. But let's get into the show. Let's talk about you. All right, Johnny. So, who are you?

What do you do? How did you get into real estate? Who am I? So Johnny Yusuf here, originally born in Egypt. My dad was just in business. He had a lot of businesses there. So I just grew up in a family with just entrepreneurship, always thinking business. And then when we moved to the U.S., my dad had to start over, my parents just all over from the beginning.

But how I really got into real estate is when I was in college, and that was back in 2006, 2007. And there were homes for Sailor on college in my university. And then I just crunch some numbers. And I went to my parents and I said, hey, if we buy one of those properties, instead of renting all throughout college, I can rent it out to my friends. They can pay the mortgage and I will just manage it and I don't have to pay rent. So even though prices at the time were high, the return wasn't great, but also it was the time where everyone can get a mortgage.

So my parents applied for mortgage, got one. And that's really how I got into it. I started managing the property I was living in. We owned it and I had renters in it. And my parents really liked the idea. So before I knew it, they bought six homes next to each other. I don't know how they got mortgages for them. but again, at the time, everyone got mortgages if they wanted to.

So before I knew it, I was 20 years old and I was a property manager for 35 students, and that's how I really got into it. Wow. What inspired it? I mean, was it just, hey, look at these houses. I mean, it just literally a bell rang in your head. I mean, there wasn't, you hadn't had any real estate experience or business classes that talked about it?

Yeah, I would say, honestly, the biggest thing inspired it is just the idea that rent was money that's being wasted and I was aware of that. You know, first two years of college, I'm just looking at money just being wasted away. And again, I didn't know any, neither my parents, we didn't know anything about return, about, you know, how to find a good, good property. We didn't know anything about that. But it just, once we crunch the numbers, it just made sense that buying, even its worst case scenarios, would still be more beneficial than renting and, you know, not investing in that. And you went to school in Kansas City? Nope. Actually, I went to, we moved from Egypt when I was young to Virginia and I went to VCU, Virginia Commonwealth. And then, you know, I did the rentals in Virginia. And then after, you know, buying seven houses, I was like, snap, I should have gotten my real estate license because if I would have gotten my real estate license, I would have been the agent and we would have made like $20,000 in commission. I didn't think about that until it was too late. We just got an agent that sold us the seven houses. So I got my real estate license. I got my real estate license. I would have been the agent. I would have been the agent. I

license in Virginia. And really, I just sold one house in Virginia. I got my license primarily because I wanted to move to Kansas City to do an internship with a church. And I just needed my, I just needed some money to be able to make the move. So I just literally got my license, sold the house, made the money that I needed, and then a week later I moved to Kansas City. My plans were not to get into real estate in Kansas City. But once I moved here and looked at the market, I just, I felt stupid not going after it. Hey, really, really quickly, do you still have those properties? Your parents still have those properties in Virginia? Yep, they still have the seven properties in Virginia. Okay, right on. Cool. So you're in Kansas City. You went out for this internship

and suddenly it hits you again. What the heck am I doing? I need to get into real estate again because it's such a good thing. I mean, how did that go? Yeah, so I did the internship. It was six months and the plan was to go back. But then, you know, just looking on Zillow and different websites, I was finding houses for 25,000, you know, 30,000. And that was in 2009. So that was when everything was, you know, going downhill. And my idea was, I just want to buy a little $25,000 house here, even if I plan to move back to Virginia, I'll just have a rental here. Again, once I did it, it just made sense to do it, especially that my parents' homes were, you know, $200, $250,000 each. So that was literally 10% of the prices of Virginia where we were.

So I connected with an agent and after I connected with her and got to know a little bit about the real estate market, I just did the math and I was like, okay, I can go back to Virginia and get a regular job nine to five or I can stay here and see the opportunity and go after it. So decided to get my real estate license in Kansas City. And mostly I got it not for the paycheck. I got it because I wanted to learn. but in that I took on a niche that no one in the office that I was in wanted to take on. So, you know, in the office I was working on as a realtor, everyone wanted to sell and buy for clients that were with expensive houses. But no one wanted to help the investor that wanted to look at 30 properties for, you know,

$200 checks and commission. So I was the new guy. I was 23. And I just went after every agent and I said, look, if you guys have any investor or any guy that, you know, wants to buy a house and you guys don't want to deal. with it because it's a lot of pain for not much commission, I'll take them. So that's really what got me into the investment niche because here I was, before I knew it, I just had tons of investors and even first-time home buyers that couldn't qualify for more than

$40,000, $50,000 loans. And, you know, even though the commission was a lot less, I went after understanding that market, helping them, and I had great connections from that. And that's really what got me into the investment niche. That's awesome. I love that. I love that. You just hustled.

and took the leftovers, but, you know, the beauty is that the leftovers, if you put it all together, there's a whole lot of it, isn't there? Yeah, absolutely. And that actually got me into starting a leasing division, and it was the same thing. My broker came to me and she said, you know, there's a niche for leasing, again, especially with the economy, a lot of people were going through foreclosures, people couldn't qualify at the time 2009, 2010. So she said, look, you know, do you want to start a leasing division? No one wants to start it. And I've been trying to get someone to do it in the last couple of years. Again, because it wasn't worth the money. You know, you're showing houses for rentals and you're making,

you know, $300 checks. But because I already had the investors and because I had the investors who wanted to buy more, but they needed help with renting it, I said, hey, let's just start that. So that really helped me understand the market, understand the investment, understand what to look for, understand everything, you know, as far as ROI's and all that. And then it also helped me understand, you know, how to lease and what to sign. And, you know, so it was all free education. And I was really just getting paid for it. And that really got me into, you know, knowing how to start from finding a property all the way to renting it successfully. Nice. So do you recommend, I mean, obviously it worked out well for you, but do you recommend that other people get their real estate license as well?

Yeah, I think it really depends on the person and what they're looking for. So for me, because I was a young guy, it didn't hurt much, you know, it was totally worth it for me. I've seen people that overthink, should we get the license? Should we get the license? And I'm like, guys, the whole thing is going to cost you $1,000, you know, it doesn't hurt. Like in one sale, I was able to get my money back. But if you are someone with 9 to 5 job and you have a family and you're really looking for investments and, you know, you may not need the real estate license, but for sure you will need a good realtor that you can trust. Yeah, yeah, that's for sure. So let's talk about, so you got your license now. How did you get into your own rental properties? I'm assuming in Kansas City then, is that where you ended up buying your own properties? Yep, it was on Kansas City. Okay, tell us about that. How did you get into that part? Yeah, so how it started, and that's actually, you know,

people say all the time that you need money to be able to get in real estate. But I am a prime example that I didn't have any money and I got into it buying property. So how it started, really, is I, after, you know, a year of work, I applied for a loan. I applied for an FHA loan. I wanted to buy my own house. And in the process, I was looking, and I was really looking for something where I can have equity in it. something that I can create value. That way I can make money out of it and start investing in other things.

And that's when I found a duplex. Forclosure, really good deal. Needed a lot of work. I definitely because it was my first time I underestimated that amount of work it needed, but I said, hey, I can buy that, rent the other side. And the big thing for me was creating value. So that duplex, the great thing about it is that it was rented previously, $600 a side. So each size 600, it was making $1,200 a month.

Well, I bought this duplex. It was right across the Bible school that I did the internship in. And I was able to fix it up and rent it one bedroom for $300. And it was five bedrooms each side because I finished the basement too. So before I knew it, I had 10 bedrooms and I was making, you know, if we count myself as paying rent, I was making $3,000 a month plus, you know, they were paying for utilities. So I turned this property from 600 one side to 1,500 more than double. And that's really how I got started because then what I started doing is I started saving that cash. And on top of that, I was able to go back and get a line of credit against my house because I created value.

So I was able to get $60,000 line of credit, which got me another house rental. So that's really how I got going. And that's when I did flips too. So I did flips and rentals. I did both of them for a long time. But the first property I bought with the money, I was able to save $20,000 from work and from, you know, the rental income that was coming because my mortgage on it was $500 a month.

So, you know, when I'm making $3,000, my mortgage is $500. It's not a bad deal. So I took that money and I bought a little townhouse, $20,000 townhouse. And I started just a very small flip and it just kept growing, growing. And from this townhouse, I did a bigger townhouse. to a three-bedroom ranch home, to a five-bedroom, you know, two-stores houses. So I actually used the same money that I started with $20,000, and I kept growing it in the flips to, you know,

I think the last one we sold was $180,000. So that $20,000 just kept growing with me. Wow. Wow. That's unbelievable. Yeah. Thank you, yeah. So what does it look like today?

What is your portfolio? Overall, how many units do you have and how many flips have you done? Yeah. So how many units I have. right now I have 17 units and as far as flips, I probably flip now about somewhere between 12 to 15 flips so far. Yeah, and that's in five years. That's great. That is amazing. Yeah. Did you do all your own work or were you hiring contractors to do all the rehabs on these projects? Yeah, no, I hired contractors. I did not want to

mess with that. I did not want to touch it. I would mess up pretty bad. How was that experience? Yeah, I was going to ask that. What was I like? Yeah, I mean, I learned the hard way. Again, bigger pockets is amazing because you don't have to learn the hard way. Just read and learn. For real. I wish I had that just, you know, five, six years ago. But the first duplex I bought, you know, of course it was emotional buying. I mean, I did the math and it made sense and I'm so glad they did it. But once I started flipping it, I didn't know what I was doing. So, you know, I was getting the expensive pain, the expensive cabinets for, you know, for a rental. But anyway, one big mistake I did is I hired the wrong people that, you know, told me all the promises. They told me how much it will cost, but I didn't hold them accountable. I didn't sign anything with them, you know, there were 70% done with the project and then they were like, hey, we give you small estimate and we can't afford it. We're leaving. So I definitely learned the hard way. So I would say my advice is, you know, when you're buying, especially if you're just starting, it's going to be tempting to be emotional about things. You're going to go after the guy that just seems

really nice. Or you may go after the guy that just promises you the lowest, you know, bid. You're going to get emotional about what to buy. You're going to want to pay extra for things that are unnecessary. So I just encourage you, especially if it's an investment. If it's your own home, that's one thing. But if it's an investment, just do your best to take emotions out and be able to just assess what you're doing. And I definitely encourage anyone sign with whoever you get and ask people for references and get several bids and hold them accountable with signatures and dates and don't big thing is never give someone the final payment until they're completely done and you're satisfied yeah i did that too yeah yeah yeah i think i've made every one of

those mistakes that you did multiple times yeah awesome so these are these are mostly lower end properties correct yes okay so for somebody who's new who's listening who's thinking about getting into lower end properties what is the level of finish that you should be doing i mean you know i'm assuming you're gonna furnish a refrigerator, but what else? I mean, what other utilities, what other appliances? I mean, are you going to supply? What level of appliance? Sure. Can you talk about that a little bit? Yeah, absolutely. So one thing real quick, even though they are lower income properties, they are not in bad areas. A lot of my properties are good, blue-collared working people, you know, and I was able to, even though I'm telling you examples of buying $20,000 properties, but after I grew,

I was able to buy, you know, 50, 60,000, $70,000 property. So I say my rentals average when I buy them are about $50,000. And the reason I'm saying that is just because it's really appealing for some people to just get the cheapest property that's typically in a rough area, section 8. And I tell people, their return is going to be the highest, but you have to deal with a lot of pain. You have to deal with, you know, maybe bullets, you know, going on your house. Because there was one, you know, one of my clients just went a different direction and he just bought and really, rough areas and he got great return but he has to deal with things like that. So in order to answer the question, I would say one thing I look at is I look at the items I'm going to buy and the finishing

I'm going to do and I ask myself, is it the best in the neighborhood or not? And if it's the best, is it way too much or not. So my point is, is I try to do the best for the neighborhood. So I have the edge and I'm getting the best renters in the neighborhood for the highest, for the highest income coming in for the highest rental rate. But at the same time, if the best in the neighborhood is, you know, homes that have been updated 10 years ago, well, I'm updating them now. I don't need to put granite. I just need to make it nice and it will still be the best.

So one mistake I did when I started is I really just wanted to go after properties and put granite countertops, you know, put the extra stuff that wasn't necessary. Now I just say, okay, if I'm putting the nicest stuff out there, let's put the lowest of the nicest stuff. So I'm still the best, but at the same time, I'm not putting stuff that's not going to bring me the money back. Yeah, so one thing I do is just, I, yeah, I do a couple of things that just give me the signature. I do, you know, recess lighting. It doesn't cost me that much. I really like hardwood floors. Most of the homes, because they're built, you know, older built, they already have them.

So I totally encourage everyone, hardwood floors are the way to go carpet. You know, are cheap. It's cheaper, but just plain every three, five years, you're going to replace that. So I do hardwood floors. I do. And then I just get the nice clean cabinets that are not, you know, high end that will last for a while. Perfect. That sounds great. And I love the recess lighting thing. I mean, I think that's one of the finishes that most people don't do on the lower end of the scale. And I think it definitely would make a property stand out for somebody. Well, and that's the thing. Like at first,

I was putting fans, for example, but I had an investor that gave me a really good advice. and he said the more you put into a property, the more you're going to get maintenance request. So if you're going to put fans, if a fan break, you're going to need to fix that. If you're going to put carpet every few years, even with normal wear interior, you're going to need to fix that.

You know, at first I was going to put granite, what do they call them? It's like granite tile for the, instead of, you know, granite slabs because that's really expensive. So some people put the tile, you know, the floor tile for granite, but they just put them as kitchen countertops.

So I was like, well, that's going to cost me just as much. much as regular, you know, laminated countertops, but then he told me that means that every couple of years you're going to need to come and update them or maintain them. So what I do is I try to find stuff that's actually, even if it's a little bit more expensive,

that's actually going to help me not have to worry, you know, five, ten years down the road. So recess lighting, maybe it's going to cost me a little bit more in labor than fans at the beginning, but I know for sure that in the future, it's just a light bulb that needs to be replaced. I don't need to fix and repair things like that.

Yeah, that's awesome. Yeah, I was going to say my buddy, Darren Sager, always says, I was going to say, Darren Sager. Yeah, tenant proofing your properties. Like, that's his big thing. Exactly. I love that, right? Yeah, but think about what can your tenants do to it,

how much you're going to have to do work on the future, do it right up front and you will save yourself tons of work. And doing it right up front doesn't actually take that much more money. It just takes, like, intelligence thinking about it, like planning. I mean, like you said, ceiling fans are probably more expensive than putting in a recess light yet, or at least probably comparable in price. But the ceiling fan, they just break. I don't know, kids hang from them and other, like,

liability. Liability, yeah. Exactly. Yeah, and the one thing I do that it's probably unnecessary to do, but it's kind of my signature and it makes my rentals, it's almost a guarantee that when someone walks in, they're going to rent it is I get stainless steel appliances. Because, you know, the neighborhoods I'm in, again, a lot of times,

you know, the appliances when you go in are, you know, decent, 10-year-old white appliances, plain, you know. So if I get brand new black appliances or bring, brand new white appliances, I'll still be on top of it. But for that $100 to $200 more, once I get stainless steel appliances, it's like as soon as the wife walks in, man, she says, we're getting this. And my rentals would be $50 to $100, sometimes $150 more than the average in the area. So I get paid that money back real quick. But not only am I guaranteed a greater return, but I'm also guaranteed a better renter because renters that are willing to pay $50, $150, $150,

more than what the comparable homes in the area are, are renters that care about quality living, and that pays off for me. I love that you talk about the wife because, you know, in most cases, the fact of the matter is, you know, the wife tends to make the decisions on, I don't know, at least in my case, everything. Absolutely. As a realtor, I actually, and when I flipped houses, I actually learned to think what would the wife want? I would actually picture like women clients in my head that I showed house to with their husbands. And I would think, okay, most of them like white cabinets.

Most of them would really like this or that. And again, it's, you know, you may be paying for stainless steel appliances 100, even $200, $250 up front. But you're going to get it back in a couple of months of rent. And on top of that, you're going to get a better renter that will really take good care of the property. Yeah, love it. Yeah. As you mentioned a return, you know, you get a greater return. Do you have an actual number that you look for?

When I do webinars, people ask me that all the time. What kind of return on investment should I be looking for? Is 10% good? Is 5% good? What do you look for? Yeah. So the market is shifting. Unfortunately, you don't find any $20,000 homes in my area anymore.

You know, things are going up now. So I have to lower my expectations as things are changing. When I started the property I bought, I was looking for the duplexes I bought with student housing that I was saying, I was looking for 20 to 22% return. And I was able to do it. And for regular home, single family, you know, three-bedroom, one-bathroom kind of deal, I was looking for 15-16% return. But now, you know, I'm looking more for 10 to 12 in single-family if I can find it.

And the student housing is still up there. It's still, you know, 18 to 20%, so I'm still doing pretty well with it. Yeah, and I'm assuming that's just your like cash-on-cash return, like your cash flow coming in, right? That doesn't take into account appreciation and stuff in the future, right? Yeah, that's, yep, that's just. the cash return. Yeah. And that's typically what I mean, that's generally what I look for. When I think of, if I want to buy a nice property in a nice area, I want to get better than the stock market. So I want better than 10 or 12 percent. Knowing that, you know, that's okay, but knowing that the house is in a

good area, it should go up in value. The loan is being paid down, which should help my return. I get that tax benefits as well. And so overall, the return is a lot better than just that 10 or 12 percent that we physically see on cash flow. Absolutely. Yeah. It's a lot better than that. Absolutely. Yeah, that's just what I'm, that's just the cash. Yeah. Cool, cool. Did you know your house gets bored when you leave? I can't actually prove that, but it probably misses out on the action, the footsteps, the late night fridge raids.

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studies with 500 million in total depreciation identified. Head to Costsegregationguise.com slash BP to get a free proposal and see your potential tax savings. And then so overall, you kind of gave us a description of all your properties. Now, are you, you know, they're lower end. There's some houses in there. You said you have some multifamilies, right? Yep.

Okay. What's your favorite kind of property to buy? What are you currently looking actively for right now? That's a great question. I am, because the market is shifting, I am actually in the problem. process of examining everything. And I don't only have lower properties. So, you know, Robert Kisak in his book, Rich Dad, Poor Dad, I remember him giving an advice, you know, find an equation that's making money and just keep going at it. You know, my problem as an entrepreneur, and I'm sure you guys relate

is I just like different ideas. I like seeing what's out there and I end up diversifying, which is good, but at the same time, sometimes I feel like if I just focus on one and just keep going, And that's where I can have a better system. Exactly, exactly. So I would say, you know, I have different models. That is a hard question to answer, by the way, because I'm going through all that. But like my biggest thing that gets me going is creating value. So like I said earlier, those duplexes, the investors looked at and said,

okay, these are $600 aside. You know, even if we fix them, they're going to make $700,750. I was able to look at something outside of the box and say, no, we can actually do student housing. And that will make a lot more because students are looking for how much they're paying per room. So that's what I did. Another property I bought, and that's a really unique one. And I'm actually selling it this week. But I brought the property that no one wanted to buy.

It was a 10-bedroom house, six-bathroom, huge, on five acres in a decent area. But no one wanted to buy it because it used to be a caregiving facility. And it just looked funky. Like the layout of it's funky. So families didn't want to buy it because it lacked a family home feel. and investors didn't want to buy it because who was going to look for a 10-bedroom rental. So what I did with it is I looked at that, again, outside of the box, creating value. And I said, this is right next to different huge places that people come visit to all the time.

This would be a great, you know, Airbnb property. And that was before Airbnb. So it was a great bed and breakfast without the breakfast, just a retreat center. I looked at it and I thought, this, if I rent a room for $40 a night, I'd make really good money. So I bought the property, furnished it really well, made it look really pretty, and I put it online where people can book online, and I connected with different churches, different organizations in the area where they have retreats, conferences. Again, it's on five acres and all that. And I was able, just in my first year, I bought it for $150,000 because no one wanted to buy it because everyone is thinking in the box. So this is too big for rental, too weird for family to buy.

So I bought it just for $150 for this huge property, $5,000 square feet. and then I turned it into a bed and breakfast and just in the first year I was able to net profit $80,000. So it was incredible. Now, you know, again, challenge with that is you end up

doing so many different things and you're, you know, so I'm, now I'm in a place where I'm just selling the property because I got a huge offer on it. A caregiving facility said, we're going to come, we're going to buy it, turn it back into a caregiving facility. So I did the math and I'm like, great. I'll go ahead and say,

tell it. So to answer the question, I know I'm not really answering the question, but to answer the question is I say what I'm looking for right now in the stage of life I'm at is I'm looking for something that will give me good return, but I'm also counting the cost of the time. And how can I put it into my system? I think that's the thing I'm looking at right now, which is something that I didn't look at back in the day because I was just looking at different opportunities. Now that I have opportunities and I have business in place, I'm looking at something that I can put inside my system and it's not going to be tons of headache even if the return is going to be a little bit less but put it in that system and keep growing.

Hey Johnny, I know you're in the process of selling. I don't know if you're able to tell us how what you're selling it for. Sure. I am selling it for $342,000. Wow. How long ago did you buy it? I bought it three years ago for $150.000. And I put about $20,000 in it. I have furniture in it for another 20,000, but I'm going to keep that furniture for different things. So, you know, I would say outside of the furniture, I invested 170, 180. I'm selling it for 340. I would have kept it. That was one of the big lessons I learned on that is if you're like me and you like thinking

right outside of the box of how can I get an opportunity where I can think outside of the box and make much more money, my only advice is make sure that whatever you want to do is not going to be an issue with zoning or neighborhood. Because I had the okay from the city, but I did the mistake of just rushing into it. And then I had that one neighbor that just loved having the property. The property was abandoned for years. And he had his horses living on the property,

strolling on the property. He liked that no one ever went into his street. So he went after me, just wanting me, pressuring me to sell it. So I just got to a place where I said, hey, you know, I'm just going to go ahead and sell it. So I just encourage you, If you're looking for something outside of the box, just make sure that you're doing everything with the neighborhood, with zoning,

so you don't come back and regret buying it or go through trouble. Yeah, I'm agreed. You talked about systems. What systems were you referring to back then? Well, back then I didn't have a system. Oh, no, back then, like now. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, so right now, you know, when I'm talking about system is I'm talking about

how can I have a property that I can put into my spreadsheets with other properties, that I can have the same maintenance process that other properties go through, that I can have the same leases that other properties go through so that everything is easy as I'm training someone to handle leases or someone to handle repairs. It's all under the same system under the same style. If I'm trying to sell it, you know, it's all the same thing, which that's what I'm trying to to do right now because I found that when I'm having a lot of different things like that bed and breakfast, the issue is I had to hire someone entirely different to oversee cleaning, to oversee booking. So I couldn't put it under a system. It was its own thing. So it felt like I was just

juggling different jobs. So that's what I'm talking about. Right now I really have two different systems, one for flips and one for rentals. And I try to have them under that. And if they're going to be way outside of that, then a lot of times, typically it's just not worth it for me. Okay. And so you're still doing flips right now, right? I have slowed down. Flips have, you know, I don't know if that's just in my area. I think it's more of a national thing, but flips are kind of cleaning out and people are starting to looking to building now. So I'm getting a lot less flips coming in the market. So I'm doing a lot less of that. I probably do one flip a year. If one comes out and it's just

a really good deal. I jump on it, but it's becoming a rarity. And, you know, I would say when I started real estate, flips were a lot more appealing to me because I was just looking at the money. I'm like, oh my gosh, I can buy this and sell this. And in three months, I or four months, I can make $30,000. This is so much better than making $700 check and rental. But looking back at it, and now that I'm a little bit more sophisticated and educated, I would say, yeah, flips is a quick money, but the risk is higher. And also, it's not sustainable. So that people, I know that just did flips and they were not interested in returns, everyone I know that just did flips and did not do anything with returns, did not think passive income are out of it now. They're completely out. Because out of the business.

Out of the business. Yeah, because if you're going to just do flips, you're not interested in passive income, then you have to be willing to move from one place to another every five years or so. Because I really think every, and I read that somewhere that every five years or so, typically the area will just be oversaturated with investors. You won't have as many flips. and you have to be willing to move around, and that's not what I was going for. Yeah, right on. That's really good advice. I mean, like, yeah, flipping is great. I enjoy doing it.

It's great to have that profit. But if that is all you rely on, and it can be difficult, you know, that's why, you know, the best flippers that I know are getting into rentals, they're getting into other businesses, they're doing other things that multiple streams of income,

knowing that flips will eventually dry up. They're great at sometimes and they're not great at other times. And so just a lesson for all the flippers listening today. It's a cool. Diversify. Yeah, diversify a little bit. I think it's good. Absolutely. Now, how do you manage your property? Do you have a property manager or do you do it all yourself?

managing a property. So, you know, right now I am training someone because I have enough properties where I want to be able to just focus on growth. And I realized the past year or so, I have slowed down dramatically on focusing on growth because I have 17 properties that are keeping me busy. I've heard this before and I think it was a really good advice. I was told that the worst thing you can have is on five to 15 properties. And I was like, why is that, you know, or five to 20 properties. Because, and what I was told is if you have less than five properties, it can be a hobby.

You can have a full-time job, make income, and it can be something on the side. If you have more than 20 properties, I mean, if you have less than 20 properties, then you're stuck in the middle where if you have a job, you still feel so busy and you're running around, fixing stuff and taking care of things. If you don't have a job, it's not enough to make an income. So I'm trying to get out of that middle ground of, you know, where I can have enough properties where I can completely have full-time management. So right now I just really finish training someone and she will be handling, you know, leases.

She's handling repairs, all of that. So I can just focus on growth right now. That's great. And I think that is an important point you made there about there's that middle ground that's awkward. And I've experienced that for a number of years now where you're not big enough to take on a full-time employee necessarily, but you're not so small that it's easy to manage. And so it's a very awkward time. And so I think- You've been awkward for like-

I have an awkward. I know. Yeah, I've been very awkward. No, so this is a, like, I mean, it's a thing. You have to almost like invest in yourself and say, look, I'm going to go bigger or I have to go smaller. I don't have a choice. And so I'm going to go ahead and take that risk of hiring somebody knowing that, you know,

even if it's part time to begin with. I mean, that's what I did. I hired a part time lady to answer phone calls and stuff like that. Like, I'm going to take that risk knowing that I have to do that in order to grow my business. Exactly. Exactly. I mean, it was hard for me because I'm just doing the math and I'm like, gosh, I can do all this?

Do I really want to pay someone that much money? But it just comes to a place where, okay, I don't have to hire someone, but I guaranteed I'm not going to have the capacity to keep buying. And I felt it because when a good opportunity would come out, even though they're harder to find now where I am, instead of getting really excited like I used to be, I would be kind of torn. I'm like, oh, I got to go check out this property, but oh, I don't want another property, you know? So that's when I knew, no, pay someone. Don't stop that. First world problems, Johnny. First world problems.

I know, right? Life is hard. But I would say, too, you know, I have seen a lot of people with money, opportunities to buy. When I was just a real estate agent and I was helping investors, I've seen people back out of buying properties because of the hassle. You know, it's those things. Like, do we want to hire someone?

Do we want to manage that? We like our nine to five coming home, not worry about it. But I would say the perks of being in real estate investments and the freedom it gives me is way better than the nine to five. You know, I recently just went to Egypt just last week. I was in Egypt. I was able to raise money over a online campaign and go to families that have been, you know, just hurt by ISIS and all that and hand them money and spend time with them and go for two weeks and do stuff like that.

And I was able to do that because of the real estate. The nine to five friends of mine that had opportunities like mine can't do that. You know, sure, you can come home at five o'clock and you can guarantee. that you're not going to have to worry about anything after work hours, but you don't have that freedom. So it's definitely worth it. Wow. That's awesome, man.

Yeah, yeah, that's great that you're using it for good. I mean, my God, there's some craziness happening out there, and it's good to know that you're helping out. Well, just to add on to that point, I mean, I've never really, I don't know, maybe verbalized or thought about it in this way, but the idea that a lot of people talk about financial freedom in a selfish sort of way, right? We talk about, I can't wait to quit my job so I can go line a beat. or so I can go and travel Europe for the rest of my life, or I can go and, you know, it's all like me, me, me, me, me.

But the other side of financial freedom is having the freedom to be able to help other people and to be able to, you know, make a difference in the world that you can't do when you have that 9 to 5 job. And I think that's awesome way to look at it. Well, and I have one of my really good buddies. He started flips the same time I did, and he just did flips. He was an interest in passive income. So sure enough, he's out of it now. But I'll tell you, he was obsessed with that idea of I want to be able to do flips and make 30, $40,000. at a time and go to Hawaii, go to the, and I'm not saying that those are bad. I went to Hawaii.

I like to be able to enjoy my time. But I'll tell you that I think one of the reason he actually burnt out, it's not just that he wasn't doing passive income, is because he was just looking at money as a way to have fun. But eventually, he had enough fun where I think he just felt like what he was doing. He wasn't passionate about it, and it didn't serve a purpose. So I would say, you know, that wears out pretty quick. If your focus is just making money to just have fun, fun with it. I think eventually you're going to, you're going to wake up one day and say, this is just my, I'm not doing something with a meaning to it. So those are my thoughts. I love that. That's great. Johnny, vacancies. I know you had, when we kind of did the pre-interview, you talked about

how you really wanted to kind of get into a little bit about how you minimize vacancies. Was that kind of the, where you go and you're putting in the stainless appliances and making just the best property, or was there something more to that? Yeah. Yeah. So I'm so, grateful because my vacancies just have been really low. I mean, I really think so honestly, guys in the past, you know, five years of owning student housing, which is, you know, how many rooms is that? That's 30 rooms that I'm renting for students. I've had one room, vacant, one month out of all 30 for three years. Yeah. And then, and then for the homes, I've never had a vacancy for more than two weeks. And I would say a few things that really helped me.

like you said, putting extra stuff that is not going to be way expensive, but it's going to give it an edge. Stainless steel appliances, hardwood floors. I've had a couple of properties without hardwood floors, carpet, but I spend that extra money. And again, it's just, it sells. And when I'm showing properties, I tell people we're putting hardwood floors because you don't have to worry about your deposit. And it gives people peace of mind. So one thing is putting the extra stuff or making it nicer than average in the neighborhood. Another thing I do, and I do it ethically, but I create urgency. When I'm showing people houses, I get a lot of times, and I learned that the hard way in the beginning, where people would really like it and say, okay, it's $100 more expensive than the rest,

but it is much nicer, but let us think about it. And I say, okay, just call me back. And then two days later, they just go and negotiate or find something else, and they call me back, and I just waste it time. So I always put in urgency. I tell people when I'm showing them that I typically have no vacancies. If I have, I try to put my showings in the same day back to back just to save myself from driving, but I say I'm always, I always blame it on the system, not on me. So I'm the good guy. It's just the system. So I say, I really like you guys. I'd love for you to have it, to have you. But I do have three other people that I'm showing it afterwards. So I'd hate for you to lose it. So please let me know. And hey, if you guys decide to do it, you will save me time from

showing it to more people. So I'm the nice guy, but I'm blaming it on the system. So people feel like the sense of urgency, but I'm not a jerk about it. Because you, you don't want to be that guy that's like, well, why don't you sign now? Like that is just a turn off on your start. So I put a sense of urgency. I make it nicer than average for not much more than average. Another thing is marketing. I don't spend much money on marketing.

It's just, you know, I mostly just take really good pictures. I invested in nice camera because we all know if you go to Craigslist or if you're looking for places for rentals, a lot of landlords that do not know anything about photography, they go with a crappy camera, you know, and they take pictures. of a wall and they say bedroom number two and that's it but i go in i have a nicer camera with you know with a zoom that can capture even a small room so i take pictures that look nicer and fresher so nicer marketing better properties in the inside a sense of urgency and then the last thing i would say is quicker at responding sending documentation and making it easier for the renter to move

forward without, you know, having it too complicated. Like one of the things that are really complicated, and I've heard that from renters, there's a lot of renters you need to call their landlord. And when you call their landlord, the landlord says, hey, I can't tell you anything until you send me something with their signature. And that's totally legal and you're supposed to do that. And I do that. But what I do is I already have that form ready. So when they're looking at the property, I have them sign it. That way, we don't have to waste an extra two or three days of them getting it in an email, finding a printer, printing it out, signing it, sending it, back. So just thinking, how can I get the process fast and easy for them so that they are just

encouraged to move forward? They're not feeling clueless and overwhelmed. Awesome. Yeah. Yeah, that's great. That's great. And, you know, I mean, at the end of the day, you know, not only are you serving your tenants, but by serving them, you're keeping them. So that's a beautiful thing. Absolutely. One thing I do too, and this is just something that I started doing two years ago, and it worked out great, is, you know, for Christmas, I just don't tell that to my tenants, but I buy $5 mugs that are just nice, you know, five bucks. I wrap them up and I just drop them off at their houses, you know. Again, if you have 200 properties, you can't do that or maybe you have to, you probably

can afford someone to do that, but I drop off like just a little gift for Christmas, cost me five bucks, you know, $5,10. Once a year during, you know, in July or I do a barbecue and I send an invitation to all the tenants. But those little things make the tenants feel really loved and which I love to do, but also it makes them feel like they're part of family. So my rate of tenants staying and signing again is really high. I mean, I would say over 80% of my tenants renew their contracts for a second, third year or so. That's great. That's great. And I love that you talk about making your tenants feel like family.

We had, oh, I'm totally blanking out and I see his face in my brain right now. We did a show before somebody else does the same thing. He'll do the barbecues. He'll kind of get all the neighbors together and do things like that. And, you know, it's really helped him out. Gosh, I wish I could think of who it was. But yeah, I love it. I mean, it's just the little things that you do that make you stand out that kind of minimize your churn and keep everything great. And, you know, it's all about being creative. And you've kind of always done that. It sounds like this whole thinking out of the box thing that you keep talking about. So that's awesome. Well, before we move on, I want to get one last question. And we've talked about this great business that you've built and you're doing great things.

Surely it hasn't all been easy. Surely it hasn't all been positive. Do you have any tenant horror stories, any landlord horror stories? Tenant horror stories, good question. The biggest challenge I've had is with the room rentals for students because I was able to do that and rent per room, get a higher return. The biggest problem I had is I had some drama before with tenants, you know, you know, getting in, I mean, you have students living together, and a lot of them just didn't know each other before moving in. So you have fights and, you know, and threats and all that.

But honestly, nothing was really out of control. I mean, it was pretty easy. And, you know, with room rentals, what I did is I have them sign an extra document of how they're going to behave, house rules, loud music or loud TV at night, you know, so it was easy to put them in place. I've never really had anything worse than that. So now that I think about it, it's not too bad. Right on. Right on. All right. one last question, then we're going to move to the fire round. Do you have any tips for new investors who are thinking about getting into the business? What would your best piece of advice to those guys be? Yeah, my best, that's actually a great question because I have had, again, a lot of people that

were almost buying, had the money or had the opportunity, and they backed out. And I have three reasons why. But I would say all of them have to do with wanting to have full control, looking at investments as a nine to five job. They want to know exactly what's the salary, how many days they're going to have off of the year. And that's when I say you have to give a little bit of control. Yes, with risk, you have to have educated risk. I'm not encouraging anyone to do things that are risky

without studying and planning for them and having educated risk. But at the same time, my biggest advice is give up control. If you're getting into this business, you have to be willing to learn and be flexible and not be in control of everything all the time. Right on. I like that. That's great.

I think that's huge just in any business, right? Like just outsourcing and trusting that other people can help you do the work if you train them right and delegating. Yeah, I mean, just not always being the one that has to control every single aspect because you can't do it. Yeah. And when I say control again, like it's the person that want to go into this and they know that their friend got a 16% return,

so they are not going to buy anything until they get something 16% or higher, you know, and they find a great opportunity, and it's 13%. I really have a scenario like that, but they're not going to go into it because they want to be in control, they want to have the best thing. And then once they have it or once it's out there, they want to know exactly before even buying how much it will cost to paint or how much. So it's good to have all that planning, but you just have to be willing, hey, you're opening a business.

If the numbers make sense, if you've done your homework, you have to be willing to just give it up a little bit and learn as you go. Excellent. Yeah, cool. All right, well, let's move on to the world famous Fire Round. It's time for the Fire Round. All right, this Fire Round, questions that come directly

out of the Bigger Pocket's forums. So these are questions that real life, Bigger Pocket members are asking, and we're going to throw them at you. So number one, where do you? you store cash reserves? Like security deposits or just other cash reserves? You have them in a savings account, money market, stock, CDs. Where do you keep any cash reserves? Right now I just have them in a savings account. Under your pillow. Under my pillow. Yep. Okay. That's where I have mine too is a savings

account. Fair enough. Fair enough. All right. What kind of real estate strategies are realistic if you're gone all the time? So say you travel a lot, you're kind of working a road warrior so to speak. What do you think would be some of the best real estate strategies? I would say if you're gone all the time, start slow one at a time, one property at a time, and you will definitely need a property management

or at least someone you can really trust that is not traveling around with you. Cool. Cool. Number three, how do I find a good home inspector? So a few things. I mean, definitely Google, research them. Google, there are several

websites where you can go and get, you know, get feedback. I mean, mostly really, it's been Google for me, just Googling and seeing what other feedback we're getting. Another thing you can do is call trusted agents or maybe some of the best agents in your city and tell them who do you guys refer for inspections and find the credentials and definitely do not get an inspector that does not offer some sort of insurance. Interesting. Okay. Yeah. Why not? What's your take on that? Well, I've had inspectors, I like the inspector use has insurance so that if they damage anything while they're working or if they miss anything during inspection and there's a potential lawsuits or anything like that, they have been insurance for their errors. And I've actually seen, it wasn't with me, it was with another agent's friend where they hired an inspector and who's a really good inspector, he had insurance, but they missed on something really big with foundation. They didn't notice that the foundation was in a really bad shape, and they didn't put that in the report.

Well, a couple of years later, the buyer sued the inspection company, and they actually went after the agent, too. But the great thing is that inspector, because they had insurance, they were able to settle it outside of court and not have to go through a lot of trouble with the agent. So I would say insurance is huge. Right on. Cool. Great. Great. Great.

All right. All right. All right. Is it crazy to start real estate investing with a 14-unit property? I would say it's not crazy if you know what you're doing and if you have the right people around you. It's possible. I mean, it's scary.

If you would have told me that when I started, I wasn't ready for it. I would have, you know, put tons of expensive granite countertops and stuff and ran out of money real quick. So for a typical person, I would probably say it's crazy, but if you know what you're doing, If you just have the right people around you, you can make it happen. Right on.

Great answer. All right. Well, why don't we, before we get out of here, close us with our world famous. Famous for. All right. These questions are asked of every guest. And let's see what you have to say. Number one, what is your favorite real estate related book?

Favorite real estate related book is the e-myth. I don't know if you guys heard of it. It's one of my favorites. Okay, you did. Okay, good. You know, maybe it's not as much real estate because it talks about business in general, but I consider it my favorite real estate book because it just talks a lot about building systems, about how to be able to manage. So when I applied the book on properties and rentals, it helped me tremendously.

Cool. We actually had Michael Gerber, the author here on the podcast back three months ago, yeah. I missed that episode. I got to go check it out. Come on, Johnny. Really? I mean, you said you were a big fan of the show. I listened to 99% of the episode, so that was that one.

It was episode 125. So people can listen to that one at biggerpockets.com slash show 125. I'm doing that right after this. This is great. All right. Awesome, man. What about business book? What's your favorite business book?

Oh, man, I should have put that for favorite, right? Yeah, that's a shit. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So maybe I reversed it, but I would say rich dad, poor dad. And I know that's everyone's answers, but that book, I'm not a huge reader, you guys. You guys actually spoiled me because after bigger pockets, I'm like, I don't need to read anymore. I can go in and find the answer and find help and interaction real quick. So now it's like, why do I want to read 300 pages book?

But Rich Dad, Poor Dad was for me just a great business book because it really just helped me with basics. And I love that he's just politically incorrect and everything he says. So he just says it as it is and that really helped me. Cool. Me too. Like the hosts of What Show? Oh. Yeah.

We're not politically incorrect. We're just, you know, offensive is a different. Something like that. All right, man, hobbies, what do you do for fun? What do I do for fun? I love people. So I'm usually really involved in my community and, you know, I have a Bible study and all that.

So people is what I do for fun. That sounds weird. But also, I like traveling a lot. Speaking of incorrect. Yeah, yeah, right. I like traveling a lot. So I travel all the time. And again, I love my real estate because it gives me the opportunity to do that.

So travel people and I blog, I have a blog, Johnny U.com. And I blog about everything but real estate because that's kind of how I get out and do different things and take time off from real estate. Cool. And at least you don't do people for business. No, no. No. No, my last question of the day. Johnny, what do you believe sets apart the successful investors from those who give up, fail, or never get started to begin with?

I would say the things that would set you out of being successful versus not being successful is being able to take educated risk. And I would say the second thing is being teachable. You have to be willing to learn. I've seen stubborn people that just kept going, going, going until they had the ground because they, They weren't able to learn and adapt, whether to market changes or whether to mistakes they're doing. And thirdly, is surrounding yourself with the right people, whether it's the right inspectors, the right repairmen, the right assistance. So surrounding yourself with people, being able to learn from mistakes and being flexible and being able to assess risk well. Perfect. That's great. Yeah, I like that a lot.

All right, man, you mentioned your blog. Where can people find out more about you? Yeah, I'm on bigger pockets. I'm still growing there. I've actually had a meeting with someone I met on bigger pockets to talk business. So that was great. So I'm on bigger pockets, but I'm also, my blog is JohnnyU.com, G-O-H-N-N-Y-Y-O-U. And Instagram Periscope is the same username, Johnny Yu. I've started periscoping videos about just real stages to help people. So I'm on there too.

Cool. I'm going to follow you on Periscope. Perfect. That's awesome. Oh, boy. You better not mess up now. Hey, real quick. He's going to periscope, him periscoping you.

Well, for those people who have no idea. what Periscope is. What is Periscope is my new favorite thing. I think it's going to be huge. It's basically you can go live and your friends or your followers can go on anytime while you're live and they can watch you. They can comment while you're talking live and they can give you some hearts. So I love some hearts, Brandon, give me some hearts. I will give you some hearts, Johnny. All right. He likes to do people. He likes hearts. Oh boy. This is just going downhill very quickly. Well, all right, Johnny. Listen, man, it's been an absolute pleasure.

Really, really enjoyed the show. It's kind of cool hearing about your philosophies, I think, of everything else. Just kind of learning about how you think about things. Again, this whole thinking outside the box is great. And I think people should contemplate the idea if they haven't already. It's awesome. So thanks for being on the show and thanks for being a part of Bigger Pockets. Thank you so much.

It was a pleasure. Thank you, guys. Thank you. We'll see around. See ya. All right, guys, that was Johnny Yusuf. Thanks again for him for coming on the show. Sadly, Johnny is going to be crying as his Kansas City Royals have lost the World Series to the Mets at the time that this show has gone live.

Are you predicting that? If I'm wrong, you're going to look like an idiot. You know, I've looked like those things before, so it's all good. But definitely link up with Johnny. and thanks for listening to the show, Brandon. I mean, it was great. That was a great show. Yeah, I mean, I like guys who think outside the box.

I like guys that are creative thinkers, and they don't just accept yes or no. And Johnny's definitely that guy, thinks outside the box, figures out how to put together a deal. When everyone else turns down something, he's going to figure out how to make it work. And I love that.

And his energy is just captivating. You just want to, you know, you want to listen to him. And his whole philosophy about, you know, like financial freedom to be able to help other people. I think that's just inspiring. So I love it. Yes, yes.

Yes, indeed. So big thanks to Johnny. All right, guys, well, thank you for listening. Show 147 BiggerPockets podcast is, we're done. We did it. We survived yet another one. We done it. Nice. Nice. Okay, whatever that means. We done it. Yeah. Well, thanks for listening. And we will see you next week. If you haven't already, make sure to jump on biggerpockets.com, create an account. Start networking with other investors like Johnny. Get on the forums, ask questions, answer questions. Listen to the questions. Listen to the the podcast, share the podcast, get out there, use Bigger Pockets and the tools that we provided for you. And, you know, doing so will help you be more successful. I mean, there's nothing more to say than it's a fact. If you do it, if you use it, if you're on it, you're going to be

more successful. So lots of luck. And let's get out of here. I'm out. This is Josh Dorkin. Sign it off. You're listening to Bigger Pockets Radio. Simplifying real estate for investors large and small. If you're here looking to learn about real estate investing, without all the height, you're in the right place. Be sure to join the millions of others who have benefited from BiggerPockets.com. Your home for Real Estate Investing online. Hold on. What? Brandon, your mic's not on. Oh, oh, oh, oh, thank you all for listening to the Bigger Pockets Real Estate podcast. Make sure you get all our new episodes by subscribing on YouTube, Apple, Spotify, or any other podcast platform. Our new episodes come out Monday, Wednesday, and Friday.

I'm the host and executive producer of the show, Dave Meyer. The show is produced by Ian K, copywriting is by Calico content, and editing is by Exodus Media. If you'd like to learn more about real estate investing or to sign up for our free newsletter, please visit www.biggerpockets.com. The content of this podcast is for informational purposes only. All host and participant opinions are their own. Investment in any asset, real estate included, involves risk. So use your best judgment and consult with qualified advisors before investing.

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