I spent 24hrs with a blue collar millionaire

0:00Sam Parr:Hey, everyone. This is a very special episode. It's meant for YouTube. So I know you're listening to this right now on Spotify or Apple Podcasts or whatever. But go to YouTube right now and watch it. This episode is where I go with a guy named Mark who I found on Instagram and he restores brownstones. And I asked him everything about his financials, how the business works. But it was a very visual thing. So we decided to make it a video. So again, go to YouTube or you could just listen to it right now. You're probably at the gym or on your way to work. But I hope you guys enjoyed this episode.

0:29Sam Parr:Let us know in the comments if you want more of this type of stuff. And I hope you like it.

0:42Sam Parr:This place, how much did you spend on it again? 2.8 to buy it. 2 million to build it. That's 4.8 in. And you're going to sell it for, what did you say, 6.5? 6.2. I saw this guy on Instagram the other day. He says Mark O 'Brien. He buys and restores and sells brownstone homes in New York City. I thought it sounded awesome and I thought I don't want to make my living using screens all the time I want to figure out how his life is how his business is the economics behind it So I call them up. I'm gonna spend the day with them We're gonna figure out all the numbers and if this is actually something cool to do Is this business actually any good?

1:11Sam Parr:Is this lifestyle any good? Do I want to trade places with them and at the end of this video? I'm gonna give him a Sam score We're gonna look at the economics of his business does it make a lot of money and then we're gonna have a lifestyle category where we ask Ourselves is this actually something that you feel pride in is it a good lifestyle? So let's get through it

1:33Sam Parr:Oh, I messed up. I can't even figure out how to use Apple Maps to get to where he lives, let alone build a freaking brownstone. Alright, so let's go this way. Okay, so he DM'd us where to meet him. It's 1145, we're a few minutes away, we're gonna walk a couple blocks. This guy, he looks like the Dos Equis man, like the most interesting man alive. He's got these kind of like movie star good looks and I don't know too much about him other than he looks awesome He has a cool job. And so where we're meeting is at his apartment And then we're going to go to a townhome that he's currently restoring as well as a commercial Property that he's restoring.

2:15Sam Parr:I'm excited. I'm a little nervous I don't want to look stupid because I know nothing about like construction. I'm wearing red-winged boots But the reality is I'm cosplaying. I'm a yuppie guy who's trying to dress like a blue-collar guy So like hopefully he doesn't call me out on that, but it's the truth Mark O 'Brien, what's up, dude? Sam, what's up, my man? Hey, man. All right. Nice nice to finally meet you. Yes We're gonna start with this place. So where are we now? This is your house? 94 Bank Street. It's it's a project and But I'm living in it. So look, I usually buy things that have rats in the cellar and holes in the roof and water damage everywhere, mold and problems.

2:56But this one, when I walked into it, I was like, this is cute. It's 180 years old. It's 180? 180 years old. I mean, it's super old.

3:04Sam Parr:How much did you pay for this place? Five, five. How much money are you going to have to invest in it? At this stage, closer to six. How much can you sell it for? 17. Can we see it? Yeah, let's go in. Hey really quick guys if you're interested in this and if you're interested in that blue-collar lifestyle which frankly I am that's why I'm making this video and you want to start a business in this space we have put together this thing called a blue-collar business database the database with hundreds of different business ideas where you could use your hands you could start immediately lots of different metrics about why the business is potentially interesting and so if you're interested in that click the link below totally free all right now back to the episode so when I walked in these shut these floors were shiny I just you know it just glisten I thought I love the floors.

3:43I came in here. I love the fireplace. And speaking, we talked a little bit about buying the old furniture. Like, I'm really not fancy. I love just stacking my, I love living in West Village, which is super fancy. But I bring my, the people are like, you bring all that firewood in? Like, where are you going to put it? Like, this is the beauty of living in a house that's banged up.

4:05Sam Parr:It's insane that a home that's going to sell for$17 million, you are, that's not how they're going to use it. That's right. So when do you think this will be done, this project? So it's been two and a half years that I've been waiting for permits. You know, it's landmark. Do you just sit and do nothing? No, it's a lot of work of architects, engineers, getting soil bearing tests. You know, they've got to break up the foundation down below in the cellar and I can show it to you. And then they want to see where's my neighbor's foundation, where's the footing, where's my footing compared to their footing.

4:37Sam Parr:But it's like just getting the permits and doing all this regulatory stuff it seems like that's like the thing that like when people talk about like products that they're gonna sell on the internet they think oh my products amazing i'm like yeah but like the reality is you have to be a good marketer 70 of the value is like are you good at like buying ads online with this it's like well i can build this amazing place i can make a profit on it i can do it cheaply but it's like yeah but can you spend the years like jumping through the hoops of like getting approvals and all this other stuff that you It's the cost to carry it.

5:08It's in time. Time will kill every deal and often it does.

5:12Sam Parr:Can we see the rest? Yeah. So, and actually, so this is funny because I'm using this as my bedroom because I moved in. I thought I'm going to be here for six months, maybe a year, and then it's going to be a demolition site. I'm going to restore all this. So there's going to be, you know, plastic up everywhere and workers running around. So I'm gonna just keep the footprint here and let's start working upstairs I don't know much about real estate, but it the limited amount of stuff that I've done It seems like everything costs way more and takes way more time. Yes. Yeah, it's it's it's just out of control And it's getting worse and worse.

5:46So this is my desk my office. Look at this fireplace here I mean isn't that is this your brand? Oh, that's my vodka brand Yeah, broken broken shed New Zealand vodka and make it from way 100 % New Zealand products water from New Zealand way from New Zealand, which is, you know.

6:03Sam Parr:This is a business that you own and started? Yeah, I spoke to a guy about this recently and he was like, well, how did you get into real estate? Like, what was that thing that made you get into real estate? And I said, desperation. Like, I was freaking out. I had two and a half kids, I was living in Greenwich, Connecticut in a house that I had no right. Was it a fancy house? No, that's what, no. It was like a thing that you were gonna fix. Yes, exactly. Well, it was something that I would have had somebody else fix. Right. Okay. Because I wasn't building houses. It seems like maybe you took a project that maybe was a little bit over your head and then you're like, well, I have to make it work.

6:38Sam Parr:Right. Got it. Exactly. And did that work? Yes. Yeah. And that's kind of always how I've lived. So you're like… And that was like how you got into real estate. Yes. It was… I was completely over leveraged. So I'm a big, big believer in leverage and use other people's money, the bank's money. It's a great way to go broke and get yourself in a lot of trouble. and I know people that have done that and hasn't worked out very well. Dude, that's how so many great things happen, particularly, I just turned 37, but I think about this all the time. If I lost it all, okay, I have young kids. I'm now a proper man.

7:11Sam Parr:I have people who rely on me and it's my job to take care of this group. It's the most emasculating feeling ever of like, shit, I have not taken care of the thing that I'm supposed to take care of. I feel behind and now it's my back against the wall and I have to, and it's like, well, that's the beginning of a great story. Hopefully it's going to be a great story, but that's like a very scary primal feeling. I have nightmares about that as like a dad. Did you, um, I think, should we also, do you want to walk out, step outside? And, um, now the sun's coming out. Hey, let's take a quick break. You know, that feeling when strategy is done, the brief is written, everyone's aligned and you realize someone still has to sit down and actually create all the content.

7:51Sam Parr:That someone is usually you and it's due tomorrow. Well, the Breeze Assistant from HubSpot can help. It works right inside HubSpot. You can draft campaign copy, blog posts, emails, all in your brand voice, all using your actual customer data. So you don't create just content. You create content that converts. Check out HubSpot.com, the agentic customer platform for growing businesses. How many, so you've been doing this, how old are you? How old are you? I don't know. Come on. 55? I'm 51. 51? I don't know man. See, this is why I hate playing this game. No I'm not, I'm 63.

8:30Sam Parr:I hate that game. So do I. I usually say go fuck yourself, I'm not playing. Your specialty I think is townhomes, right? Townhouses, brownstones, restoration. How many have you bought and sold? So this is my third big project of restoring brownstones. So 62 Green Avenue in Fort Greene, 428 Vanderbilt and 94 Bank Street. And then I've got other projects like in Crown Heights, one over here on Jane Street that I act as the owner's rep. So I don't own it, but I run the project. And then before that, you were just selling real estate. No, but I borrowed it at my house so I could buy another one. That's insane that you would get into this business without knowing anything about it.

9:11And at a big high level. I mean, you know, how much did you, how much did you, you took a loan out? what was your so all right so so the numbers on the first one and the numbers back then were basically you you buy for a million build for a million and sell for three million so you make a million bucks so this house was eight hundred thousand i i built it for about eight hundred thousand and i made a lot of mistakes i mean crazy so you're in for one sick yeah and i sold it for

9:36Sam Parr:like uh two two three or something over how much time uh like less than a year so that's like a double right? Is that a double or is that a home run right? I mean it could have been but the next one I made a million bucks. I was like that's a home run. I was like I like this. Okay so you're like I'm good. I'm good at this now. So I started doing more. I did four. I would get like four going at a time. I'd buy a piece of property. I would go I'd run with my kids in a stroller three of them and I'd see an old lady. I'd be like I love your house. I got these all these kids. Look at these kids. I'm always I'm looking for something a little bit bigger.

10:11I live over on Rocky Point right now, look at something bigger, and this woman, Pat's like, oh, yeah, hi, kids. You know, yeah, well, give me your number, and I gave her a number, and I would do that. I'd put it in mailboxes. I just, it was a numbers game.

10:22Sam Parr:So it's kind of like boom and bust a little bit. Yes, very much, and it's funny. Does that stress you out? Yeah, but I've gotten good at it, I think. You know, I do a lot of yoga. I thought it was going to be like hammer shit all day, and it's like fun. No. You want to go see the Vanderbilt? Yeah, let's hit it.

10:48Sam Parr:This is huge. How big is this one? Yeah, so this I bought like two-ish years ago. So this has taken me way too long. What's the total square footage? So now it's like$4 ,500. Okay, so you paid$2 ,800. How much are you going to put in? I'm putting in$1.8. That's turning into more like$2 million. And what can you get for it? 6 '2". Pretty slim. So check this out. This is super cool. I just discovered it like maybe three months ago. It had plastic vinyl floor over it and I just assumed it was rotten. And I was going to sweep it out or something and I pulled out a piece of the plastic and it came up.

11:37And I was like, I wonder what's under there. This is like 100 years old, right? Yeah, this is 140 years old. And so I took my grinder out and started grinding, and man, I'm finding, I find this. So look, some people say, yeah, it's kind of banged up. You should really just put something over the top of it. Nice and sax tile. I'm like, I don't care. So this is all an extension here. So this, two things that I do. I like to go onto the roof. I like to finish, or three things. The roof, the cellar, and I widen the staircase. So you can kind of tell that there's more of a gap because brownstones are notorious for being a little dark in the middle because there's no windows in the middle, typically.

12:20So I widen the staircase and I put a lot of light and a bulkhead on the top so you get light down the middle. And then this is all, you know, original, original.

12:30Sam Parr:Those bricks, are those original? Yeah. So these bricks are 140 years old? Yeah. That's pretty awesome. So that's another thing. I expose the brick. So this has sheet rock on it when I buy it. So I rip the sheet rock down. Well, not sheet rock, plaster. But usually the plaster starts cracking and it decays against the brick. So 140 years ago was 1880, right? Yeah. Or 1890? Yeah. So someone made that in 1890. That's pretty crazy. Yeah, wait till you see the cellar. The cellar is literally rock, horsehair, and mud. Let's see it. is the way they made these foundations. Anyway, so this is a typical rubble wall, right?

13:07So you've got rocks, rocks, and then - I grew up in a basement like this and it smelled exactly like this. Yeah, it's funny, I love it. So I wanted to keep all that exposed, but I also think it's important to get as much usable space as you can. This will be finished. And this is basically free square footage because in terms of FAR, blur area, orisha, They don't count a base because it's below grade. So I try to make it. And right now, you're not seeing it at the best. I got to put baseboard on, finish the floor, and really spruce it up. So it feels like it's real space. It's not a...

13:45Sam Parr:So how much do you think this home will sell for? Six to... What type of person would buy this house? What kind of person? Like, what would the job be? Probably like, you know, I get a lot of creatives here in Brooklyn. Like actors? Fort Greene. No, more like people like these days in social media and doing some kind of media business. That's crazy. Maybe you'll be buying a$6 billion home in Brooklyn. So this is a rental, basically. So you come under the stair. Oh, wow. So there's your own entrance here. And this will be like a$5 ,000 rental or in-law suite. So you come in. You've got your fireplace, original.

14:24Big open living room, kitchen. washer, dryer, bathroom, bedroom.

14:33Sam Parr:Oh, and there we get the backyard. Bedroom, so two bedrooms, washer, dryer. I know it's in a weird place. And then a backyard. So when will this be done? How much longer? I'm hoping to have this, you know, photos taken like in two weeks. So this will get, I'll put like - What does photos mean? Like pictures and start marketing it. But it's not gonna be done in two weeks. No, but I can start selling it and start promoting it. So when do you hope for this to be sold? End of the summer. Wow, okay. And move-in would be when? Like September. Oh, all right, cool. So you're nearing the end of the two-and-a-half-year project.

15:11Yeah. So this will get pavers.

15:15Sam Parr:Do these guys work for you, or are they? They're subcontractors. So everybody these days is a subcontractor. Nobody's, you know, I'm not hiring a whole crew of people. But you're going to come out of pocket with it. Yeah. dude there's so much risk yeah all right i work on i work on a computer all day this is my work or this is weird but talking to a mic we get it i want to do like you want to bust something let's see if we got something upstairs all right let's see okay so you probably have heard this on the podcast but if you're running a company i think that the number one attribute that will determine if you are going to succeed in business is how fast you can learn from others, specifically how fast you can learn from other entrepreneurs.

16:01Sam Parr:But there's a problem with that. I have this problem, and in fact, you probably have it too. That's one of the reasons why you listen to My First Million in the first place. The problem is that finding other successful entrepreneurs to learn from, it's a pain in the butt. And so that's why a few years ago, I started a company called Hampton. You can check it out at joinhampton.com. We have thousands of members, and they exist for this exact reason. So here's how it works. If you're a founder that does at least$3 million in revenue, and you make it through our incredibly thorough vetting process, we then match you and put you in a group with nine other entrepreneurs.

16:33Sam Parr:You meet in real life, in your city, once a month, and it becomes your peer group that will frankly change your entire life. It's changed mine. I'm in a group as well. And so if you're a founder that does at least$3 million a year in revenue, check out joinhampton.com. Again, the URL is joinhampton.com.

16:53What do you think? You want to? Yes, I'll do that. Let's get you dirty, right? My man, can I just get him to cut it? Or you want to break it? Can he cut? Just one minute. Just one minute. He's not a spaz. Are you all right with this?

17:11Sam Parr:Let's do it. But you got to be careful when you hit that. Really hold it tight. Can we cut that? All the way through? All the way through, right? All the way?

17:29Sam Parr:Oh my god, this is so dangerous.

17:45Good. Good.

17:48Sam Parr:So, what was he saying about the story about getting sued for being too dangerous? Yeah, I mean if OSHA showed that... HA! Thank you sir. I'm sorry to mess up your workstation, but let's see.