He Turned One Real Estate Deal Into 13 in Just 6 Years

17:31Tony J. Robinson:Just kind of strategically, Jake, like what made you want to get into flipping as opposed to just doing more of the long-term burrs? Because you had the strategy that worked well for you. Why not just continue to replicate that? Like why add flips into the mix at all? Yeah, and that's a good question that, honestly, over the years I've gone back and forth. Like, should I buy some more rentals? Should I dip into short-term rentals? Should I diversify? You know, but when we started, it was to build capital. We didn't have much. I already mentioned I was a climbing coach and my wife was a teacher.

18:04So our funds were limited and we just wanted to build capital. But then we really enjoyed providing a great home for people. We've gotten better and better at it. So we just want to keep doing it.

18:18Ashley Kehr:Now, how were you guys financing these flips and specifically the first one? Sure. Sure. Yeah. The first one, and we still use this, but the first one was purchased using a HELOC on my dad's primary residence, the house I grew up in. So that was kind of terrifying because it's not just money on the line, but his house. So that's how we purchased it. And then I funded the rehab, which was somewhere between 15 and 20 grand.

18:42Tony J. Robinson:So you guys are using the HELOC from dad's primary and you funded the renovation costs. costs. Was that, Jake, just like money that you had saved up from, you know, working or how did you fund the rehab portion? Yeah. I mean, I guess you could even say it was from refinancing our residence. And we took the money out because, you know, it was a combination, right? It was money we saved, but also when we took our, when we refinanced and took our capital back out of our townhouse where we lived, that capital was now available to reuse. I just want to ask you a few rapid fire questions on the first float.

19:20Tony J. Robinson:What city are you located in, Jake? Sure. I'm in Bolingbroke, Illinois. It's the southwest suburbs of Chicago. And where was the first float? Yeah, yeah. So the first float was here in Bolingbroke, where I am. It was maybe a half mile from my house and three, four miles from my parents' house, where my dad was coming from. And how'd you find it, Jake? It was on the market. And since then, we've done kind of, we're on our 12th, we're buying our 13th right now. It's been a mix, probably 50-50 on market, off market. Interesting. Now, a lot of rookies listening say that, and a lot of investors online say that, you know, the MLS is where deals go to die and there's no good deals on the MLS.

20:01Tony J. Robinson:Did, like, was this, like, what made this one such a good deal? Had it been on the market for a long time? Was it just priced appropriately? Did you have to do anything special to get it? Or was it just like, hey, you opened up Zillow one day and you're like, hey, this one actually makes a ton of sense? Sure. I actually think, and I've helped a lot of investors as their agent buy properties off the MLS. I think there's a lot of opportunities on there. You really have to get clear with your buy box. Most of the time to buy a property on the MLS, you're buying it right away, at least in my market.

20:33You're going out to see it in the first few days it's on the market. And that was the case here. So we we went and saw it in the first day or two. It was on the market and we paid a little bit over asking price for it. We're a little crazy. I don't recommend this to any of my clients, but we do we do wave inspections and we pay cash, which makes our offer stronger. We let people leave whatever they want in the house. They can pick the closing date. So we try and make it as clean and desirable of an offer as possible. It doesn't always work, but sometimes the seller's needs match ours and it works out.

21:11Tony J. Robinson:I just want to make sure I'm tracking. You said you let the sellers pick the closing date. I've actually never leveraged that before. It's like, hey, is it typically faster timeframes or do you actually get people who want longer closings as well? It depends. Everybody's situation is different, right? So I've had people that want 90 days to get out and I've had people that want it tomorrow. And it's like, well, I need at least 10 days. Slow down. But yeah. I've never used that tactic before of like just letting the seller pick the closing date. Have you, Ash? Like I've usually offered like faster closings, but I've never just offered like, hey, you pick the date.

21:43Tony J. Robinson:Have you done that before, Ashley?

21:44Ashley Kehr:I feel like it never happens anyways, even when you do put a date on the contract in New York State. So like it doesn't seem to matter. Like basically, especially if you're using financing, whether it's me or somebody buying a property from me, it really just depends on the loan commitment and when the attorneys can actually get together to close. And especially if you're doing a loan, then you got three attorneys involved. um so yeah i would say like i don't even know what dates are put on any of my contracts because it doesn't usually matter anyways and it's never like stuck in stone yeah that makes sense very very new york specific maybe uh i mean maybe i'll try it in case somebody believes that it actually

22:36Tony J. Robinson:matters all right so we we got we got some creative offers going out and what you said you went over ask what was the ask price and what did you what did you actually close at It was actually really similar to our burr that we bought. It was in the 130s and we bought maybe four grand over asking price, something like that. I was going to say just not a ton, but enough to make it different from any other offer they might have got that day. And was it the HELOC that you guys used to also like fund the whole purchase? Yeah, the HELOC paid cash for the property. Got it. Got it. Okay. And then in terms of the actual renovation, I'm assuming that you guys did all the work again yourselves on this one as well, or how did the actual renovation go?

23:16Yeah, we did hire an electrician to do some work on this one and hired a contractor to replace some glass and some windows, which went terribly wrong. But no, we did. This renovation was crazy. we worked seven days a week about 14 15 hours a day I mean as you can imagine you probably remember your first deal it was really stressful we were terrified we nobody knew what was going on in the market this was 2020 so we were you know just trying to get it done and back on the market so it took us about five weeks to do the renovation just non-stop work I remember too much caffeine and stress, my eye was quite literally twitching for weeks.

23:57Tony J. Robinson:Yeah. And were you guys able to get the renovation done on budget or like this being your first flip? A lot of investors, they find themselves going over budget. This one, we've stayed relatively close to budget. Our next one, we blew our budget out of the water. Okay. So on the first one, walk us through the end state. Like after you guys finished renovation, what did you guys list for? What was the net profit at the end of the day? Sure. So on this first one, we listed at around 200. We ended up sitting on the market. We needed three buyers to close it. We had people lose financing, people back out for whatever reason.

24:37But we ended up sitting on the market waiting for closing longer than it took us to renovate it, which is never fun. But we ended up making a profit around 25 grand, which not bad. we were on top of the world. We just wanted our money back. We were excited. We got to learn so much. And before we even sold it, my dad was on top of me, who I had to drag kicking and screaming into the first one. He was on top of me saying, when are we doing another one? When are we doing another one? So we did actually put another one under contract and we were ready to close basically right after we finished the first one.

25:18Tony J. Robinson:It's fantastic. It's always great. The first one kind of gives you this proof of concept. But I think it also, you know, like I've shared the example before, like the first time that we ever sent out mailers trying to do like our own kind of direct to seller marketing, literally the very first phone call that we got back from these postcards we sent out, we ended up closing on that deal and we wholesaled it for I think like 30 grand. Like the very first time I picked up the phone. And I was like, this is easy. Like, Why isn't everyone sending out mailers and making$30 ,000 on every postcard they send?

25:53Tony J. Robinson:And then we didn't hear anything for six months from anyone else. We didn't get another deal for six months. So sometimes that first deal, I think, when it goes smoothly, it's great that you get the proof of concept. But it can also, I think, maybe give you the sense of it's maybe easier than it actually is. And it sounds like, Jake, your second deal is going to be that reality check for you. So maybe walk us through what some of those differences were between the first deal and the second deal. Sure. Yeah, it was definitely a reality check. That's for sure. So the second property we bought was also here in Pullingbrook.

26:22It was a single family home. Yeah, not too much higher of a price point. We bought it in the 150s, but it needed more work. So this one, we, yeah, kitchens, bathrooms, fully updated, flooring, all that fun stuff. But as we started to open it up, we realized very quickly we were in over our heads and we needed, you know, professionals to come in and do this work. For example, we pulled up a shower base and we saw their drain was flexible garden hose is what they had under the shower base. And it was inside of, actually, when they installed this shower base, they put it inside of a vent. So they destroyed the duct in the ground.

27:04Tony J. Robinson:Sorry, Jake. I just want to make sure I'm understanding. They had like an actual garden hose? Like a black drainage hose. Yeah, that you'd have outside. Yeah.

27:14Ashley Kehr:And that's something that won't come up in the inspection. No, no, not that we did an inspection anyway, but no, nobody would have found it. You just never know. And it did drain. We were warned they don't use it often because it drains slow, but it did drain eventually. So anyway, on that property, once we opened it up and saw how many surprises were there and how it was kind of over our head, we couldn't handle this, you know, the plumbing, the electric, these kinds of renovations ourselves. The first thing we actually did is we decided, you know what, let's call the village out here. We want to make sure we're doing things the right way.

27:51We want the inspectors to come look at it, which I know a lot of investors, they don't like to get the municipality involved. But we just thought, you know, let's call them, make sure we do it right, make it so we can sleep better at night selling this to somebody else and everything's inspected and everything. And that's the way we've been ever since.

28:08Ashley Kehr:Yeah, I think that's the better path. Like when you're starting a project, we have done a couple like rural properties that have done where we don't necessarily need permits for a bunch of stuff because they are so rural. But it's like, you know, you get the code enforcement officer's cell phone is on the website. You just call. We still have him come to the property and just say, this is what we want to do. What do we need a permit for? What do you want from us? Things like that. And most of the time it's like, well, unless you're doing this or that, like you're fine. Like you don't need anything.

28:43Ashley Kehr:And like it's very different in the rural areas. Like a roofer, I did a roof last year and he went to the village office to get the roof permit and he had it four hours later and started work on the roof. That does not happen a lot of places, but I agree. It's better to have code enforcement and to get your permits in place rather than get the red tag on your door. I know a lot of investors that take that red tag. That's like a pride thing. They finally got stopped. I never want to see it. I don't want one. Okay. So Jake, with this property and dealing with permits, was there anything that actually surprised you maybe during this permit process?

29:28Ashley Kehr:And how much more did this actually cost you to get these permits in place? Yeah. The permits themselves here, where we are, the permits aren't that expensive depending on the size of the job, like 500 to a thousand bucks for the permit. But what did surprise us was the cost of plumbers and electricians. You get that state license and you're very, very expensive now, which now we just budgeted. And from then on, we just budgeted it in and we know that. But our remodel, we doubled our budget. We went way over. It was a complete surprise, but we were fortunate. We bought that one in, that was in early 2021.

30:10So just as prices were going up, so we got lucky there that we just kind of got good market timing that it made up for our lapse of judgment estimating the rehab.

30:20Ashley Kehr:What did the numbers end up being then on this property once you sold? Okay. Yeah. The numbers on this one, we bought in the 150s and our renovation ended up being around 40 grand. And we sold for around or at 270. So we did profit around 50, 55. Not bad for going over budget. Yeah, it ended up being a home run. I know. Again, we got really lucky with market timing. We really did. And then it was a, we weren't planning on that ARV at all. It ended up being a record sale for the neighborhood, which we're grateful for.

30:58Tony J. Robinson:Jake, I guess I'm curious because you mentioned market timing a few times. And obviously the market has changed pretty dramatically since the days of the super low interest rates. how has your strategy changed since then? Like, is the market that you're in still moving strong? Have you seen days on market increase? Like, what changes are you making today to still flip profitably? Yeah, yeah, sure. Here in Chicagoland, it's actually still a seller's market, you know, today. So prices, I don't want to say we're not getting a ton of appreciation still, But it's not like we're losing value. So not too much has changed, to be honest.

31:41I'm I've always been conservative when it comes to my ARB. So I just keep it that way. I'd rather have a happy surprise than a bad surprise. Yeah, we're just keep on as we have been.

31:53Tony J. Robinson:Jake, one more question I have just to kind of give Ricky's context. Next, when you actually go through the city, the local municipality to pull permits, just generally walk us through what that process actually looks like. Like what type of work did you need to pull permits for? What type of work was fine without permits for the work that did need permits? How was that process? Did you have to submit plans? How quick were the inspections? Just kind of give rookies a sense of what it actually feels like to go through the kind official permitting process for renovations through the city? Sure. And every town is going to be a little different on how they do this, right?

32:31But in general, the way we like to do things is we like to do what's called a consult. So we want the inspectors to come out. We want to show them what our plans are. And then we want to know from them based on what we're doing, if there's anything extra they might require. Sometimes they want us to add insulation to the attic to bring it up to a certain r value or sometimes they they want if we're opening up so much drywall they want the electric replaced here or the plumbing replaced here uh so we just want to be up front with them and kind of walk them through everything we're doing and see what they have to say about it um and we kind of like that too because it allows us to bring the house up to closer to current code so when we go to sell it there's less that it's going to come up even if it's an area we weren't planning on touching, like I will say we never plan to put insulation in the property, but if they make us do it, now the buyer has new insulation and that's not something that's going to come up in their inspection.

33:26And I like to do that even in towns. We've worked in towns where they don't typically do consults, but I still like, I got them on the phone and I talked them into coming because I just would prefer a face-to-face meeting with the inspector so I can actually get a relationship going, build some rapport, or show them we're trying to do things the right way kind of thing. The time frame depends on how fast you can get them the paperwork they need. Typically, they want to know who your contractors are, whether that's plumbers, electricians, roofers, general contractors. They want their information.

33:58They want them registered. They want them bonded. Plumbers, they typically want a letter of intent from. them. So once you can get them that information, here, they're pretty quick, two or three weeks after you get them all the needed information. They recently started requiring floor plans, which is funny, but no problem. I can do that. That's what they want. And then as far as the inspections go, once we get that permit and the work gets going, two, three days, you make a call and they come out to inspect and we can move on.

34:33Ashley Kehr:Now, are the contractors handling most of that for you? Because around here, pretty much like you're hiring the contractor, they take care of the permits or did you have to do a lot of that yourself? No, I still do it myself. I act as the GC. We still do a lot of work ourselves. We hire out kind of more and more on each property, but we hire out all the license traits every time. We have to pull a permit. We can't touch a water line, we can't touch an outlet once we pull a permit. So, you know, same with roofing, you know, we hire all that kind of stuff out. But yeah, I personally do pull all the permits, which is time consuming.

35:09But it also leaves it in my control. I find the biggest delay is typically getting my contractors to register with the village. That's usually the longest delay.

35:19Tony J. Robinson:All right, don't go anywhere because Jake is closing out with the reality of learning DIY wise skills, what to expect when hiring contractors, and why his busiest flipping year requires him to spend more time saying no to deals. We'll be back in just a few minutes. Do you ever notice how every passive investment somehow turns into a very active lifestyle? Active spreadsheets, active phone calls, active stress. Here's a better question. What if you could buy brand new construction homes, 10 % below market value, in the best markets across the country, without making real estate your second job?

35:50Tony J. Robinson:That's exactly what rent to retirement does. They're a full-service, turnkey investment company handling everything for you. In some cases, investors get 50 % to 75 % of their down payment back at closing, plus interest rates as low as 3.75%. They've partnered with BiggerPockets for over a decade, helping thousands invest smarter. If you want to do the same, visit biggerpockets.com slash retirement to learn more.

36:14Ashley Kehr:Nobody has a perfect plan when they start a business. I sure didn't. I just had an idea and a lot of nerves. And between t-ball games, weddings, and whatever chaos summer throws at you, there's genuinely never a good time to sit down and figure it all out. That's honestly the best thing about Shopify. You don't need a free weekend and a computer science degree to get something live. My go live day is still one of my favorite memories. I picked a template, dropped in some photos, and Shopify's AI tools basically built the bones of my site for me. It looked like something I actually paid a designer for.

36:46Ashley Kehr:And when a customer is ready to buy, Shopify checkout keeps it simple. Their info is saved. They checked out in one click and you get to hear that little cha-ching before you've even finished your coffee. If you're on the fence, here's my advice. Stop waiting for the perfect moment. It doesn't exist. So just start. All you need is the idea. Shopify handles the rest. If you're serious about hearing your first cha-ching, start your free trial at shopify.com slash rookie today. You heard that right. Start your free trial today at Shopify.com slash rookie. That's Shopify.com slash rookie.

37:23Tony J. Robinson:I think a lot of us grow up believing that if the bills are paid, we're doing okay. And honestly, that was my mindset for years. But as I got older, started investing, and had more financial goals, I realized I didn't just want to know my account balance. I wanted a clear picture of where my money was actually going. That's what I love about Monarch. It brings all of my accounts, investments, saving goals, and spending into one place, so I always know exactly where I stand. One thing that really surprised me was seeing how quickly little expenses were adding up each month. Having that visibility made it much easier to stay on track with my goals.

37:58Tony J. Robinson:My favorite features are the AI Insights and AI Weekly Recap. AI Insights helped me spot things I wouldn't normally look for, like, is my spending really going up, or is it just inflation? The AI Weekly Recap points out spending spikes and upcoming expenses before they become a problem. So it feels like having a financial advisor right in my pocket. Write your own money story with Monarch. Use code ROOKIE at Monarch.com to get your first year of Monarch core half off at just$50. That's 50 % off of your first year at Monarch.com with code ROOKIE. I have friends who own rental properties. They're not real estate moguls.

38:36Tony J. Robinson:They're regular people who found a smarter way in. Every month, the rent comes in, covers their mortgage, and they keep adding more. And I found out how they got started. Truehold Financial. Smart investors know the biggest obstacle to rental properties is qualifying. Traditional lenders, they put your personal income and debt-to-income ratio under a microscope. But Truehold Financial is different. They can qualify you, get this, based on the rental income the property is expected to generate. And unlike online lenders that simply tell you yes or no, Truehold Financial takes a concierge-style approach.

39:13Tony J. Robinson:So the question stops being, do I earn enough? And becomes, what's the smartest way to grow my portfolio? Truehold Financial doesn't just help open the rental property door. They help you decide which door to walk through. Call 1-888-521-4787 or visit trueholdfinancial.com to get started. True Hold Financial, NMLS number 274-0541. Equal housing lender, subject to approval. Details at truehold.com. A few weeks ago, I took a trip down to Pensacola, Florida with my dad and my kids. We spent our days at the beach and the pool. We cooked dinner together one night. And I got to experience the simple joy of just watching my dad suck up time with his grandkids.

39:54Tony J. Robinson:We played a round of mini golf that ended up being the best part of the whole trip. And it was one of those visits where you just slow down with the people you love and realize how much these ordinary days together actually mean. But while I was gone, my house was just sitting there empty. That got me thinking about something I hadn't really considered before. What if I could actually put that space to use while I'm away? That's what got my attention about Airbnb's co-host network. If you've ever thought about listing your space on Airbnb but felt overwhelmed, a co-host can help. they're experienced locals who can create your listing, manage your reservations, message guests, handle on-site support, and even take care of design and styling.

40:31Tony J. Robinson:It makes the whole thing feel realistic and not like a full-time job. Instead of your home sitting empty, you could be earning a little extra cash to put towards your next trip or whatever else you're saving for. Find a co-host at airbnb.com slash host.

40:47Ashley Kehr:Okay, Jake, before we wrap up here, there's something I've been dying to talk about. And this happened during your open house that you had at one of your flips. Tell us this story and kind of what this experience meant for you. Oh, yeah. This was what a disaster. I am an agent. I sell my own properties, but I don't like to sit my own open houses. So I had a colleague sitting in an open house for me. I was 45 minutes away. I was in the city and it was raining like crazy. It would rain eight days prior and it was just downpouring this this whole day. I'm stranded. The roads are flooded where I am.

41:30And I get a call from this agent that's open house and hey, there's water coming in your house. Just so you know, and this is there's no basement. There's nothing below grade. This is a house that is, you know, slab on grade. There's no reason we should have been getting water in it. So, of course, I'm like, you got to cancel it. And I call my dad who's around the corner because he lives right there. And he's going to go pump it out and try and dry everything out. So that was this whole property. This was the same one we doubled our budget on. So we learned a ton on this. And one of it was how to deal with stress because this was just absolutely terrifying for us.

42:11Now we have all our money wrapped up into this thing and it's getting water. What are we going to do next? But I learned a few things. One is that problems come with the territory. You can't avoid them. You just have to get better at solving them. So that's that's the first thing I learned. The second is that talk about your issues, because I was we had this issue and I was talking to one of the village inspectors about it. And he said, you know, why don't you call the village engineer? The village has a program for homeowners that have issues with water coming into the property because it's kind of that that whole older side of town.

42:45there's quite a few homes with water issues. So I call the water, the village engineer, and he comes out just two hours later to look at the property and we make a plan. And all of a sudden the village is going to help out me and the neighbor. And they agreed to dig a swale in between the two houses to help prevent the water from, you know, entering the houses again, help route it around the houses. And it really, it saved our deal. The buyer was comfortable knowing the village was committed to doing this. And we were able to sell the property and move on. And from then on, I was always open to talking to people about our problems and looking for solutions on how to solve them.

43:27Tony J. Robinson:Jake, I love that what probably would have terrified you on before becomes like a solution that's now solvable, right? And it's like, if something like this were to happen, at least now we have a plan of how to move forward. And I think that's why the battle scars in real estate investing are so useful because every deal that goes wrong or every moment that doesn't go according to plan, we learn from it, we recover, and it makes us a better investor moving forward. So I appreciate you sharing that story with us. One last question on my side, Jake, is just on the contracting side. You mentioned earlier that like electrical, plumbing, roofing, like you have to hire contractors in order to get those permits pulled.

44:10Tony J. Robinson:But how does a rookie go about actually finding trustworthy contractors? Like as I'm talking and having these conversations, but first, how do I find them? And then once I find them, how do I have the right conversation to vet a good one versus a bad one? That is probably one of the toughest questions. And this is something we go through. We're on our 12th property now. And being an agent, I refer a lot of contractors to my clients, too, because they need work on their homes. I have found great relationships with contractors, but they didn't come easy. It took going through some bad ones to get to some good ones.

44:50And the biggest thing I'll say is you want to look, you want to ask people, you know, for good experiences they've had. So if you call your neighbors up and say, hey, I saw you had a plumber at your house. How did that go? Did they do a good job? Would you call them again? That's a big one. Would you call them again? That's huge. I don't want to work with anybody if you wouldn't call them again. So that's a big one is word of mouth. Actually, some of our contractors, they have no online presence at all. They're purely word of mouth. My HVAC guy, I have a hard time finding his number. If I can't find it in my phone for whatever reason, I can't find it online.

45:30I have to call somebody else to get it. But he is, I call him and it's taken care of. I don't have to worry about it. So those are the best contractors. Another way we found a few contractors is just at, you've heard this before, but at hardware stores. Our roofer, I saw him at Menards and he was just talking to my kitchen guy and the kitchen guy introduced us. And I've been working with him ever since. And he's again, I can call him and problems are taken care of. I don't have to worry about it, but it takes time and the relationships go both ways. We don't beat people down on price. Everybody has to get paid fairly and we understand that.

46:09It's a win-win situation for everybody.

46:11Ashley Kehr:Now, Jake, when you started investing in 2021, the market was very different compared to now. What are some of the things that you're going to do different going forward that is different from when you started real estate investing? Yeah. Again, our market here in Chicagoland isn't too different. Our appreciation has slowed down, but it's still a seller's market. Days on market are up a little bit. But I'm just underwriting a little bit more conservatively, but I've always been conservative. So my approach hasn't changed too much, except for since we're trying to hire a little bit more out and we've got, you know, wounds that tell us how much things cost and that surprises come with every property.

46:53We do plan a little bit more in the budget for surprises. But yeah, not too much has changed.

46:59Ashley Kehr:We recently had this. My dad's friend. And he offered help to install flooring in my new house and just said, yeah, you know, I'd love to do your dad a favor and I'll come over and help. And, you know, I just like I felt bad, you know, like he's an older guy. I'm like, I don't want him on his knees and stuff like having to put in this flooring with us. Like we can pay for someone. Man, did I get sticker shock when I saw how much it was. It was twelve thousand dollars to install the flooring. And I had somebody that was offering to help for free to actually come and install the flooring. And I turned it down.

47:35Ashley Kehr:And I'm like, oh, my God. But, yeah, I think I definitely agree, too, back to your point of contractors that they don't advertise because they're already too busy. They don't need an online presence. And then also my market is kind of similar to yours in the sense that it is still, you know, days on market for, you know, like starter homes or like good conditioned properties that aren't outrageously priced are selling really fast. They're going pending. Tony, what about your market right now? Maybe not specifically where you live because you're not investing there, but maybe in one of your short term rental markets?

48:19Tony J. Robinson:Yeah, I mean, it's a bit of a mixed bag depending on where we're at in the country, right? Like our market in California, like that one's on a resale side is probably still pretty slow, like very much a buyer's market. Our East Coast side is more so like a seller's market still, right? So I feel like it depends on what market we're in and how things are going. But I think that's always true, right? Like real estate is like very local and specific. where I live right now. I've mentioned, I think, on a previous episode that we're shopping for a new primary. And even now, even where we live, it's more of a buyer's market right now as well where we have leverage.

49:00Tony J. Robinson:The new primary that we purchased, I got a$30 ,000 reduction on the purchase price. I got another$32 ,000 in seller credits. So we're able to negotiate those things right now that's a lot harder in other parts of the country. And Jake, I saw your eyes bug out when I said that. I'm assuming that's not the case for you guys right now.

49:19Ashley Kehr:Well, also to the price point, the credits that you got, Jake and I could actually buy a house with a 30K discount and a 32 seller credit. My houses aren't that cheap. They're not that cheap. But yeah, no, man, that's really unheard of around here. Again, there's some properties that are sitting and it's easier to buy now than it was the last five years, but it's still a seller's market. And my clients, if they get five, 10 grand off, I'm ecstatic for them because it's hard to find anything. My agent was telling me the other day that she's seeing this with a lot of properties and it's actually starting to make her really mad as agents are listing them lower to attract more buyers, get people in the door, and then they're selling for $50 ,000 over asking because they were priced low.

50:08Ashley Kehr:And it's working, I guess, the houses are selling. It's an interesting strategy. It's a strategy that terrifies me because what if you get one? I have a buyer that benefited from that recently, actually, because they only got two offers and his had an escalation clause. So it kind of only went as high as that one offer wanted to go. And the agent told me, oh, we priced it low on purpose. I was like, I'm sorry. I don't know. You don't have to accept it if you have something else. Well, Jake, thank you so much for joining us on Real Estate Rookie. Where can people reach out to you and find out more information about your journey?

50:47Yeah, absolutely. Probably Instagram is the easiest. I share information on our flips and my brokerage here in Bolingbroke in the Southwest Suburbs. Instagram, Jake McVay, Bolingbrook Realtor is probably the easiest way to get ahold of me.

51:05Ashley Kehr:Well, thanks so much for taking the time to join us today and to share your journey. And next time you're going to have to bring your dad on since he's a partner in doing these flips. Thank you everyone for listening to this episode of Real Estate Rookie. If you're not already, make sure you are subscribed to our YouTube channel at Real Estate Rookie. Every Friday, we feature a Rookie Reply episode and you can head over to the BiggerPockets forums, post a question and we may feature it on an episode. I'm Ashley. He's Tony, and we'll see you guys next time. Close your eyes, exhale, feel your body relax, and let go of whatever you're carrying today.

51:42Ashley Kehr:Well, I'm letting go of the worry that I wouldn't get my new contacts in time for this class.

51:47Tony J. Robinson:I got them delivered free from 1-800-CONTACTS. Oh my gosh, they're so fast. And breathe. Oh, sorry. I almost couldn't breathe when I saw discount they gave me on my first order. Oh, sorry. Namaste. Visit 1-800-Contacts.com today to save on your first order. 1-800-Contacts.