How This Investor Flips Houses in Just 24 Hours | Jon Steingraber

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You know, the idea is not necessarily to do a flip in 24 hours. It's to inspire people to do a three month renovation in seven days.
That's right. Right.
Just, you know, reduce your holding time, reduce the amount of stress and not for nothing. But when you have the plumber, the electrician, the framer and everybody on site on your property what happens if you have an issue you're like hey you call him he's in the other room you're just like hey come over here yeah you're not scheduling him yeah getting them here the next day before the that guy can move on to his piece of the work right you get things done what is up the science flipping family i am back with an impressive guest I've actually known this gentleman for well over a decade.
He and I kind of grew in the trenches together. He on the East Coast, me on the West Coast, but this man is a TV star.
He is the star of 24-Hour Flip and is an impressive realtor, owns a brokerage, and flips properties in 24 hours. John Steingraber is here.
What is up, dude? What's up, man? Thanks. You're more famous than I am, even though I have a TV show.
I don't know about all that, dude. You're on Netflix and Hulu.
I mean, you're all A&E. You're all over the place, right? Glad to be on.
Man, I'm excited because I have flipped a lot of properties in my career. I have no idea how the hell you are able to do it in 24 hours.
Now, let me just ask a quick thing. Like, are we talking about you buy it, you paint it, you list it? Nope.
I mean, it's all documented. It's on A&E, Hulu, YouTube.
You guys can check out the episodes. We do full kitchens.
We do bathrooms. We do flooring.
We paint the exterior. We do roofs.
We do windows. We're talking about 24 hours.
In 24 hours. Yeah.
And well, you know, we'll get into why we kind of came up with this idea and this business model and how other people can do it. That's why I'm here.
I just want to share, you know, kind of reprogram, reset people because we've been kind of taught that it takes three months, four months, six months, and that's not reality. So why isn't that reality? As someone that basically I adjust for somewhere between four to six months for my underwriting, hard money.
So I want to make sure my economics are all right. Why? That's the reality, right? It's not obviously is what you're telling me, but Yeah.
I mean, profit destroyers, you have to look at your profit destroyers, right? One of them is holding costs. Another one is, you know, over renovating, right? And so those are two out of the five that I kind of focus on.
And, you know, I lost money on two big flips where we were doing these huge additions that were taking forever, you know, multi-step permits, right? Some permits have three or four stages. And I looked back at my track record and my history and I said, okay, you know, which are the ones that I've made the most amount of profit and most margin on and were the least stressful.
And it was the ones that we actually did the quickest, right? You know, reducing our holding costs, but then also that we were very strategic on what it is that we did for renovation, right? There wasn't that, you know, we weren't doing additions. Those are the ones that I've lost money on.
Yeah. So some people are very successful with those.
But, you know, that's how we came up with this 24 hour flip business model. And you don't have to, you know, go nuts renovating an entire house and knocking down walls.
And, you know, the kitchen's not perfectly placed.

The sink is here. It could be over there.
All those things are going to add to, you know,

the inefficiencies of a project. And most people, the way that they actually do a flip is,

you know, they get an offer accepted. They go through due diligence.
They close on the property.

You know, then they go inside the house and they go, okay, you know, let's hire the architect.

Right. Right.
And he takes two or three weeks. Right then once you have the plans, then you're having your contractors bid it out.
Then by the time you actually hire the contractors and have them sign and seal the permits, you submit it to the town, that's another three weeks. Just for them, at least in Jersey, it's 21 days by law that they have to get back to you with permits.
Right. That's if they don't want to change.
And then before you know it, you're not even starting the job until two and a half to three months out. So what so one of the bigger inefficiencies, what you're saying, and I tend to agree is like speed of being ready to start.
A hundred. Right.
Whether it's again, I think in my world, I don't do a lot in the Northeast and their older homes in my own issue, but like the minimum, have your general contractor who's going to run the project already have walked it, understand what's about to happen. So the day you fund, they can start moving.
Yeah. So once, so you get a house under contract, what you should do, this is what we do.
You get a house under contract, your past contingencies, right? Titles clear. You know, you're closing on this damn house, right? I've never had past due diligence and I'm never past due diligence and title is clear and I don't close.
Right. Right.
Title's clear. You know, you're closing on this damn house, right? I've never had past due diligence and I'm never past due diligence and title is clear and I don't close.
Right. Right.
So I still typically have three or four weeks to close because people don't move out right away. Right.
So I schedule my closings typically 45 to 60 days out. So I still have 30 days.
So in those 30 days, I put a clause in my contract when I buy it that you're going to allow me access to the property with 24 hours notice for my architects, for my contractors, et cetera. So we go in there, we start measuring everything.
We start doing the detailed scope of work all the way down to the doorstops behind the doors. And we purchase all the materials before we even close on the house.
I'm ordering windows way ahead of time. It takes four, five, six weeks sometimes for windows, right? So a hundred percent being ready to rock and roll when you actually close on that property is going to reduce your holding costs significantly.
But construction, if you really think about it, there is a sequence to construction, right? You got a frame before you, you know, put up sheetrock, right? But there's a lot of things that are also able to be done a property. Sure.
And you see that on the show, right? If you're taking down a fence and you're doing the roof and you're painting inside and the plumber's doing his rough and the electrician's doing, you know, replacing outlets, they can all be doing that at the same time. Yeah.
But that's not how investors work, right? Investors hire a plumber on Monday, Tuesday, I'll be done thursday and then he comes by himself or maybe with one guy and construction all comes down to planning and it also comes down to man hours right and what a lot of people don't realize is that you know multiple things could be getting done at the same time and if you ask the contractor to bring more guys for example, a painter of having two guys painting you have 10 guys painting right you can get it done faster it's just on how you plan and how you set it all up yeah and then you just so i would assume if a painter brought 10 guys he's going to be more expensive he's got to pay all 10 guys now well not necessarily because if he had two guys they would just be there longer that's right okay so he would be paying those guys over five days right which is 10 days i'm even thinking about a property that we're in the middle of rehab flip in san antonio which has been frustrating me because it's taking too long and i'm thinking about why it's taking too long as you are talking and i'm like oh my god he's hitting it on the head what the general contractor did is he just started going wide and kind of starting everything, but nothing's really like when you even walk in. Yeah.
Like he's kind of just getting everything going and you're like, God, that's a 45 day burn, which cost me, I think on that property, we're at $2,200 a day. Yeah.
We're at $2,200 for that a month. So times and other we're we're just shy of four grand yeah because he kind of got everything started and his point is okay now we're ready to go out and I'm like brother I don't know if that was efficient and it's all percentage of profit right if you're making a $200,000 profit it's different than if you're making a $50,000 no so $50,000 is $150,000 San Antonio.
We're not, this is not So yeah, I mean if you lose $5,000 in holding costs, 10% of your profit. Oh, 100%? Yeah.
I mean it all comes down to pre-planning purchasing, and you know, I don't hire general contractors. I hire a project manager.
I typically pay them a percentage of the profit or I do a flat fee. Okay.
So the project manager is hiring directly the subs for organizing everything and I I'm doing it with them. And then, you know, but we're choosing everything ahead of time.
I think one of the most important things is people get caught up in, I want this to be in a magazine, you know, and I'm dramatic, but like, they just want it to be the best thing. It's not necessarily what's the best for profit.
It's, it's what's going to look the best on Instagram. I think what is such a big thing is people need to think about profit first, right? And no pun to the book, but like you need to figure out what is going to be the best way to get the most amount of profit out of this home.
Some homes you can make an art. You got to go for it.
If you want to get the most profit, then you got to go all the way. Most homes, like 85% of the homes, that is not the case, right? You might have 15% of that market share that you say, I got to go to the ball to the wall on this one.
Yeah. 85% of the time, that is not the case.
Yeah. You buy a house that has mold all over it.
You have to gut it to the studs. That's right.
I mean, you're not going to provide an unsafe property, right? For somebody. So not every property will qualify for the 24 hour flip business model.
And to clarify, it's two 12-hour days, right? So the first 24-hour flip that I did was literally 24 hours. And that's, you know.
That's it. Yeah.
That was, that was. I'm glad you said that.
I mean, we almost, we almost died that day. Yeah.
And it was horrible. So we just do it in two 12-hour days.
Can you do it in three eight-hour days? Yeah. You know, the idea is not necessarily to do a flip in 24 hours.
It's to inspire people to do a three-month renovation in seven days. That's right.
Right? Just, you know, reduce your holding time, reduce the amount of stress. And not for nothing, but when you have the plumber, the electrician, the framer, and everybody on site on your property, what happens? If you have an issue, you're like, hey, you call him.
He's in the other room. You're just like, hey, come over here.
You're not scheduling him, getting him here the next day before that guy can move on to his piece of the work. You get things done, right? And it's very unique.
And the contractors freaking love it, Justin. Oh, of course.
Because they're in and out and they get paid. Well, and a lot of times they blame each other, right? Like, oh, I got to wait for the electrician before I can go for the roughs and whatever else right and you just so i want to kind of maybe highlight like you don't use general contractors okay um you do profit you know it's music to dog's ears delivery playtime and symperica trio symperica trio getting outside and having fun, knowing your dog is protected.
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Flyer deals are like strolling through your favorite store looking for deals, but you're scrolling on your phone and maybe you're in bed because getting delivery doesn't mean you have to miss deals like you'd get at the store, like the one creamer that doesn't make your stomach hurt or the pasta sauce you can't not buy when it's on sale. So download the Instacart app, shop flyers and never miss a deal on one of your favorites.
Plus get delivery in as fast as 30 minutes. How does that work? So, you know, I always, a lot of people ask me because, you know, I do have a coaching program for New Jersey students only.
By the way, so if you're in Jersey, maybe even New York or only Jersey? No, just Jersey. Jersey.
If you're in Jersey watching or listening to this, I want you to reach out to John. Where can they go to learn more, to connect with you? They can go to flipwithjohn.com.
And John is J-O-N. Flipwithjohn, J-O-N.com.
If you're in Jersey, he can help you. He can get you there, whether you do 24 hour flips or at least become more efficient.
So make sure you go there and make sure you follow them. Yeah.
So I always tell my students when they go, well, how do you do it? And what do you pay people? Well, it depends on how many deals you're doing. If you're doing one deal a year, you're gonna probably pay a project manager a higher percentage of the profit.
If you're doing 10 or 15 flips a year, then you could do a smaller percentage of the profit, okay? What I've done recently is just pay a flat fee, right? So they're actually getting paid to do that job and it depends on the scope of that job. So it'll be anywhere between like $10,000 to $20,000 flat fee, but then they're managing all the subs and doing all that.
And is that a percentage of the profit essentially in your own? Yeah, I mean, if you're making $100,000 and you're paying them $15,000, then you're paying them 15%, right? That's right. And so I go flat fee typically, and it's a 10% typically.
10% of profit? Yeah of profit? Yeah. Okay.
So we'll know 10% of rehab budget. Meaning so if I do a $50,000 flip, I'm going to give you five grand to go run that project.
Now you need to find the subs, hire the subs, get the lean waivers. I mean, you're running A to Z project.
Right. But my model is a lot more on scale than I think yours is.
Right. Like we want to try to acquire one to two properties a week right and so we're running at a volume we're also not localized to one city i'm not saying you're right or i'm right or you're wrong what i'm just saying my model is slightly different um and so let's talk about maybe what are three ways as a listener listening to us right now like what would be the three things that you can say to create efficiencies? We've mentioned some of them, right? And making sure pre planning, right pre planning.
So what does that even look like in terms of pre planning? Like what needs to be pre planned? Is it literally on paperwork? Are you what does that look like? So number one is having the most detailed scope of work you possibly can. And that includes pictures and videos, right?

So I do a Matterport of the before and I'll literally sit in my house for a few hours going through the whole entire Matterport. And for those of you that don't know, Matterport's just like a, you know, 3D tour of the property.
And I will write down every single little thing that needs to be done. Okay.
Everything by room and by trade. I, you know, I categorize it.
Then step two is going to,

I do 24 phases.

Each phase is one hour.

So I go, okay,

what's going to be done in phase one?

Demo, cleanup,

depending on what you're doing.

We're taking down the fence.

We're throwing this out.

Everything.

If you have a flagpole that's rusted,

we're taking that out.

You take that down.

That's in this phase one scope

or phase two.

And then you put who is assigned to that, what trade, plumber, electrician, HVAC, demo, et cetera, right? And you might have like, I hire people just to clean the house the whole time. Yeah.
They're just cleaning. Going around the whole time.
Yeah. They're just cleaning, cleaning, cleaning.
I have one person that's gone hydrating everybody, giving them water, right? And you know, it's a little bit different than your normal job. We get, you know, we get food for everybody.
We have a runner to Home Depot or Lowe's or, you know, whatever. All day running back and forth.
Oh, I need this. I need this.
They're in a V walks around waiting in their van. They're going, you know, they're waiting in the Home Depot parking lot and Hey, I need this.
And then they go in and then they come to the house. Wow.
Right. So, I mean, it's simple.
It's simple, simple pre-planning stuff. And of course, you're going to plan everything out from lunch, right? Like what time is lunch? How are we feeding them? Who's having lunch, et cetera.
We typically take a break, everybody. And we have a line.
People just line up. I don't know if they show that on the episodes.
I haven't seen them all. 24-hour flip, guys.
This is so cool. Like I've done a lot of a lot of flips man so i would tell you go watch it on hulu yeah uh youtube every every place you possibly can a and e is is the tv station so yeah um all right so now the other the other thing that i want to you know before i forget so a lot of people make the mistake in the in in the decision making phase yeah right they're like you know my wife will go into a house no joke and she'll be like knock down this wall knock down that wall and i'm like no we're not knocking down walls because that's going to require you know fixing the floors getting permits waiting for them to come and take a look at you know that we did it right and then you can proceed you can't do that if you're going to do a really quick flip sure you just can't right and and i'm, you know, you don't get permits.
You get permits on things that are, you know, one step permits. But if there's things that are multi-step permits where it's like, I have to do framing, then insulation, you know, then finish.
The finish doesn't matter. But the first two are stopping you from moving forward in your sequence.
Right. So you're literally just waiting.
Yeah. And you're wasting money and wasting time.
So lot of times you know even though the sink would be better off over here you know within three feet i can move it you know and i don't it doesn't require a permit right so i'm not going to move it over there yeah i'm just going to figure it out and not every house qualifies for this some are just functionally obsolete and you do need to make changes yeah you know but you know for example a lot of times before I used to knock down the wall between two bedrooms and a four bedroom house and make it a three bedroom and put a master bath and a walk-in closet. I don't do that shit anymore.
Yeah. Yeah.
I don't. I just, I go, no, I'm going to get in and I'm going to get out and not for nothing, but people count your money.
Yeah. So when I get in and I get out and typically I'm on the market within seven days of buying it.
Wow. So I'm on within seven days in new jersey i don't know how it works in other states but it takes about six weeks typically to um for the price to show up what you bought it for okay so when i'm on the market nobody knows what i bought it for that's right if i renovate a house over two months three months and then i they're like, well, you just bought this house for 500.
Right. And now you're asking 800.
Right. It's like, yeah, but when I bought it, it was, you know, they're counting your money.
That's right. That's true.
I could have inherited it for a dollar. Who gives a shit? Yeah.
Yeah. But they care about what you bought it for.
Yeah. Well, I don't want them to make that much money.
So I'm not going to, you know, I'm going to give them a low offer. Exactly.
So it avoids that. Okay.
It avoids that whole, you know, oh, well he bought it for this. You know, it's, it's renovated.
And a lot of people ask me, well, what about permits? Yeah. Well, in New Jersey, I don't know how it works in your state.
You can, you can look it up at permanent, pouty, whatever. Direct replacement is allowed, right? No permits.
I can take all the cabinets down, put new cabinets in and countertops and everything have brand new kitchen new appliances everything and it doesn't require permits i don't know any state that i'm in that would require that for direct replacement same thing with bathrooms vanities here okay i'm not adding i'm not changing it i'm not putting the vanity on this wall i'm putting it over here no i'm, I'm leaving it there. Direct replacement, toilet, direct replacement, everything direct replacement.
And if it's a water heater, you got to get a permit, but that's one step permit. You can put in the permit for

that, replace a water heater, get the guy to come out. It doesn't stop you from doing anything.

Roofing, windows, siding, doesn't require permits. Unless you're doing the sheathing on the roof,

then it's emergency work and you could doing the sheathing on the roof.

Then it's emergency work and you could get the guy out there.

But you just have to understand the rules of the game.

We're playing a game.

So the better you know the rules, the more that you could take advantage of how it works.

And then you have to be smart enough to say,

and disciplined enough to say,

all right, I'm not going to knock down that wall.

Right? Even though open layout concept's the thing, I'm not going to do that because i want to make money and guess what i've never not sold the house because i didn't knock down that wall no it sells you just have to price it accordingly and purchase i was just going to say so you adjust for the price right so you create an open layout you create the modern look that people want you might get your 800 but if you're not going to you're going to leave the wall up you just replace what's already there make it new go white comments or whatever you know yeah you might sell for a 749 yeah i mean that a 799 or you might sell for you know a ten thousand dollar difference okay i mean it's a lot of times it really doesn't make that big of a difference um it's more a matter of there's inventory wow there's a renovated home how many houses in your area are actually renovated and you know um they're not at the top of the market priced well that's what we do we have a renovated home that's not at the top of the market and that's what people love people love that because there's not a lot of inventory out there no it's not your area right yeah there's not a lot of inventory in any market yeah right and for you to be able to provide a like new property maybe it doesn't have all the bells and whistles but it's like new it's renovated they have the updates they want uh i really believe i'm literally thinking about we just bought a home in georgia right that i'm like man do we change kind of our play game plan game plan on that uh you're making me think as i'm sitting here this is this is fun um okay so first is the planning phase like make sure you have an actual plan what would be the next thing someone can take away from this episode of like if i'm trying to speed up and create more efficiencies um speed up so logistics right so we bought a 36 foot trailer you know if you're in the business it's a bad idea to do this. And we put all of our supplies there.
Now, look, I didn't have a 36-foot trailer when I first started doing 24-hour flips. I rented a 24-foot U-Haul.
Okay. Right? So we would literally put everything there.
And then the U-Hauls in front of the house, you open it like it's a storage facility. You can even do a pod.
Yeah. Right? And you have all the materials there for the whole job.
So you have an inventory list. Smart.
Right. And you have everything there and you have some extras of stuff.
Right. Right.
So just so you're not constantly running back and forth. You're always going to have to go to the supply house store.
That's why we have our runner. You know, but the idea is that you think through everything.
Right. And you plan it.
And then when you're a lot of people are waiting on material. So, you know, if I know that my windows are five weeks out, I'm going to order them before I, you know, when I know I'm going to buy the house, I'm going to order it ahead of time.
A lot of times people tend to close on a property and then they're ordering stuff and then they find out, oh, this, you know, this specific cabinet is six weeks out. It's like, okay, but what is the, what is the cost of that? Hold time and market risk.
Because it's not just the holding cost, you know. You know, it's music to dog's ears.
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Things change, right? If some sort of, you know, global event happened, it's going to affect you negatively. Yeah.
And you're putting yourself at risk. Well, so one of the things I believe in, and tell me, you know, you're a coach in Jersey and I coach across the nation, but I think part of the reason why that happens is raising the capital to go buy the materials and pre-order and do down payments and things of that nature.
Now, I'm guessing some of you- That's the cheapest, right? You could get a Home Depot line of credit. You can put stuff on your credit card.
You have a 28-day grace period. If you're a new business owner, you can get a 0% credit card for 12 months.
I mean- I agree with you, right? That's the materials are the least of your, of your capital raise, right? Yeah. It's most, mostly through the work and labor component plus that servicing, right? So again, if you have a $50,000 rehab, you're probably going into it with 15 grand of materials.
Yeah. 15 or 20 grand.
Yeah. Right.
And so, uh, but I think that's a mindset shift that I think people need to understand,

hear you again, rewind what we're just talking about is,

I believe most people don't do what you're doing

because the outlay of money out of the gate, right?

It's going to take me five weeks to get the product.

I need to spend it now.

I don't see anything for five weeks,

but it's the same thing.

When you buy the home,

you're going to have to wait five weeks.

So now you're spending more money by closing on the home. Right.
You're still waiting five weeks. It's just inefficient.
Yeah. And our margin, here's the thing.
If you divide your after renovation value by your profit, you know, when I do my numbers, when I buy a house, it's a minimum of 10%. You know, if I'm going to resell a house for 800 grand, I need to make a minimum of $80,000.
That's right. Because God forbid anything were forbid anything were to happen right you know and you might go over on construction a little bit the market might shift a little you might go over it's almost always in my world yeah i mean it depends i count for it i count for a five percent like the the contractor didn't see the thing yeah or the thing broke or whatever or you add something or you change something because you're like oh i'm gonna get a good roi on this that's right right so you're gonna do it you know so what would be one third so logistics i really love that i really love having whether it's a u-haul or you have a trailer or whatever parked in front of the home with the materials in it a question before i get to the third thing that maybe they could have a takeaway, but maybe this might be one.
Do you house, because you rehab in one specific city, do you house like five properties worth of flooring? And everything is cookie cutter, everything. You're an open door version.
Everything's the same? No, it's not. And I don't renovate just in one city, you know, it's one state, you know, but a few different counties and you know, New Jersey is the most densely populated state in the country and it's very different from town to town.
Right. So the way that I make decisions on stuff is not necessarily systematic.
Yeah. It's what has sold in that geographic area over asking price.
Um, and you know, what is the trend in that area? What do people want in that geographic area? And then I make my decisions by just looking at what the data is. And then I make the decisions on what we're going to do in that house based on that.
So I don't go and buy, you know, 20 toilets, even though most of the time I use the same toilets, I don't do that and warehouse it because the discount that i'm getting you know for that is first of all there's logistics there's headaches there's stress this breaks that you're past the refund period etc it's not worth it right and then the cost of warehousing it yeah it's you know makes no sense the only thing that i've done a little bit is i'll buy like five appliance packages or something on the fourth a July sale sale. So it was like a really good sale.
And I'm like, all right, I'm saving 10 grand if I do this. And then Home Depot store it for me for three months.
And within three months, I'll do it. That's a huge takeaway.
Yes. So, you know, things, little things like that.
But I don't, I don't store everything or buy anything from China or, you know, import it. I don't do it.
You're not necessarily trying to skimp per se. What you are trying is create efficiencies i mean this is you know this isn't a tv show or a strategy of like here's how you can skimp and still profit this is like here's how you become efficient and still profit and profit more most likely because think about your holding costs you go and flip for in a seven days turn right let's just say it took you seven days to put it on the market right It takes you 45 days, 60 days to close the end buyer if you find a good property, right? You just cut out three to six months of what I would underwrite towards of holding costs.
And market risk. And market risk and volatility and whatever, you know, interest rates and all this other stuff.
It is so much smarter. So I think the third third takeaway which i really liked um what you were just mentioning really comes down to being able to understand the value of the materials and to be able to pre-plan around the materials yeah i like that right is to just understand the market know what county does what type of remodel what are the color schemes that are popular what's moving understanding the market creates efficiency to know i can go after this type of material yeah we can move faster let's go and and the reason why i have a project manager not you know just do subs or not just do a gc is because we all have to understand that contractors are inefficient so by actually having all the materials you're making them more efficient because they typically will send a guy or two to like help to home depot for hours out of the day multiple times right just think about how much is lost during that that's right right so and over and over again compounded over the job and you're paying for that that's right you know even if you even if you're not paying people per day, you're still paying for that.
For debt, hard money costs. I mean, I think people don't estimate how much, I mean, they understand the number and what the monthly number is, but like how much they would be savings, saving.
Everything adds up and you have to reduce your profit destroyers. Like my business model is a little bit different than yours.
And you know, my goal is to do 10 to 15 flips that net a hundred thousand dollars or more per year or per deal. Right.
So if I can do, I'd rather do one, $100,000 profit deal than three $35,000 deals. That's right.
You know, it's just an efficiency thing, right? And I go after more affluent areas. Why? Because less people are marketing to those areas because most people are buying in the lower priced areas.
So I have less competition. I buy in the higher end areas and private lenders, which is what I use, like to invest in high end areas because they're like, oh, I know that town.
That's a great town yeah and they're like yeah let's go yeah right it's just all around it's different so you have to decide on your business model on how you want to do it and i don't leverage the fact that i'm on a show and all that stuff and that's why people lend me money i've been borrowing private capital since 2007 yeah right when i was 21 years old so anybody can do it and if you need to start out with a hard money lender putting 10 down and taking the construction draws whatever you get a couple deals under your belt but if you show that this this level of efficiency even if it's a 30 day right now that's better than what most people are doing that's right and the model makes more sense i think there's a takeaway so my model we just do separate things and I'm not saying one's right or one's wrong. I try to stick under 300,000.
The reason being is I like the idea and the concept that if something does go wrong and there is a volunteer, I can rent it. I always had that same concept too.
And then, you know, when inflation started getting crazy, this is just my opinion. Sure.
Affluent people are less affected by inflation. There's no doubt.
You know, and people that are in the $200,000, $300,000, $400,000 range. And in New Jersey, that looks like a $500,000, $600,000 range because the prices are so high.
Yeah. At least in my area of New Jersey, they're a lot more affected by inflation so and the interest rates being at seven percent which they are right now right so that was always you know the idea because i don't see a slowdown in the 1.5 million dollar 1.2 million dollar two million dollar homes no because you and i and the people that can afford it can afford it and we say okay so the interest rates at 6 rate's at 6.75.
It's not ideal, but not the worst. Yeah, most people are buying cash.
Right. And I was going to say, I put more down so that way I don't have some leverage.
50% down or something like that. Yeah.
So, you know, and look, they all work. You can, it's not, you know, this is the only way to do it.
There's a million ways to make money. It's just, what do you want? What are you excited about? And what's your skillset, right? You and I are, I'm 18 years into this and I think you're about the same, right? We started the same trajectory.
I think we met in San Diego in 2007, right? Like it's been a long time we know each other. So, but most people listening to this are not us.
And so that's where the people need to decide, what do you want your business to look like? Right? Like you start with the end of mind. Do you want to become a John or Justin or vice versa? Yeah.
Well, for them, they're going to have to learn how to raise money. You do a hundred percent person, uh, uh, private, private.
I do 50% private. Right.
So I still like using hard money because then I don't have as much need for the private. Um, neither is wrong.
No. And I used hard money.
Like you haven't on the 24 hour flip, there was a, you know, one of my private lenders was like, Hey, I'm actually buying a property. I'm not lending money on this deal.
And he had earmarked that money for my deal. So I went to my local hard money lender, right? Alpha funding.
They're awesome. And you know, they closed that deal in less than 10 days.
That's great. Right.
So, you know, hard money is another form of capital. Right? What I dislike about hard money is the monthly payments.
There was a time I had 26 properties at once, and my bills were $65,000 a month. So I'll flip a house, make money, and then that would pay next month's bills.
That's right. Right? So the chokehold is really that monthly payment.
If you can do it with private capital, I do it where you invest the money and then you get the money back plus your interest at the end of the deal when we close. That's where there's no monthly payments.
It's really a deal because if you're at volume on any scale, those monthly payments, I did the same thing in, forget what year it was, 2012, maybe I had like 96 flips that I bought and completed. The chokehold's cash mean you literally go like i'm not paying myself i'm paying debt service the whole time right like you have to stop flipping in order to get your money that's basically it right and that's the shittiest part is you basically have to stop buying so you can finally actually have the profit to be able to pay yourself and god forbid that you're in a market where things go sideways and then you're stuck holding the bag and you're like shit all the profit that i just worked for that's right you know is in these deals and now they just all went down so and we know and then the other part of this is you got to stop marketing stop buying and we know then the cycle of that trajectory what happens is that means the next quarter once you finally is a tough quarter too right because you didn't buy anything for a quarter because you had to slow down.
And so there's that, I love that where you go, you know, private financing, no debt servicing, it accrues, pay off over potential equity share if maybe, maybe not. But like, it's a beautiful model, right? And I would tell people to your point, figure out what you want your model to, there's no wrong.
Yeah, no. You just need to adjust for what your model you want to look like.
Now you're specific to Jersey. I'm asking everyone right now, because it's obvious, the obvious.
Trump's here. Yeah.
Interest rates. Go Trump.
Go Trump. We already see, and I see Jason's here, So he's an economist by trade.
And so he's all over, but I say, I say that because, um, where do you see like Northeast? I don't play much in the Northeast price being one of them. Winters being another.
So I just, uh, you know, if I found something in Jersey, at least I could call you and have a relationship that I'd feel comfortable, but in a general sense, now, where do you see Jersey, a state like Jersey? Everything's very expensive. Miami's very expensive.
You live in some of the most expensive areas you can. Where do you see...
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E, the Jersey market going for yourself? Um, I mean, the inventory is very low. I think that has a lot to do with New York City, even though New York City is bouncing back.
I think the Trump administration has definitely helped from a perspective of hope and, you know, the areas that had high crime and stuff like that, like some of the areas in New York city, uh, people feel a little bit different now. Okay.
Meaning in a more optimistic way. Sure.
So, um, you know, we might see a little bit lower of an influx in New York, but then it'll bounce right back and we get kind of the overflow. Why? Because when New York is doing well, their prices go up and when their prices go up, people seek to find other, properties and they go to new jersey that's right right and if you are if you're selling like a 1.5 to 2 million dollar house in new jersey 90 of your buyers are jersey city hoboken right which are people that work in manhattan or people in manhattan okay or brooklyn right in the nice areas of brooklyn yeah they're buying in the suburbs they want good schools and they have you know their wife is pregnant they already have a kid and they want more space yeah right so we have that kind of benefit in jersey that we get the overflow from new york um and miami is like you know it's like new york but with nice weather and more expensive real estate very expensive it's crazy yeah it's i mean i'm I'm blown away by Miami and there's a lot of opportunity here as well.
I just, I've always been the type of person that you can track the space. If you can hit your goals in one geographic area, your life will be easier if you focus and know everything there is to know.
And you know that area, like the back of your hand, that's just, you know, and that's why I like my coaching only in Jersey. Yeah.
Right. I have people are like, oh, in California, can you coach me? I'm like, look, I give my coaching students contractor resources.
You know, we go to people's properties. It's very intimate.
It's very different. It's not like a scaled program.
Yeah. Right.
So it's, that's why we just focus in on that geographic area.

Yeah. No, I think there's a lot of validity.
I mean, I know there is right as someone that runs a company that fix and flips in nine states by buying hold in nine states.

I coach throughout the United States. I know the pros and cons to my side.
Right. And I think the cons lean into why you do what you do.
Right. You basically, you know the numbers, you know the neighborhoods, you know the people, you

have so many more controllables, right?

When you stick to one state.

It's very localized, realistically.

Of course.

But you have people on the ground, too, in those geographic areas that you're typically

partnering with.

So it's a little bit different.

The upside for me is because of how even my coaching program is, is national. So I have, I'm one call away from anyone in any city, any state.
It's different. I don't like to partner with people.
No. Yeah.
Because I don't know if they did their tax returns or not. Then we go to sell the house and now we got to pay their tax bill.
There you go. That's right.
Which has actually happened to me. I was just going to say, it sounds like you've done that before.
Yeah. Yeah.
So we, I try to keep it as simple as possible, but you know, from, you know, when you're, when you're doing business, you just need to decide on, you know, you can make money in any area. It doesn't matter if it's low end, if it's high end, if it's one area or nationwide, like I'll look at anything nationwide if it's commercial, because it's strictly based on cap rate, which is easy to find.
And it's based on the numbers of the income and the expenses of the property, right? You're just coming up with the NOI and dividing it by cap rate. That's the value.
And you want to get it cheaper than that and see if there's any value add or upside to it. So, you know, with those types of properties, it's different.
In single family construction and flips, you know, I feel like you definitely need somebody boots on the ground that's gonna understand that

municipality and all the little you know quirks from that area across the street it could be a totally different school district right and that school district is less desirable you know there could be negative stigmas in that area external factors that you really can't control that you wouldn't know if you weren't there locally i wouldn't ever suggest any of my students, anyone to fix and flip in a market that they don't personally either live in or have very strong ties to because everything you just said, like even when I coach national, I say, great, if you're at a market wholesaler, right? But if you have very strong ties and or live in there and you're looking at flipping, then, then I will give some justification. Right.
But even then you just run too much risk for all the things that we're aware of right and number one on that risk list is contractors in my opinion bad contractors will bankrupt you very very fast yep um two people could buy the same house and one guy hires the wrong contractor the other guy hires the right one one guy makes money the other guy loses money that's exactly right that is the number one risk i see when when remodel and at 18 years in, I'm still dealing with bad contractors. It's not totally avoidable, right? Yeah.
But in your case, because you know the people, right? And I feel like construction is going to go up in price now. For sure.
Because a lot of people that are undocumented are in the construction business, at least in New Jersey. Sure.
I speak fluent Spanish. My mom was born in Uruguay.
She immigrated here. So I kind of have an advantage that I speak fluent Spanish.
But a lot of our guys that are contractors, they're licensed, they're insured, et cetera. But then for them to get the laborers that work, I mean, I don't ask if they're documented, but I don't think a lot of them are.
That's right. Right.
So, you know, is that going to put pressure on the construction industry, making it even more expensive? I'm going to say yes. It's things that people need to think about.
That's right. Right.
And you need to, you know, you need to know that tradespeople, there's less and less of them. And the ones that have been around for a long time, they're not being replaced.
Right. They say if you want to become a millionaire, don't go to college.
Become a plumber. Right? Become an electrician.
Why? Because there's going to be so much demand. For trades.
And I don't know if AI and robotics and everything is going to, that's not the first place that all that stuff is going to disrupt. That's right.
You know, it's going to be everything behind a computer and maybe like menial tasks but not not necessarily plumbing and electricians not to take us too far off the course here as we're wrapping up but like what about all these uh cement homes and blanking on the word with the machines are really building like the 3d printing yeah yeah i mean that's great but you still need to you still you still need to build out the internal yeah absolutely but you. But you're still like, I mean, think about four year, five year.
Was this even a concept that you and I would think about, right? Like, holy hell. I think about all the framers.
I think it's great. I mean, look, if you're an entrepreneur and you could cut costs and that's a profit destroyer, then you'll be good.
There's always going to be people in situations that need to sell their home. And that's, what's important.
If you're going to get good at one thing, if you're going to get good at one thing, get good at finding deals, get good at marketing, get good at negotiation, get good at presenting your offer. This is what we kind of focus on because, you know, if, you know, if that does get disrupted through different things, then awesome.
But if you're in densely populated areas like New Jersey, I mean, you're not knocking down the house and building a new one. Right.
You know, most of the time you're not doing that. Maybe in other states where there's a lot of land and, you know, there's a lot of development, then that could be a huge opportunity to provide affordable housing, which is definitely needed and wanted.
And, you know, hopefully that will help solve that issue. It's interesting.
I watched, I don't know if it on cnbc but i watched something about this i just said man between the framing the need no need for framers anymore right roofing right you go they're really building the external and there there's two trays at least i'm aware of that all of a sudden just got essentially disrupted right you got disrupted right i know but it's disrupted only on new construction that's right so on existing homes you need them it's not going anywhere that's right let's throw a robot in there try to see what happens see what a robot make this floor see what so i mean you know home services industry i i feel like it's going to be one of the last things to get disrupted which is for entrepreneurs which is another show that we like that's where i want to lean into in my next decade yeah i want to lean into home services yeah wearing hvac roofing i mean it's we have a brokerage right we sold 1600 homes in 2024 okay uh congratulations thanks you know we have a few hundred agents we have four offices and it's an it's an unbelievable ancillary service home services you know somebody buys a, they want to do stuff. They need ongoing services,

HVAC maintenance, power washing,

landscaping.

There's so many avenues to make

money there, but a lot of people don't want to put in that

grit and that hard work. There's no doubt.

People need to get paid if you're going to hire employees.

People aren't okay with making minimum wage

and just making

$150. You can't live on that anymore.

Oh my God. Hell no.
Thank you for coming tv star 24 hour flip you can see it on a and e hulu youtube just google it yeah just google it and if you're in jersey make sure you reach out to him i tagged him all over my social media john steingrabber is here thank you for showing up dude appreciate it all right guys have fun. If this helped you guys, even with the three points of efficiencies, make sure you share it with

some people you know that need to watch this. I'll see you guys on the next episode.
Peace.