Overcoming Challenges in Real Estate: Essential Tips for Investors

John Harcar (00:02.096)
All right. Hey, guys. Welcome back to our show. I’m your host, John Harcar. And I’m here today with Ornella Jimenez-Caseres. I hope I said that all right. And what we’re going to do is talk about the journey in business and in real estate, but also why she likes new construction, right? And why that’s her preferred investment. Hey, guys, remember, at Investor Fuel, we help real estate investors, service providers, I mean, all real estate entrepreneurs, 2 to 5X your business.

ORNELLA JIMENEZ CASERES (00:11.222)
and lose.

John Harcar (00:31.992)
And we do that by providing the tools and resources to not only grow that business you want to have, but also help you in turn live the life that you’ve always dreamed of. So Ornella, welcome to our show.

ORNELLA JIMENEZ CASERES (00:43.777)
Thank you, John. Thank you for the opportunity and thank you for your audience.

John Harcar (00:50.07)
Awesome, well, I’m excited to talk about our topic. New construction is something that I’ve always had interest in, haven’t done it. But before we get into all that, right, before we start talking about that, give our audience a little background about you, you know, how you got into real estate, you know, what business has been like and kind of what got you to today.

ORNELLA JIMENEZ CASERES (01:08.491)
Okay, perfect. So my name is, as you mentioned, is Ornella. I’m from Colombia, Barranquilla, Colombia. And I have seven years here in San Antonio. So when I arrived to this city, I faced some struggles, like to be an immigrant. My background was in non-profit organizations. So that was my main experience. But I say like, I’m…

I don’t want to be like the typical immigrant that say like, oh no, only route on life is gonna be wash dishes or be a nanny or something like that. I say like, you know what? I need to find something to do and something that I feel passionate about it. And I discovered real estate. So real estate was like, sometimes I say that I’m accidentally,

John Harcar (01:48.506)
Right.

ORNELLA JIMENEZ CASERES (02:07.629)
a real estate investor because here I just start to, yes, because at the beginning I just start to make my master degree here. It was in project management and I didn’t know there was a master for civil engineers. when I ended that master degree,

I faced the situation that I say like, my God, I can develop a software that is the other way to put in practice this master. But the other way was be involved in the construction. But I didn’t have any experience, you know, and I just start to search and find my way to be there and win that experience.

John Harcar (02:49.924)
Mm-hmm.

John Harcar (02:59.332)
Brian.

ORNELLA JIMENEZ CASERES (03:07.192)
and I found real estate and I start to learn everything, flipping houses, wholesaleing, all these tragedies that we know. And I started with that. And I faced a lot of struggle in this industry because first I’m a woman. So they don’t want to.

John Harcar (03:32.304)
It’s got some scrolls on its own

ORNELLA JIMENEZ CASERES (03:36.684)
Yes, so most of the men, I mean here, most of the crews are Mexican people, you know, very male. They don’t like very tiny Latina be the boss.

John Harcar (03:51.084)
Right. They don’t like taking orders.

ORNELLA JIMENEZ CASERES (03:54.608)
Yes, they don’t like it. So it was very rocky at the beginning. But you know what, I started to develop a passion for the industry.

John Harcar (04:12.452)
Yeah, okay. Well, real fast, how did you, you know, go back a little bit? How did you find out you say you found real estate? How did you find real estate? Did you open up a book? Did you go online? I mean, how did you come across real estate?

ORNELLA JIMENEZ CASERES (04:27.893)
So basically I found a seminar to say like real estate investors, but I didn’t know anything about that, anything. So my first mentor was Robert Shemin, that is a very well known investor in the industry. And I say, you know what, I don’t know how to start this, but I wanted to learn and I like to learn fast. And I start to, you know, my…

John Harcar (04:30.703)
Okay.

John Harcar (04:52.848)
Mm-hmm.

ORNELLA JIMENEZ CASERES (04:56.851)
all my career in this magical world.

John Harcar (05:01.7)
Well, it sounds like you just got in and got your hands dirty quick.

ORNELLA JIMENEZ CASERES (05:05.291)
Yes. So in my first year of investment, I made a 19 feet and flip. That was like, yes, one nine. I don’t know because sometimes I am having trouble.

John Harcar (05:13.7)
You did 19 fix and flip?

Wow. No, that’s a lot. OK, so let’s unpack this for a second. How did you grow a team so fast? And how did you go out and find all these guys to do the work for you and all that type of stuff?

ORNELLA JIMENEZ CASERES (05:34.667)
First is because I work in communities, community of investors. I make part of many communities of Latin communities of investors and that is the way to make business, business, business, business most of the time. So most of the people are at the beginning very scared. They don’t like to take the decision to operate. I’m not that type of person. mean like.

John Harcar (05:37.252)
Mm-hmm.

John Harcar (06:00.144)
You don’t sound like you would be

ORNELLA JIMENEZ CASERES (06:04.691)
No, I’m not. So I start to make the little investment. I start to create my team. And I say, you know, like, let’s do this. Let’s do this. And I engage with the Harmony lender. That is easier for me. And that was the Harmony lender that take me to the other scale that is new construction that is right now my niche. So.

John Harcar (06:23.481)
OK.

John Harcar (06:31.748)
OK.

ORNELLA JIMENEZ CASERES (06:34.268)
Yeah, basically what that was. Yes.

John Harcar (06:34.424)
Awesome.

Well, what were some of the struggles, right? Your first year you did 19 flips, which is still, mean, I think for someone jumping in right away, that’s pretty awesome. But what were some of the struggles? Like what are the things that as you kept doing more flips or something like that, they just, you kept getting caught up on or you had to learn more about or something like that.

ORNELLA JIMENEZ CASERES (06:58.026)
So basically the general contractors. That was the next…

John Harcar (07:01.904)
How to manage him

ORNELLA JIMENEZ CASERES (07:05.258)
Yes, because you know, like sometimes they can feel when you are new in this industry. They can feel it, they can tell. And they always try to take advantage of you. And some of general contractors, they say that they know to do everything, but when they have to do it, it’s very opposite.

John Harcar (07:12.08)
Mm-hmm.

John Harcar (07:25.456)
So you do the walk and it doesn’t get done. It’s not done. Yeah.

ORNELLA JIMENEZ CASERES (07:28.074)
Yes, or the other struggle that I have was the estimate, the sub estimate everything, you know, like, no, you need less. And at the end, said, my God, let’s raise more capital to make this investment work. So it was a very, I mean, I, I learned a lot with that process. Yes.

John Harcar (07:43.6)
Mm-hmm.

John Harcar (07:51.184)
That sounds like it. That sounds like it. what was your, give me one of your success stories from one of your flips in that first year.

ORNELLA JIMENEZ CASERES (08:02.331)
Okay, most of the investors don’t like to do historical houses, but that is something that I mean, yes, because, know, it’s different. It’s a different type of investment. It takes like, you know, a lot of detail, a lot of due diligence, especially with the historical district. But I discovered that that is an inch that I love to do it, you know.

John Harcar (08:07.248)
Okay.

John Harcar (08:24.538)
Mm-hmm.

John Harcar (08:29.71)
Okay.

ORNELLA JIMENEZ CASERES (08:30.725)
When you know the root, it’s easy and I like to develop historical gems.

John Harcar (08:37.05)
So what specifically is different?

ORNELLA JIMENEZ CASERES (08:40.123)
It’s different because you need to calculate well the time because it’s not like something that you can activate immediately. You can touch anything in the front, especially the windows. Windows you can paint.

John Harcar (08:46.896)
Mm-hmm.

John Harcar (08:52.622)
Okay, so I have to leave that all original.

ORNELLA JIMENEZ CASERES (08:56.166)
Yes, most of the things. But I found somebody that I have in the crew that is a, you know, we have like 40 years in the industry working with that type of rehabilitation and you can make a lot of money doing that well. So, yeah.

John Harcar (08:58.992)
Okay.

John Harcar (09:10.158)
Mmm

John Harcar (09:14.869)
Do you I mean is it selling it as a normal house? I mean just like you would normally do it or it’s or like because it’s in a historical district There’s certain other things you have to do

ORNELLA JIMENEZ CASERES (09:18.953)
Mwah.

ORNELLA JIMENEZ CASERES (09:24.251)
No, they have something better because for example here in Texas, when you work with the historical district, they give you 10 years of tax exclusion. don’t, you don’t want to pay taxes for 10 years. So yes, that is something that even when you sell the house, the next owner going to take that advantage, taking that house. Because in the historical district, most of the taxes are like pretty high.

John Harcar (09:39.264)
nice.

John Harcar (09:50.0)
Hmm.

John Harcar (09:54.436)
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

ORNELLA JIMENEZ CASERES (09:54.738)
So that is something very attractive. Yeah, basically that is the view frame.

John Harcar (10:00.27)
Okay cool. So what is your business look like now? mean where are you operating? What is your team look like etc?

ORNELLA JIMENEZ CASERES (10:09.553)
Well, right now I’m working in several places in Texas. I’m working in Canyon Lake, develop a new construction there, like single family homes, lake houses basically. Also I work in Austin, I work in Houston, I work in Dallas and then work in San Antonio as well. Yes.

John Harcar (10:24.271)
Okay.

John Harcar (10:32.112)
Awesome and I think you I think on here it said Florida too, right?

ORNELLA JIMENEZ CASERES (10:36.232)
Yes, right now we are opening the new chapter in Florida because most of the groups say like, Ornella, let’s move it there. And say, okay, like, I’m never gonna finish Texas, but right now we are exploring Orlando, Tampa, another place that I can’t remember, but you have to be very aware with new construction for the turtles.

John Harcar (10:47.576)
What part of Florida?

John Harcar (10:55.088)
Okay.

John Harcar (11:04.824)
Right, okay. And then you have, do you already have crews and set up everything out there?

ORNELLA JIMENEZ CASERES (11:09.262)
Yes, we have a lot of relations with Cruz there.

John Harcar (11:13.144)
Okay, how long did it take you to build that part of it that before you were ready to go out and start doing stuff?

ORNELLA JIMENEZ CASERES (11:19.944)
In Florida is different, but I have the experience to work in San Antonio. San Antonio is very difficult to develop. It’s not that easy. I believe that it’s more easy to develop in Dallas, for example. I can jump in the plans approval very quick, like a month.

John Harcar (11:31.734)
Is it? Okay.

John Harcar (11:39.18)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Okay.

John Harcar (11:47.535)
Okay.

ORNELLA JIMENEZ CASERES (11:48.616)
But in San Antonio, can take a year to develop something. basically, yeah. And in Florida, it’s basically the same like in San Antonio. It can take a lot of time to develop something.

John Harcar (11:52.581)
And what… I’m sorry, go ahead.

John Harcar (12:04.196)
Got it. Okay. What does a team look like? Is it just you? you have, I mean, do you have like a full team that’s out there finding property for you?

ORNELLA JIMENEZ CASERES (12:14.308)
Yes, I have full team finding properties for me. And also I have, right now I have a construction company as well. Because I don’t wanna deal anymore with general constructors. I decided to be the general.

John Harcar (12:27.888)
You haven’t had the best experience with contractors

ORNELLA JIMENEZ CASERES (12:33.095)
No, no, no, it was like a whole book I can write a whole Neymar book. So yeah

John Harcar (12:37.68)
Hmm

Wow. So you decide, hey, I’m just going to do my own. OK, so let’s talk about new construction. mean, you’ve done a lot of single home, single family flips, I’m sure. Why is new construction the way that you want to go or maybe where you think the market’s going?

ORNELLA JIMENEZ CASERES (12:56.135)
because first, everything is new from the ground up. You don’t have any surprise. I can control more the numbers, the investment. I mean, in every project, you wanna find something that you never calculate or it’s a surprise, but it’s not like in a flip. You open a wall, they, oh, termites.

John Harcar (13:01.604)
Mm hmm. Right.

John Harcar (13:22.798)
Yeah, I know. Or Woodrot or something. Yeah. Subfloor damage.

ORNELLA JIMENEZ CASERES (13:25.967)
Yes, yes and that is one of the things that I do really like. The second thing is that you have a immediately access to the equity of a property. Everything is equity. So the second thing is the taxes. When you do new construction, you don’t have to pay taxes. So that is something that I love to do because basically all the ROI is going to be like

John Harcar (13:37.509)
Mm-hmm.

ORNELLA JIMENEZ CASERES (13:53.926)
directly for us. yes, so that is, this is like the main things that I like about new construction.

John Harcar (13:56.784)
Right.

John Harcar (14:05.252)
What don’t you like about it?

ORNELLA JIMENEZ CASERES (14:08.408)
Well, it’s a lot of time or effort to put the city to work, you

John Harcar (14:15.534)
Yeah, I’m sure. Because they don’t want to work at, you they’re not in any hurry.

ORNELLA JIMENEZ CASERES (14:20.394)
No, they don’t. But with me they already know like, okay, this…

John Harcar (14:25.304)
Right, you’ve done enough to where…

ORNELLA JIMENEZ CASERES (14:27.206)
Ignore them.

John Harcar (14:31.47)
You know, I you’ve done enough deals to know where they they know you when you when you walk in the door

ORNELLA JIMENEZ CASERES (14:31.486)
And now what? They say like, okay, she’s going to put all the departments to work together because they have a lot of misinformation internally, you know, in the administration most of the time. So I already know how to deal with that and to make it faster. So normally something that it took me in the past one year to get approved.

John Harcar (14:45.104)
Mm-hmm.

ORNELLA JIMENEZ CASERES (14:59.076)
the approval right now I can take like two months so that’s that is something that I like now.

John Harcar (15:07.172)
Yeah, now 100%. What do you see some people that are getting into construction make, know, what mistakes are they making? Like, what do you see with people trying to come in and what aren’t they doing correctly?

ORNELLA JIMENEZ CASERES (15:21.042)
because they don’t, it’s like, they don’t do the, they don’t make the due diligence in the right way. I mean, not every land works for everything. You can buy two acres if you want, but sometimes the zoning say like, okay, you can only build one building there. And if you don’t know that, for example, another thing is the topography, the land, the story of the land. Some people say like, okay,

John Harcar (15:40.719)
Bye.

ORNELLA JIMENEZ CASERES (15:50.557)
It’s a waste of money. Okay, like sometimes you can build something there because it’s going to crack the entire investment. I met an investor that she built a forklift and the hull of the forklift cracked because in the land there was internal water, for example. So that is something that you have to be aware.

John Harcar (16:00.855)
Mm-hmm.

John Harcar (16:15.792)
Mmm.

ORNELLA JIMENEZ CASERES (16:18.845)
Other things the trees I mean surprisingly the trees are something that if you buy in a place and you don’t take that in consideration It’s gonna be a nightmare because you don’t face like things with the city that you don’t want to face the other thing that I believe is in You know, it start to to work very close with the city understand what they want

John Harcar (16:31.034)
Yeah.

John Harcar (16:47.984)
Right.

ORNELLA JIMENEZ CASERES (16:48.272)
you know, start to speak the same language. Because if you don’t know that, it can take you a time, a lot of time to develop that. And you know what that means for investors, you know, we start to lose a bunch of money.

John Harcar (17:02.256)
Exactly, yeah exactly.

ORNELLA JIMENEZ CASERES (17:05.5)
So yes, basically that.

John Harcar (17:07.288)
Okay. what advice or what resources or what tools are like, if someone wants to get into new culture, they’re tired of flipping homes. They want to get into new construction. Like what is the first thing they should do? Like where should they look? What mentors should they talk to? What book should they read? How should they start their journey? They get set up for success.

ORNELLA JIMENEZ CASERES (17:30.237)
So basically, I say like, the basis are the same, know, buy cheap and sell to the price of the market, you know? But for me, the key of this type of investment is first, know how to buy the land. For example, something that I like to buy is like something where I can multiply my investment.

I always search for a specific zoning where I can develop or two plasters or four plasters or commercial units. That is one thing. So you have to find the way to understand what is everything about the land game. There’s a bunch of money there. The second thing I will say, create a very solid theme. That is the key.

John Harcar (18:21.391)
Right.

ORNELLA JIMENEZ CASERES (18:29.052)
of the success in this area. And they don’t know how to work with quality in time, you know, that be ethical people. So for me, that is like the main key of new construction.

John Harcar (18:46.234)
Okay, perfect.

What are your keys to success? If you had to look back at your time, your career, you know, the journey you just described, what are your keys to success?

ORNELLA JIMENEZ CASERES (19:00.348)
So basically don’t pay attention to your toes or what other people say about you, you know? When I start this, everybody was like, my gosh, you never build houses. What, she’s talking about it. But I always say like, no, you know what? I’m gonna do new houses. It was like a, it sounds like a joke because I didn’t start my process with a lot of money, you know?

I start to work with other people’s money. That’s why. And right now is believe in yourself. You know, it’s like, it’s like a cliche, but it’s what it is. You know, like you have to believe in yourself. Basically that is, and be very determined and don’t hear, you know, I never knew that I have so many enemies until I start to create my, my, my.

John Harcar (19:41.456)
Yeah

John Harcar (19:55.542)
Yup. Haters are everywhere.

ORNELLA JIMENEZ CASERES (19:57.963)
Yes, so basically that just have a lot of faith. For me it’s important I believe in God, so I say like, God, yes, God, if you decide that this is for me, make the way. Yes, a lot of determination that’s all about it.

John Harcar (20:07.118)
Amen.

John Harcar (20:13.808)
I love it.

John Harcar (20:19.534)
I love it. If folks are listening to this and they want to, they may be in San Antonio or maybe in the area, or they just want to call you and reach out. How, how’s the best way to get in touch with you? Like what, what’s the best way we can reach out?

ORNELLA JIMENEZ CASERES (20:31.749)
So I have a cell phone. So it’s 210-843-7003. And also I have my website too. My company have a website that is www.bonaconstructionllc.com. And yeah, that’s the way to find me.

John Harcar (20:54.832)
Perfect. And I’ll put all that in the show notes. So everybody, you guys all have the ability to click on that link. Thank you very much, Ornella, for coming out. I appreciate you sharing all that stuff with us. You know, guys, I hope you enjoyed the show and took some good notes. And I had a good time. So I thank you again, Ornella, and we’ll see you guys in the next one. Cheers.

ORNELLA JIMENEZ CASERES (21:16.346)
Thank you, John. Thank you.