Unlocking Potential: Briana Nasman’s Journey in Real Estate Renovation

Erika (00:00.834)
Hey everyone, welcome to the Real Estate Pros show. I’m your host, Erika. And today I am thrilled to be joining with Briana Nasman, the powerhouse behind Kitchen and Bath Collective. It’s so exciting to have you here.

Briana (00:07.068)
I hope you enjoyed it.

Briana (00:15.76)
Thanks for having me on.

Erika (00:18.082)
I know our listeners are gonna love hearing about your vision and all the things that you’re doing in the design space. I checked out your website and wow, you guys are making amazing spaces.

Briana (00:30.824)
Thank you.

Erika (00:33.176)
So for our listeners who aren’t that familiar with you yet, can you give us a rundown? What’s your main focus these days?

Briana (00:35.848)
Really.

Briana (00:41.512)
These days I have my kitchen and bath collective, renovation design company. We focus on pretty major structural remodels, especially involving kitchens. And I’m working on a seven unit subdivision as well.

Erika (00:56.194)
Wow, very cool. Can you also share with us how you got started in renovation in real estate?

Briana (01:03.038)
Yeah, it’s kind of a long story, so bear with me. But I got my real estate license when I was 19. And I fell in love with real estate, ended up dropping out of college. And I got my first deal with a clean and sober house or a halfway house. And that was, I think I bought that one, was 21. That was a really crazy time. It turned out there was a cloud on the title and we had to agree to fix it up to code by a certain date. And I had

absolutely no clue what I was doing at all. And it was just the biggest mess completely. I hired like mess contractors and it was a nightmare. I bought a house hack condo and that’s how I taught myself like DIY work. And then I had a baby. I bought a wedding venue. The pandemic happened. I managed to make it through that, sold the venue, bought a couple lots in a luxury subdivision called Suncadia, built those houses to spec one.

One was was supposed to move into it, but I got divorced, so we didn’t do that. And then I sold the first one and bought a renovation company, and that ended up being another disaster. Within about a week of buying it, I realized it was a sham. Basically, the whole thing was fraudulent. So I sued him. That was about a year ago that I finally won in arbitration after a two-year battle.

I got $2.9 million awarded to me, which was a lot more than I paid for the company. And I’m still trying to collect that.

Erika (02:35.138)
Wow. Yeah, challenges like that, it takes some serious grit. What’s been a key to pushing through and having momentum with the ups and downs?

Briana (02:36.732)
Yeah, bit of a crazy story.

Briana (02:44.478)
Thank

my gosh, it’s been brutal. tell you like the lowest of lows for sure in the last few years. I think the key is really just like maintaining that optimism. That in some ways toxic optimism or positivity that I will make it through and I can handle this. sometimes I think I look back and I’m like, man, I was a little bit delusional thinking like how much I believed in myself that I could figure it out when I

I mean, it was really that bad, but it kept me going.

Erika (03:23.822)
So let’s talk about some more of those challenges and how you’ve overcome. I know you’ve had, you’ve tackled some pretty big crazy projects with your clients. Do you have an experience to share?

Briana (03:27.358)
Thank

Briana (03:38.622)
Um, big projects. Let’s haven’t in the kitchen and haven’t had anything go w had some pretty big ones. that we’re really excited a big remodel where the hou the vaulted ceiling. i and we’re moving the kitch

and also doing some structural work. So there’s a lot going on because there’s the vaulted ceilings and then there’s some trusses. There’s a lot of structural beams, like the most important beam in the house is going to be moved. So that’s kind of a crazy one that I’m really looking forward to. And it’s going to be absolutely amazing. The kitchen is going to be just to die for by the end of it.

Erika (04:26.67)
Awesome. I love it. And I read that you are an investor yourself. What kind of advice would you give to an investor that is looking to renovate?

Briana (04:40.2)
Well, first of all, figure out what you’re trying to do. I’ve definitely talked to a good amount of investors or newer investors who are, found a property that’s a great property and they don’t know if they want to burry it or if they want to flip it or what they want to do with it. And I think, you know, it’s, if you can find a property that could have multiple really positive outcomes, like this property on my now that I have the subdivision going on, that’s.

Perfect. If you’re not, if you just find a property and you think, it’s a good deal, I’m going to buy it, make sure you look at the ARV first or make sure you know like what your plan is with the property because it’s really easy to underestimate a renovation budget or overestimate the market value or overestimate like the rental value of the property. And I just think you really need like a plan before you actually jump in and buy a property.

Erika (05:30.04)
Got it, got it. And also when it comes to renovating, what really excites you? Like what is your passion within renovation?

Briana (05:39.272)
That’s a great question. just love, and this goes along with business as well as renovation, but I just love seeing the potential in a property or a business and knowing we can make it so much better and just having that idea in my head of what it’s going to become and then seeing that come to life is just really, really cool.

Erika (06:01.078)
Now going back to the investor side of things, has there ever been a time with a deal that you’ve quickly had to pivot? Do you have some lessons in there to share with our listeners?

Briana (06:08.99)
So.

Briana (06:15.314)
Yeah, I’d say my wedding venue was a really big one. That I bought it in December 2019. So three months in, pandemic started happening. And it was, we’re up in Washington. It was one of the most shut down states overall. So that was a really, really tough one. Cause my plan with it was to remodel it. And I started booking weddings with the vision of like, here’s the remodeled idea. You know, what’s going to be when your wedding comes along.

And then I had really quickly to deal with the shutdowns and micro weddings and everyone in their deposits back and still having to pay to operate and try to book the venue when no one knew what was gonna happen or when weddings were gonna be allowed again. And that was really stressful. So I did pivot and went pretty hard into micro weddings and like Airbnb type rentals, kind of like a luxury.

Airbnb rentals, the property had a pool, was really cool. And we were able to limp along until things opened back up with that. But man, that was a tough time for sure.

Erika (07:26.222)
I also heard that you’re active in multiple groups and masterminds, which is huge in this industry. What’s been the biggest game changer for you when it comes to building relationships and growing your network?

Briana (07:40.158)
Oh, well, that’s a pretty easy one. I used to have the worst social anxiety, so I would literally like try to go to a meetup and I would drive there, spend, you know, 45 minutes in traffic, get there. If I couldn’t immediately find a parking spot that was like really convenient, I’d just leave. So I would just leave and I would always battle with myself the whole way there. Like, no, you’re going to go in, you’re going to talk to someone, you’re going to go in and…

I really wasn’t getting anything out of it because when I did go, I was just kind of sitting in the corner and like ignoring everyone and probably like came across as not very friendly. So at some point, I think it was around the time I was getting divorced. I was like, I can’t just live my life like this. I need to just, I need to start talking to people. And I started talking to people and I started sharing the things I’d done and just like introducing myself. And what do you know? Most people are pretty friendly if you’re friendly to them. So just talk.

Erika (08:31.278)
What’s that one connection through that that you would say that opened doors for you?

Briana (08:33.451)
Yeah.

Briana (08:41.65)
Hmm. You know, I think one of my earliest connections was someone who he was really, really awesome dude and just was doing a lot of stuff. And we just got to talking a little bit. And he really just helped me kind of open my eyes to like all the things I was missing out on by not being very social and not being connected with my community. And so that probably probably him. That was that was pretty good.

Erika (09:10.254)
Awesome. What’s next on the horizon for you?

Briana (09:14.43)
Well, I have a subdivision, so working on that, it’s been a pretty long process. It’s going to be seven units, two and a half acres. So we’re almost to the point where we have pre-approval. We’re just kind of waiting on a couple of I’s to be dotted and T’s to be crossed. Once we have pre-approval, we’ll be working on the horizontal. So groundwork, utilities, sort of the boring stuff. And then my hope is to build the houses to spec and see, you know, if I can sell like.

nicer spec homes. don’t want to do like the track house style. I want like a cottage type project if that makes sense. like front porches, community space, connected neighborhood, that sort of thing. That’s the goal with that. So yeah, we’ll see what the market does though, because it’s still going to be a while until we’re actually building.

Erika (10:01.57)
That’s super exciting. I love your vision for that. Now, when it comes to building a home, how do you separate what you personally love with what works in the market?

Briana (10:05.16)
Thanks.

Briana (10:11.582)
What you should do.

Briana (10:16.605)
That’s a great question. That is a really good question. I try to find a balance between what I am noticing in trends in terms of like the things that are not yet trending, but starting to show up. I think a great example of that was the Sankadia houses I built a few years ago. I took a bit of a risk and went with dark green cabinetry. And what do know, like the year after I sold it, everyone wanted green cabinets.

So that was a little bit on the edge at the time. No one else was really doing green cabinets and certainly no other builders in San Katie were doing green cabinets. But I took a little bit of a risk with my personal style and seeing a little bit of that trend coming in and went with it and it worked out really well.

Erika (10:59.256)
That’s awesome. So for our investors that are listening to this channel, what advice would you give them when they’re looking for a contractor to work with?

Briana (11:09.566)
Okay, well that’s a lot. One, you want to talk to a few contractors for sure. Two, one of the most important things that you can find out about a contractor is not necessarily their experience. There’s obviously the obvious things like making sure their license bonded and shirt, but how are they managing their business? So you’re going to want to ask them to see a contract. You’re going to want to ask them what their billing schedule is. A lot of contractors are just like,

we bill, you know, 10 % whenever we feel like it or whatever. And that gets you in a really uncomfortable position where if they’re not managing their cash flow well, you could be way overpaid for the work that’s done. I’ve seen that a lot of times, even with with contractors that initially appear to be very professional, then there’s random change orders and you don’t know where you stand on billing and

you end up paying a lot more than you thought you were going to pay. And you don’t even realize it unless you really look at the numbers and you’re really tracking them really closely. So the cash management of how they’re running their business is really important. Another thing that could be valuable to know is are they using subs? Do they have employees? How is that going? Because not that using stuff is bad. It’s just sometimes there might be a little bit higher quality of work if you have employees that are.

you know employed by the contractor and they’re going to be there at every single job all the time you know you get to know them and stuff.

Erika (12:33.774)
Got it, got it. So does that mean with Kitchen Bath and Collective that you have all employees that know self contractors?

Briana (12:43.806)
We do have subcontractors for certain things like plumbing, electrical, countertop installation, sometimes tile, and sometimes drywall. But for the most part, my employees do like 75 % of the work.

Erika (12:56.024)
That’s awesome and I’m sure those subcontractors you went through like a you know a thorough vetting process. How did you decide to do that?

Briana (13:04.252)
Yeah, I mean, we reached out to a bunch, you whenever we need a new contractor, it’s like 99 % of the time we use the same subs that we use every job. So I have a great relationship with them and I know their work and I know who they are. And when we are looking to fill a need, we’re going to talk to them. We’re going to, you know, check out their web presence, look at their reviews, kind of the same stuff, you know,

anyone should do. And then hopefully meet them up at a job site and see their work.

Erika (13:36.468)
Awesome, thanks for sharing. Brianna, before we let you go, if someone listening wants to connect with you, learn more about Kitchen Bath Collective, or maybe collaborate, what’s the best way for them to reach out?

Briana (13:43.07)
you

Briana (13:49.11)
Probably email or Instagram works. can search the company and that’ll pop up or we have contact info all over the webpage.

Erika (13:57.396)
Awesome. Brianna, thanks so much for sharing your story, your insights, and all that energy you have. It’s amazing. For everyone tuning in, if you love this episode, make sure that you’re subscribed to the Real Estate Pro Show. We’ve got more conversations coming up with trail hoosiers like Brianna. We’ll see you on the next episode.

Briana (14:04.19)
Thanks.

Briana (14:14.3)
Bye.